Women and children trapped between domestic violence and  homelessness, report finds

The National Women’s Council warned many survivors are left with no long-term housing options.

Women and children are trapped between the housing crisis and “shocking levels of domestic abuse, sexual violence, exploitation and control against women in Ireland,” according to a new report.

The Joining the Dots report, published today by the National Women’s Council (NWC), found that there are situations where “women must make the choice to stay with an abuser or leave and navigate homelessness”.

“Where women — often with children — choose to leave, they encounter a system with severely limited availability due to high demand, capable of meeting only immediate short-term emergency accommodation needs. Once that immediate crisis period is over, many survivors are left with no long-term housing options.” 

It pointed out that “not every county has safe houses and refuge provision is uneven”.

The Irish Examiner reported in September that efforts to develop a refuge in West Cork were being hampered by the delay in finding a suitable site or building in the area.

The Joining the Dots report said that the issues of homelessness and sexual, domestic, and gender-based violence are not “separate crises”.

It said: “Housing insecurity makes women more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. For many women, domestic abuse is the direct cause of their homelessness. For Traveller and Roma women, migrant women, disabled women, lone parents, older women, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) community, the situation is often more complex and the barriers to accessing safety even higher.” 

While women made up 40% of the homeless figure in July, the report warns that the actual figures relating to women could be much higher because official statistics do not take into account “the number of individuals rough sleeping, nor those staying in women’s refuges, or indeed within the direct provision system, nor do they include those living in institutions or indeed those who are ‘sofa surfing’ with friends and family or indeed ‘doubling up’ in halting sites".

It also highlighted that students are being targeted in sex for rent offers, and noted that many women in direct provision “are survivors of trafficking for sexual exploitation”, making them especially vulnerable even after they are granted status in Ireland because of the unavailability of housing.

There are currently only eight dedicated spaces for female victims of trafficking in Ireland.

NWC conference

The Joining the Dots report follows a conference held in September by the NWC, which examined the link between the housing crisis and domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

Ivanna Youtchak, Violence Against Women Coordinator at the NWC said: “It is imperative that policies are shaped with and by survivors so that services meet their real needs. Survivors often deal with several services: housing, gardaí, health, and child services, and social protection — yet these systems rarely talk to each other, putting more weight on survivors' shoulders. 

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"We need an integrated approach, where these services communicate and cooperate with one another. This would minimise the traumatic impact on survivors and ensure that women and children don’t fall through the cracks or end up trapped in an abusive situation because they have nowhere to go.

“Our report also outlines the way diverse groups of women experience housing precarity differently and may be more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. One example explained at the conference is how the shortage of accessible and affordable student accommodation can push migrant and female international students into overcrowded and unsafe situations—in some instances, entering sex for rent arrangements.”