Sarah Harte: Should there be signs in men's bathrooms asking: 'Are you a sexual predator?'

We must educate boys and men on how to interact healthily with girls and women and must spotlight harmful attitudes

Justice Minister Helen McEntee spoke this month about doubling the number of domestic violence refuges across this country. This is vital work because we need them. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/Photocallireland

We live on a small island which is why the fact four women were killed in the North over six weeks should concern us. Mary Ward was found dead at her home on October 1 with neck wounds and a man has appeared in court charged with her murder.

North and south of the border, domestic abuse, violence and sexual violence against women are at an all-time high. Justice Minister Helen McEntee spoke this month about doubling the number of domestic violence refuges across this country. This is vital work because we need them. It is high time we had a national conversation about why we need them and what we can do to prevent the deep societal misogyny from which it springs.

Mary Ward, 22, who was found dead by police officers at her home on Melrose St, Belfast, on October 1. She was one of four women killed in the North over six weeks. Picture: PSNI/PA

Here are some chilling facts for you. Since January 2020, 58 women have been killed on this island as a result of domestic violence mostly in their homes, which is known as femicide. One-off psychopaths do not kill women, they do not spring from a vacuum. The idea that there is the odd lone monster who murders a woman is a comforting fallacy — as is the idea that foreign-born strangers mainly perpetrate violence against women.

There is a report of domestic abuse every 16 minutes in the North. Here, An Garda Síochána receives a report of domestic abuse on average every 10 minutes. Garda figures show that last year 54,000 complaints of domestic abuse were reported to them which represents an 8% increase from 2022.

Last week, a senior lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast linked domestic violence in the North to the Troubles. In a society which has experienced conflict, there is what Katrina McLaughlin described as “heightened domestic and family violence against women and children”.

New figures suggest that domestic violence rates have skyrocketed in Ukraine by 80% since the same period in 2023 and this is linked to the war. However, the domestic violence rate was high in Ukraine before the war began. So, what we are seeing is that while women and girls pay a heavier price during wartime, they also pay a heavy price in peacetime for having an extra X chromosome.

Living in a conflict or post-conflict zone does not explain what is happening in Ireland. Everyone who works in the field knows there is a tsunami of domestic violence in this country and that it affects all social strata. 

Look around you in the cafe where you have your coffee or as you stand at the school gates waiting for your children and there will be a woman who is being abused. 

Often, they will outwardly look like they are functioning but at home, behind that picket fence, it is a different story.

There has been a sea-change in how An Garda Síochána views and responds to domestic abuse and coercive control. They now take it seriously and have improved their policing response. But without other fundamental changes, we will not reduce the prevalence of domestic abuse and gender-based violence in our society.

As things stand under the Istanbul Convention to which Ireland is a signatory, we are required to protect women and build domestic violence refuges, which we are doing. We are also required to prosecute domestic abuse crimes, institute co-ordinated policies to combat domestic violence and prevent domestic violence. We are doing too little to prevent domestic violence or to institute co-ordinated policies; most of the public money is going into protection, meaning the building of refuges.

Two actions

I work with an organisation called Haven Horizons which is dedicated to the prevention and elimination of domestic violence. Logically, however, if the Government wants to fulfil its obligations under the Istanbul Convention and, more importantly, strike at the roots of this pervasive problem it must do two things.

Firstly, fund domestic, sexual, and gender-based abuse prevention initiatives both in schools and in terms of public education as a matter of extreme urgency.

Secondly, it must institute co-ordinated policies that strike at the roots of this problem in several different ways at the same time.

We have been socialised to accept the abuse of women. There isn’t one single cause of violence against women, but one major problem is that it is seen as a woman’s issue when it is intrinsically a man’s issue. Unless we change that mindset, nothing will change.

We need to get young men to engage with the topic of violence against girls and women when they are in their early teens and still forming ideas. This means educating boys and men on how to interact healthily with girls and women and spotlighting harmful attitudes.

We have been socialised to accept the abuse of women. One major problem is that it is seen as a woman’s issue when it is intrinsically a man’s issue. 

Let’s take one example. In a Dublin pub recently, signs on the back of the ladies’ loos warning women not to leave their drinks unattended because of the danger of drinks being spiked hit me. We accept that some of the men that we socialise with in a social setting will leave their homes that night with a plan to spike a woman’s drink. So, we warn our daughters not to let their drink down.

But how many of us have sat down with our sons and discussed the spiking of drinks with them, and dissected what the practice says about attitudes to women and sexual violence and misogyny? 

Should there be a sign on the doors of the men’s bathrooms saying, are you a sexual predator, is your friend a sexual predator, do you have plans to spike a woman’s drink tonight, are you going to report somebody for spiking a drink, be part of the solution to violence against women.

How many of us have comprehensively discussed with our sons what they are seeing on their phones? Sexual violence and domestic abuse are not new phenomena. But online porn is having a huge effect. Porn is acting as a form of sexual education.

Research shows that mainstream porn frequently shows violence against women such as strangulation and degradation as standard, fuelling gender-based violence.

The figures speak for themselves. In Ireland, the number of children and teens being referred for committing sexual offences has almost doubled over the past decade. Recent figures in the UK have shown an alarming rise in sexual assaults on children by other children and this is being linked to a toxic online culture.

As part of our co-ordinated policies, do we hold tech companies and porn companies to account, or do we just accept it as the new normal that violence against women will continue to escalate while they profit?

It is depressing at times working in the field because the statistics indicate that we are going backwards, not progressing. By the end of this year, more of our daughters, sisters, and friends will have been murdered and thousands and thousands of women will have been abused.

Business as usual then unless our response to these major human rights issues radically changes. Women cannot solve this problem on their own. We need a buy-in from men, the time is now.