Irish Examiner view: Permanent change is needed now
We have 11 months of 2023 to go. We are already heading towards replicating the number of women dead in violent circumstances that we saw in 2022.
Thirty-one days into 2023 and the issue of violence against women is becoming ever more stark.
Ahead of a visit to this country by Grevio — the Council of Europe’s (Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence) expert group on violence against women — we find ourselves in a situation where one woman per week has died in violent circumstances in Ireland so far this year and Ireland’s six sexual assault treatment units saw over 1,000 people in 2022, the first time this milestone has been hit.
Ireland ratified the Istanbul Convention on violence against women in 2019 and Grevio’s visit this spring is aimed at examining this country’s implementation of it.
But, with violence against women in Ireland now at crisis levels, it could not come at a more appropriate time.
The Irish Observatory on Violence against Women submitted a shadow report to Grevio last August which included 102 recommendations for developing key articles of the Istanbul Convention, highlighting a lack of data on domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence, legal difficulties encountered by survivors of domestic violence, and the increasing need for refuge beds.
With 12 women dying in violent circumstances in 2022 — the highest number in a decade — and four already this year, there is an imperative here.
While the Government’s stated zero-tolerance policy on violence against women is laudable, action is needed to underscore those aims.
The National Women’s Council has rightly insisted that a statutory domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence agency should be established to implement and monitor Government policy, and that minorities such as Traveller woman, LGBTQ+ people, and migrant women are embraced when it comes to accessing services.
We have 11 months of 2023 to go. We are already heading towards replicating the number of women dead in violent circumstances that we saw in 2022. National outpourings of grief don’t work: We need permanent change so women feel safe.
