Amnesty International has attacked the Government and the Irish justice system for failing to tackle the problem of violence against women in Ireland.
The organisation today released a report showing such abuse is widespread here, with one-in-four Irish women experiencing sexual abuse in their lifetime.
At least one-in-five women also reported being the victim of systematic violence from their male partners.
The Justice and Accountability: Stop Violence Against Womenreport found that despite the increased number of helplines and other facilities aimed at helping abuse victims, the "vast majority" of women do not contact the Gardaí. In fact, the report shows the number of victims reporting their attackers is actually dropping.
The director of Amnesty’s Irish section, Seán Love, said today the low level of convictions of sexual offenders was a contributing factor in the declining reporting of crimes.
"There is little monitoring of the effectiveness of legal and other measures in preventing, identifying, investigating and punishing this violence," Mr Love said.
He said the Gardaí are the only statutory agency with a formal policy on domestic violence, and centrally devised policies are needed for other Government services such as health, mental health and schools.
Amnesty also said "persistent underfunding" of support services meant that victims were often unable to access the help that they need. The report notes 5,994 calls to the Women’s Aid helpline went unanswered in 2003 and some women have to wait months for counselling from Rape Crisis Centres.