'The epidemic has met the pandemic' - Domestic abuse support group warns of 'untold trauma' in lockdown
The domestic abuse epidemic has met the coronavirus pandemic, with "horrendous" outcomes for women and children which is causing "untold trauma", the Co-CEO of Safe Ireland, the national domestic abuse hub, has said.
Many domestic abuse helplines "went silent” when Covid-19 restrictions were first introduced as women and children, trapped in abusive homes, were no longer able to "reach out", Sharon O'Halloran said.
And children, who are at "the frontline" have particularly disappeared as women are potentially tolerating abuse to keep them at home during the pandemic.
"Domestic violence is child abuse. They’re not just witnesses. It is ruining their lives," Ms O'Halloran told the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE.
Although domestic abuse services have now become busier again, the demographics seeking help have changed and there has been an increase in the severity of reported abuse.
"What we’re hearing from services is that women who are coming forward are more traumatised than before," Ms O'Halloran said.
Serious reports of physical assault and rape have increased over the lockdown.
While there has been a decrease in women with children looking for help, there was an increase in cases involving women without children and an increase in abuse of older women by their adult sons.
"We have quite a high level of elder abuse, sometimes it's a lifetime of abuse from partners, or sometimes it’s the sons," Ms O'Halloran said.
"It really breaks my heart when you see a 70-year-old woman come into a refuge because you know she has been through a lifetime of it."
Safe Ireland expect a new surge of calls as Covid-19 public health restrictions lift at a time when domestic abuse services desperately need more support.
Safe Ireland is hoping to see a real focus on tackling domestic abuse in the next Programme for Government, such as establishing a Minister with responsibility for domestic abuse and gender-based violence.
Any such Minister would, according to Safe Ireland, ideally operate within a re-configured government Department, like a Community, Equality & Gender Based Violence department to spearhead a whole-of-government response. Alternatively, a dedicated Minister for Gender Based Violence could be appointed within the Department of Justice to lead the change.
"This must be a time for us to say no more," Ms O'Halloran said. "Our ambition is to rear a generation without this violence."
Mary McDermott, Co-CEO of Safe Ireland, warned that the “new normal” of working from home could create prisons for women and children living with abusers, raising serious issues for the risk and invisibility of domestic violence.
“What we now regard as ‘the private' may be radically changed with technology likely to reconfigure our lives utterly,” McDermott said.
“We have to seriously consider if the future will make an absolute prison of these combined spaces for many women and children?
"We have to be prepared to respond to this new normal.”
In December, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar visited a refuge and spoke "about the epidemic of domestic violence in this country," Ms O'Halloran said.
Ms O'Halloran said: "The epidemic has met the pandemic, and it’s horrendous.
"And it’s set to get worse unless we say ... that we want something different for our women and children."
