When home is where the hurt is

Margaret Martin, Director of Women's Aid, highlights the types of domestic violence that exist in our society.

Have you ever felt fear? Real fear. Have you ever been afraid of someone who is close to you? Afraid of someone who shares your home, your bed, your life? This is the real-life nightmare for countless women in Ireland who are experiencing domestic violence.

One in five women in Ireland experience domestic violence from an intimate partner. There have been 129 women murdered in Ireland since 1996, 64% were murdered in their own home and just under 50% by a partner or ex-partner. This is the reality of domestic violence in Ireland today.

Domestic violence can be physical, which is the most common connotations of the issue within society. Emotional, financial or sexual domestic violence are just as common and can be just as terrifying as physical abuse. They are harder to see and may be more difficult for women to name.

Many women are subjected to multiple forms of abuse at the same time. More than 15,000 calls were responded to by the Women's Aid National Freephone Helpline in 2005. 57% of calls reported emotional abuse, 28% physical and 6% sexual abuse.

Physical abuse includes being punched, hit, shoved, kicked, beaten, assaulted with or without weapons, choking, strangulation and being stabbed.

Apart from serious physical injuries such as fractured skulls and broken bones the emotional impacts can be severe and long-lasting. Panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares and fear of sleeping as are common effects.

Shockingly, many women are also physically abused during pregnancy. In fact, 25% of women experiencing domestic violence are assaulted for the first time when pregnant.

Stalking is often used to terrorise women who have successfully left an abusive relationship. Unfortunately, leaving an abuser doesn‚t always always mean the end of the abuse.

A range of tactics commonly used are constant phone calls and/or texts, following a woman when she leaves the house, waiting for her outside a place of work, ex-partners breaking into her home and ex-partners assaulting a current partner.

Emotional abuse is the most prevalent form of abuse, as well as the one most often misunderstood and minimised. Unrelenting emotional abuse wears down women's confidence and erodes their sense of selfesteem. Emotional abuse is very deliberate and its cumulative effect makes women fear for their life and sanity.

Threats against the woman and/or her family or children are a common tactic. Women also experience damage to property/pets, intimidation, being denied access to finance and having your freedom controlled (this can include being locked in a small space - sometimes for days on end - and sometimes even with her children).

Women's Aid has been working with those affected by domestic violence for 30 years and often we are the first people to whom women will disclose what has been happening, often for years.
EM

• Giving our National Freephone Helpline to anyone you know who needs our support.
• Sending a donation to Women's Aid, Everton House, 47 Old Cabra Road, Dublin 7

It's not just women

Although most recorded incidents of Domestic Violence come when the women is the sufferer, we have to remember that there are also a large number of men that suffer at the hands of a partner or loved one. This time last yeat the National Crime Council(NCC), in association with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ERSI) published the first ever largescale study undertaken that gives an overview of the nature, extent and impact of domestic abuse against women and men within relationships in Ireland. Among the findings where the following facts:

• 15% of women and 6% of men suffer from domestic abuse.
• 29% of women and 26% of men suffer from domestic abuse where severe or minor abuse are combined.
• 13% of women and 13% of men suffer physical abuse.
• 29% of women (1 in 3) and only 5% of men (1 in 20) report to the Gardi.

AMEN is a voluntary Irish group which provides a confidential helpline, information and support services for male victims of domestic abuse and their children. They are based in St. Anne's Resource Centre, Railway Street, Navan, Co. Meath. They can be contacted on (00353) 0469023718.