The WPG recently conducted research to gather the views of women and girls in relation to men’s violence. This was conducted to inform the WPG response to the Calls for Views on the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy and the TEO Equally Safe Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. The WPG received 1,065 responses to this survey and summarised all findings in our submission to the calls for views, which can be found here. Given the huge number of responses, we decided to launch a full report focused on these findings which is available here. Below is a summary of the key findings:
- 91.2% of women think that Northern Ireland has a problem with men’s violence against women and girls.
- 97.2% of women think that Northern Ireland should have a strategy to tackle men’s violence against women and girls.
- 83% of women have been impacted by men’s violence against women and girls but only 21.4% reported this to the police
- 77.4% of women who reported men’s violence to the police did not find it useful.
- 82% of women first experienced men’s violence before the age of 20.
- 89.7% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with attitudes of sexism and misogyny.
- 80.8% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with rape myths and rape culture
- 87.4% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with victim-blaming
- 81.2% of women believe there is stigma surrounding issues of violence against women and girls.
- 92.3% of women think that there are barriers to reporting men’s violence against women and girls.
- 95.2% of women think that reducing levels of violence against women and girls requires focusing on changing men and boys’ behaviours and actions.
- 78.6% of women think that additional action needs to be taken in this strategy to address men’s violence against marginalised groups of women.
- 86.8% of women think that there needs to be a review of how the justice system treats victims and survivors of men’s violence against women and girls.
- 83.4% of women believe that state violence against women and girls should be included within this Strategy.
Clearly, women and girls in Northern Ireland want to see action taken urgently to address violence from men and boys. The WPG will continue to advocate on this issue throughout the next mandate and hope that Northern Ireland will finally have a robust Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.
