An annual impact report from Women’s Aid has shown that the support organisation received a record number of 40,048 disclosures of domestic abuse against women and children in 2023 – the highest number in their history.
More than 40,000 disclosures were made during 28,638 contacts with its national and regional support services last year.
Women’s Aid said that there was an 18% increase in disclosures of domestic abuse compared to previous year and the highest ever received by the organisation in its 50-year history.
Abuse of women included emotional abuse, physical violence, sexual abuse, and economic control, many combining to constitute coercive control, with an alarming increase in both physical violence (up 74%) and economic abuse (up 87%) compared to the previous year, the support organisation said.
Publishing a new Insights Report into 11 publicly reported cases of coercive control convictions through the courts, Women’s Aid said that report revealed “the devastating scale and harm of this offence and raises questions about maximum sentencing for this offence.”
They called for the Implementation of the Third National Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Strategy, with cross government co-operation, which the organisation said was “crucial to effectively reduce the scale of violence against women”.
The 40,048 disclosures were made to the National Freephone Helpline and Regional Face-to-Face services provided by Women’s Aid to 28,638 contacts last year. This represents an 18% increase on the previous year and the highest ever recorded by the organisation.
“Last year, women told Women’s Aid that their partners or ex-partners were subjecting them to a broad and brutal pattern of abuse,” a statement said.
“Women reported assaults with weapons, constant surveillance, and monitoring, relentless put downs and humiliations, the taking and sharing of intimate images online, complete control over all family finances, sexual assault, rape and being threatened with theirs or their children’s lives.”
“The impacts on these women were chilling and ranged from exhaustion, isolation, and hopelessness to serious injury, suffering miscarriages, poverty, feeling a loss of identity and suicide ideation, hypervigilance, and homelessness,” the organisation reported.
Sarah Benson, CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Women’s Aid said that “the number and nature of the disclosures of abuse to our frontline services is utterly appalling”.
“However, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” she claimed. “One in four women in Ireland is subjected to domestic abuse and there are also so many children, families and whole communities also impacted.”
“Fear, stigma, and self-blame due to the impact of the abuse – but also persisting social attitudes to domestic violence prevent victims from coming forward. So many victims-survivors lack the information or confidence to contact specialist services, and about one third will suffer in total isolation, telling nobody what is happening to them. We still have so much work to do to break this silence to encourage those in need to get the support they deserve. What we hear in our national and regional services is replicated across Ireland in local domestic abuse refuges and organisations.”
She said that it was “shocking that in our 50th year of service to women, we are still receiving record disclosures of domestic abuse. Especially as we noticed the rise in physical and economic abuse over the past year. Behind our harrowing statistics there are strong, resilient women who have taken a courageous step to share their story to our frontline services. We know that so many more women suffer alone, in silence and without specialist support.”
In addition to the Annual Impact Report 2023, Women’s Aid released research carried out with the pro bono support of Authur Cox LLP which examines the charges and convictions arising from the coercive control offence to date. The Insights Report: Review of the Publicly Reported Enforcement of the Coercive Control Offence examines 11 concluded cases based on publicly available sources.
“This review offers timely, thought-provoking insights into the nature, impact, and prosecution of coercive control since the enactment of the new offence in 2019. The detail of the cases in this Insights Report suggest that the charge of coercive control is being applied in addition to individual charges of other crimes to capture and sanction the whole lived experience and pattern of abuse rather than single incidents,” they said.
Ms. Benson said that the testimony and comments by women “powerfully show the harm and negative impact of coercive control on their lives, their children’s lives and the lives of their wider family and friends.”
“In most of the cases included in this report, there is a strong assertion of the importance for women of being believed and supported throughout every stage of the legal process, particularly by specialist services and members of An Garda Síochána. It is important to remember that there are many cases where acute coercive control may not include physical violence but the impact on victims-survivors is nonetheless completely devastating.”