Fears budget cuts could impact funding for violence against women

There are fears constraints on budgets across government departments could impact on their ability to tackle violence against women and girls.

The last 12 months have been described as transformational for Northern Ireland after a raft of new laws came into force giving the PSNI more powers to tackle the issue.

High profile cases over the last number of years have thrust the issue into the spotlight.

However, a leading charity fears money constraints across the board could curtail any progress that has been made.

Kelly Andrews, Women’s Aid, says, “agencies that work with victims need resources to make it happen.”

“We have had these protections come forward on the one hand, but on the other we have heard cuts to policing, cuts to educations and victims services are under massive pressure.”

“If you are serious about tacking violence against women and girls there is going to be a financial implication, but it is actually an investment in the future that will ultimately save lives.”

The statistics are pretty stark, 20% of the PSNI’s time is taken up with domestic abuse cases.

Every 16 minutes they receive a call, dealing with over 30 thousand cases every year.

In nearly 70% of those cases the victim is female.

Detective Superintendent Lindsay Fisher believes the figures could be a lot higher

“We have long heard there are on average 35 occasions of domestic abuse before someone reports it.”

“When it comes to stalking that could be up to 100.”

“We know this is an under reported crime.”

“Any increase is a sign of public confidence, victims know that when you lift up the phone that you will be understood.”

Violence against women and girls is much more than just domestic abuse. It can be stalking, harassment and other sexual offence.

Women are disproportionately impacted by those crimes.

Take stalking for example, women are at the centre of 95 percent of cases

Campaigner Ailbhe Smyth simply says this kind of violence must stop.

“We use the phrase zero tolerance and have been using it for some time.”

“Increasingly groups are beginning to say stop the violence against women, stop killing women.”

“It is as if people don’t hear zero tolerance anymore.”

“It’s a pandemic, its a pandemic of epidemic proportions, it happens all the time.”

“We have to talk about it like an emergency we have to talk about it as a crisis.”

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