Shocking stories of domestic violence, but sadly not surprising

The Irish court system is riven with prejudices that makes it almost impossible for victims of domestic violence to see justice done, writes Safe Ireland CEO Sharon O’Halloran

THE Lawlessness of the Home report launched earlier this week by Safe Ireland is one of the most important pieces of research we, as the national organisation responding to domestic violence, has undertaken.

It documents the lived consequences of the failures of our legal system — the impact of inconsistencies and the lack of clarity, transparency, discretion, and stereotyping on the lives of women and children so reliant on a system to work for them.

At the heart of this research are the anonymous narratives of women who have bravely talked in one-to-one interviews about their engagement with the legal system.

They range in age from 32 to 72. They live in urban and rural areas. Some of the women were born here. Some were not.

Some of the women have children. Others do not. Some are married and some are not.

Their stories are often shocking. They are often remarkable. And yet they are not unusual and they are not a surprise.

This research evolved out of our trauma intervention programme with women more than two years ago.

We were working directly with women to support them to recover from trauma and they kept telling us “that they never had their day in court”.

They were in and out of court all the time to get orders or renew orders, for maintenance, child custody and access, separation, and divorce. What could they mean they never got their day in court?

At first this didn’t seem to make sense to us.

What we were to discover, however, was that these women were not being heard in these courts, during these proceedings.

They were not being taken seriously in the system, the crimes committed against them were not being fully investigated, and they were not getting the full protection of the law.

As Rita, one of the brave women featured in our research, summed up: “You don’t get to be heard in the court. This is a funny thing. All you hear all along is you will get your day in court. No, you don’t, you get five minutes to be abused further. It’s nothing else.”

Our research found many other serious themes, common to the experiences of almost all women.

We heard how inconsistencies and the lack of continuity in applying the law led to unjust treatment of women and a failure to adequately protect them and their children by holding perpetrators accountable.

We found that high-risk predictive behaviours were often missed. Threats to kill or coerced sex, for example, were not always heard, taken seriously, or even included in evidence.

We discovered that stereotypes in domestic violence often influenced remedies.

Stereotypes could be based on gender, ethnicity, perceived class, or level of education, whether someone is a criminal, on the type of abuse and violence and whether it is defended.

A domestic violence support worker providing court accompaniment said that, in her experience, a woman who has lived with violence has to be: “White, compliant, not too angry. You know somebody who seems kind of beaten down and passive. You go in there advocating for yourself as a strong woman … that’s one thing you don’t do.”

What we found was that women were being worn down by the system rather than being supported by it.

They lost faith and confidence and, in many cases, the violence they experienced actually escalated because of the system’s delays and failures.

These are serious allegations. They are not made lightly. They are only made because we want to ensure that change happens.

On behalf of Rita and the thousands of women who look for accommodation and support from our services every year, the findings of this report must be a catalyst to reform how our legal system deals with domestic violence.

And we know change can happen. There are champions for reform in every Irish institution that meets women and children: In An Garda Síochána, in the legal professions, social work, and the courts. We have stated very clearly in this report that there are “pockets of good practice” around Ireland. We want this good practice to be the norm, to be what women can expect when they seek legal support and remedy.

Our full research document makes 34 recommendations under eight themes.

In order to transform our legal and statutory response to women and children, lawmakers, policy makers, and legal professionals have to take on these recommendations in their totality.

However, in the immediate term, four recommendations would start to make an immediate difference to women and children. We need to:

• Establish a civil and criminal law definition of domestic violence that includes coercive control;
• Introduce risk assessment systems so that risks of violent behaviour are recognised, including review structures for intimate partner homicides;
• Introduce restrictions on reporting victims identity in related criminal proceedings where the victim needs to remain anonymous;
• Remove the existing fee for legal aid for victims of domestic violence.

THE vice-president of the US, Joe Biden, last week said domestic violence was a public health epidemic that required urgent attention.

Last week, the Scottish first minister announced a further investment of £20m (€27.7m) to address violence against women in Scotland in the next three years.

This issue is getting attention and it needs attention all over the world right now, including Ireland.

The legal system is one of the best-resourced responses to domestic violence we have in this country. It is also the one most often relied upon by women who want to be able to live without violence, control, and abuse.

But the legal system is just one part of the comprehensive response we need for women. Safe Ireland’s mission is to achieve a total transformation of the response to domestic violence so that our country — at all levels — can be a safe place for women and children.

To achieve this we need, above all, a radical cultural overhaul in how we all think, and respond to domestic violence so women can be confident that they will be heard and that they will be taken seriously — by the legal system, by the political system and by civil society.

READ MORE: Two brave women recount life under the shadow of domestic violence