Rape Crisis Centre launches translators' handbook

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre today launched a handbook for translators who accompany sexual assault victims to their clinics.

The DRCC said 11% of people who use its services are immigrants who speak little English.

The new handbook is currently available from the DRCC and will also be launched on its website on June 1.

A training programme and an information leaflet in six languages was also unveiled today.

The Government’s Department of Integration helped fund the project.

The DRCC said 11% of the victims taken to the Rotunda Hospital’s Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in 2007 were immigrants.

DRCC chief executive Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop said: “Language can present an obvious barrier to access. Professional, accurate and sensitive interpreting is imperative and this has been the main driving force in developing this handbook.”

In 2007, 36 of the 320 victims of rape and sexual assault, accompanied to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin by the DRCC, were from over 11 different countries.

According to the CSO statistics 109,500 immigrants arrived in the state in the year ending April 2007 – over 2,000 more than during the same period in the previous year.

“Many of these individuals will require an interpreter when they need to access support and health services,” said Ms O’Malley-Dunlop.