Irish society must stop tolerating all forms of sexual abuse and harassment, committee told

Noeline Blackwell also said that casual sexual harassment is still an issue in the workplace.

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre says Irish society is tolerating sexual abuse against women.

It will tell the Oireachtas gender equality committee today that 80% of victims who contact the centre are women.

Women's Aid will say women disproportionately experience severe harassment online with 'catastrophic consequences'.

Noeline Blackwell, the chief executive of Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, says Ireland needs to change.

"We need to, as a society, absolutely stop tolerating all forms of sexual abuse and harassment - all of it," said Ms Blackwell.

"We tolerate far too much of it. We see this when somebody shares an intimate image without permission, where somebody gets an intimate image of someone else and then passes it on and somebody sniggers over it in a WhatsApp group or passes it on to somebody else."

Image-based abuse by partners and strangers is perpetrated in an effort to humiliate women.

Ms Blackwell also said that casual sexual harassment is still an issue in the workplace.

As a society, those who are subjected to abuse and speak out about it are seen as troublemakers.

"Somebody says that they have been subjected to sexual abuse of some sort and we start asking the person, 'what did they do to provoke it?'

"These are all ways in which we, as a society, have for far too long said 'you are simply disrupting our nice, quiet lives when you talk about it'.

"The people who do this can't be let away with it because 'it's too much trouble'."