Amnesty attacks Govt's domestic violence record

The Government is not doing enough to fight violence against women, a leading human rights group claimed today.

The Government is not doing enough to fight violence against women, a leading human rights group claimed today.

Amnesty International called on the authorities to do more to identify, combat and redress grave and systematic human rights abuse as it launched "Justice and Accountability: Stop Violence Against Women".

“What Amnesty highlights in this report is the pervasive and avoidable state failure to protect women from serious violations of their human rights,” said Sean Love, Director of Amnesty’s Irish section.

Research has claimed one in four women in Ireland experience sexual abuse in their lifetime, and at least one in five have been in an intimate relationship with a man and experienced systematic violence from a partner.

Yet, Amnesty said despite ever increasing calls to helplines, the vast majority of women do not report this violence to the justice system and numbers doing so are dropping.

“While stigma and shame are still unfortunately an issue, low reporting is also due to women’s lack of confidence in the justice system,” Mr Love said.

Most reports of violence against women do not result in a conviction.

Mr Love said there is little monitoring of the effectiveness of measures in preventing, identifying, investigating and punishing this violence.

Clear channels of accountability have not been created for Government or its agents, he said.

Mr Love said the result of persistent underfunding of frontline support services is that victims are not able to access support they need – 5,994 calls to the Women’s Aid helpline went unanswered in 2003 - and women wait months for counselling from Rape Crisis Centres.

Refuges have had to turn women and children away and some counties have no refuges at all.

Amnesty said Ireland is a destination and transit country for trafficking of women and children, often for sexual exploitation, but Irish legislation criminalises trafficking while offering little protection to victims.

“Under human rights law, when the state authorities know or ought to know about likely or actual violations of human rights and fail to take appropriate steps to prevent, punish or redress the violation, the state bears responsibility for the violation,” Mr Love said.

Amongst Amnesty’s extensive recommendations to Government are the establishment of an independent statutory body to monitor, evaluate and progress violence against women measures.

It also calls on the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to fulfil its duty to monitor activity within other responsible departments and agencies and compile comprehensive annual progress reports.

In July, Ireland’s latest periodic report on its realisation of women’s human rights will be reviewed by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Amnesty has asked the committee to look at the state’s compliance with violence against women standards and awaits their concluding observations in the hope that the international spotlight will prompt the Government into action.

“Violence against women is one of the most serious forms of violent crime in Irish society. And the truth is that the place where women are most vulnerable is in the home. We are calling on the Government to show the same level of determination to combat and eliminate this human rights scandal,” said Mr Love.

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