Only 6 per cent of sexual violence reported to rape crisis centres in 2010 was perpetrated by strangers, according to a report released today.
The Rape Crisis Network National Statistics and Annual Report 2010 found a third of perpetrators were family members, a third were friends, acquaintances or neighbours and almost 12 per cent were authority figures. Less than one in ten were strangers.
Contacts to rape crisis centre help lines increased by 23 per cent from 2009 to 2010, the report found, with over 15,000 contacts were made to rape crisis help lines around the country last year.
The helplines offer counselling, support, advocacy and information. The length of calls ranged from one minute to three hours. The majority of people contacting the help lines were survivors of sexual violence, and one in ten were supporters including parents, partners and friends.
Today's report was compiled using data from 14 rape crisis centres around the country by Rape Crisis Network Ireland, an information and resource centre on rape and sexual violence.
In 2010, 1,730 people attended rape crisis centres throughout Ireland for counselling and support, an increase of 9 per cent on 2009. The figure included 1,545 survivors of sexual violence, while the remainder were supporting survivors. Some 85 per cent of survivors were women and over 95 per cent of perpetrators were men.
Over 40 per cent of the female survivors had been subjected to sexual violence in adulthood. But of the 310 male survivors, almost nine out of ten had experienced sexual violence in childhood.
The figures supported other findings that male vulnerability to sexual violence decreases with age whereas female vulnerability does not significantly decrease, the report said.
Almost 80 per cent of survivors were subjected to one incident of sexual violence, not necessarily a once-off act, but sexual violence connected by the same perpetrator or group of perpetrators.
Almost 70 per cent of perpetrators were aged between 20 and 49 and one in ten was under 18.
The report found three quarters of those who reported sexual violence had also been subjected to other forms of violence, including intimidation, imprisonment and attempts to kill.
Over 40 per cent of incidence occurred in the survivors’ home, and more than 20 per cent occurring in the perpetrators’ home.
Survivors subjected to sexual violence in childhood most commonly reported sexual assault, while of those subjected to violence in adulthood, over three-quarters had been raped. Men were more likely to be subject to sexual assault whereas women were more likely to have been raped.
Some 301 survivors reported they’d been subjected to more than one incident of sexual violence, with different perpetrators.
“Survivors who were re-victimised by different perpetrators separately used over 40 per cent more counselling and support than other survivors,” the report said. It also found that in more than one out of ten cases, rape crisis centre personnel were the first people survivors told.
“Telling someone is a critical step for gaining support, starting recovery and over-coming sexual violence,” the report said. Yet more than 20 per cent of people waited 10 years or more before they told anyone.
The majority of those who contacted rape crisis centres were from Ireland, with almost 1 per cent being from the Traveller community. Over 6 per cent of survivors were from African countries. In terms of educational achievement, service users were representative of the general population, the report found.
It said funding to the Rape Crisis Network Ireland database must be continued.
Fiona Neary, executive director of the network, said if funding was withdrawn, it would “automatically result” in centres having to divert resources away from services delivery and into management and administration.
