ALCOHOL IS the biggest “date-rape” drug in Ireland, and young people need to be educated about this at secondary school, a seminar in Galway has heard.
An effective awareness campaign for 14- to 18-year-olds could prevent young people making a “serious error of judgment” which would have a long-term impact on their lives, Stacey Scriver Furlong of the NUI Galway Global Women’s Studies programme said.
Ms Scriver Furlong was addressing the issue of youth, alcohol and rape in Ireland at a round-table discussion yesterday hosted by the NUIG programme.
The discussion, chaired by Saoirse Nic Gabhainn, was held as part of the international “16 days of activism against violence against women” campaign.
Statistics showed that 88 per cent of rape cases that ended up in court involved alleged perpetrators who had been “binge drinking”, while the “typical” scenario involved two young people who knew each other well and were out socialising, she said.
Although there had been much publicity about the impact of so- called “date rape drugs” such as Rohypnol, evidence for its use in Ireland was minimal. Some 79 per cent of complaints involved consumption of alcohol, Ms Scriver Furlong said.
Research had shown that alcohol increased the level of aggressive behaviour in men and it also had an impact on their “ability to understand a refusal” if a woman did not want to have sex, she said.
Some studies also showed that alcohol was used by men to facilitate rape, or as an excuse for same, she said, and some men might encourage women to drink. Alcohol did not “excuse actions”, she stressed.
She cited the Rape and Justice in Ireland study published last year by the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland which showed that 10 per cent of rape victims were “too drunk to say ‘no’”.
Women who had been drinking when they were raped were often more likely to “blame themselves and not seek help”, Ms Scriver Furlong said.
A US campaign based in California, entitled “My Strength”, which emphasised men’s moral strength in declining to have sex with partners who might have been drinking or were drunk, could offer one model for education and awareness in Ireland, she said.
She stressed the socio-economic benefits of such a campaign.
If viewed purely in economic terms, it could save on the cost of investigation and prosecution, housing prisoners, medical and psychological care for victims, and the impact of victims’ decreased productivity in the workplace, Ms Scriver Furlong added.
While post-primary schools did cover issues such as rights and respect in the social, personal and health education module, rape was not specifically dealt with in many cases, the discussion forum heard.
Rape Crisis Network legal policy director Caroline Counihan said that alcohol consumption was not a defence in rape cases, and it was time to demolish the “myth” of “contributory negligence”, such as clothing and other behaviour of victims.
Although there was “no such thing as contributory negligence”, defence counsel still tried to “cast aspersions on the character of victims”, Ms Counihan said.