Report calls for reform of the way addicts are treated when they are victims of domestic violence
The report, ‘They said they couldn’t take me because I was on drugs’, was undertaken by researchers attached to the UCD School of Social Policy in conjunction with the Saol domestic violence project. Picture: iStock
The human rights of addicts who are victims of domestic violence are being denied when they seek support and refuge, according to a new study which calls for an audit of judicial responses to domestic violence complaints.
The study, named ‘They said they couldn’t take me because I was on drugs’, has been undertaken by researchers attached to the UCD School of Social Policy in conjunction with the Saol domestic violence project.
Among its recommendations is a call for an audit to be carried out of judicial responses to domestic violence complaints, “given that women in addiction reported a significant sense of injustice when it comes to prosecuting their perpetrators of domestic violence”.
The reports wants the domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence agency, Cuan, to push for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to complete an audit of their responses to domestic violence prosecutions relating to the complaints by women in addiction.
The report said: “This type of audit would enable the statutory body to reflect on whether they are consistently and indiscriminately meeting their human rights obligations to prosecute perpetrators of domestic abuse.”
The researchers heard from women in addiction and staff of the Saol project of experiences of “human rights being denied or contravened when attempts were made to access assistance during and after periods of domestic violence”.
The report concluded that women in addiction “are not consistently treated the same as other females when they seek domestic violence support and refuge”. It added:
“The findings indicate that although there is contravention, service providers and professionals do not purposefully negate human rights for women in addiction experiencing domestic violence.”
It continued: “Study participants repeatedly affirmed that they observed professionals as trying to help but ultimately being unable to do so because they lacked the knowledge and understanding of the complexities associated with their lived experience of domestic violence as a person who engages in substance use or because the services they required did not exist.
The report added that the finding shows that the State is failing “this particular group of vulnerable Irish women”.
It also stated that there is “a systemic statutory failure to recognise the need for dual education about domestic violence and addiction in service provision across a range of services and settings and the absence of targeted domestic violence support and refuge services for women in addiction”.
The report also recommends that Cuan should liaise with regulatory bodies including the Garda Síochána Ombudsman, the Medical Council, and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland “to stress the need for professional regulators in Ireland to emphasise the human rights obligations to women in addiction who experience domestic violence”.
• You will find a summary of the report here, in the Health Research Board national drugs library, which also provides a link to the full report in PDF format.
