Northern Ireland’s peace process has brought substantial gains. Political violence has dramatically reduced, and economic and social development has progressed. We could easily assume that this means peace has been secured and is experienced by everyone.
However, paramilitarism still exists and not just, as we might assume, as a residual hangover from the Troubles.
The terrorist threat level for Northern Ireland is estimated to be “substantial”. The Independent Reporting Commission on paramilitarism identifies it as a significant “obstacle” and the “unseen” part of the work towards peace still to be achieved.
The 2023 Peace Monitoring Report noted that paramilitaries today direct their violence towards their own communities. Too often we also assume that violence takes a particular form – a physical incident, an event – something that erupts and then is over.
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But not all violence looks like that, including some of the violence wrought by paramilitary groups. It is the harm that we cannot see that is often the most insidious and impactful for those living with it.
Coercive control is increasingly recognised as a form of intimate partner violence. While it might include discrete acts or patterns of violence, it primarily involves the build-up of a chronic environment of fear, dependence and shame.
Many of the means of coercive control are imperceptible to an outsider. It may simply involve a “loaded look”, or words of denigration, intimidation or even threat that, over time, become the coercive basis for control.
It is exactly this type of coercive harm that is experienced by some women in relationship with men who are involved in paramilitary organisations. It remains an unseen aspect of today’s paramilitarism, hidden in plain sight.
For many people in Northern Ireland, paramilitary activity does not affect their day-to-day lives. Where it does however, it involves a host of dynamics that academics, civil society and government actors in Northern Ireland have increasingly referred to as coercive control. These include so-called “punishment” attacks, forced drug dealing, loan sharking, intimidation and protection rackets, to name a few. These are significant harms which collectively signal an organised, coercive and controlling force active at community levels.
We undertook research to explore women’s experiences of today’s paramilitarism. Those who could safely come forward said they had experienced violence in their relationships, which included rape, strangulation, physical assault, and emotional and financial abuse.
They also described lives characterised by “double the fear”. For one woman, the abuse she was trapped in was “not just one person, it’s a whole organisation. It’s different with domestic abuse, you have you and your abuser. But like, with an abuser that’s in an organisation, you have them and the people that come along with them”.
Women talked about how their abusive partners “laid the groundwork” by deliberately telling them they are “involved” in paramilitarism. These are only words. Yet, living with a knowledge that there is group-based capacity for harm available to him, on top of his abuse, creates a feeling of living within an omnipotent system of control.
People living in communities controlled by paramilitaries know what to expect should they step out of line – reprisals. For these women, the daily intimidation, surveillance and threats, are brought into their relationship. Being told “just be careful with these boys” prompts deep-seated fear.
Women are telling us that it matters that he draws paramilitarism into the intimacies of abuse, because they then have to navigate layers of coercion, threat and surveillance, if they are ever to feel safe.
Advocates working at the front line have been raising concerns about this for years, while trying to support women and their children through the abuse and tyranny of controls where they live. Those controls often paralyse families into inaction and many cases remain unreported to police.
Often when these problems are raised with authorities, there is resistance to opening discussion of this inconvenient truth. It has been stated time after time that there is a price to pay for peace, and unfortunately women and children are paying this price. Until domestic terrorism, and its link with broader paramilitarism is addressed, we cannot claim to have peace.
There are important conversations happening in Northern Ireland right now. After two long periods without government and a lack of action to address these major issues, there is now a programme for government.
We are delighted that the new programme acknowledges the significance of paramilitary gangs and the impact of the harm they inflict on communities, costing the local economy a minimum of £750 million a year.
We welcome the priorities for government which include keeping our communities safe and the long-awaited early intervention and prevention of violence against women and girls. We look forward to the consultation process and ensuring that women and girls are heard, particularly those experiencing these harms that are invisible in plain sight. We must ensure that there is an equality of resources to meet the need of those affected.
There are also significant conversations about dealing with the legacy of the Troubles.
Women’s rights activists have for years highlighted the historical silencing of women’s experiences of gendered violence related to the Troubles. This research shows that the absence of formal recognition of women’s experiences of the Troubles enables the continuing silence about how paramilitaries are coercively controlling women today.
Arguably, the most significant unseen part of paramilitarism is its impact on families, communities and on community organisations who work tirelessly to advance peacebuilding and provide services for women.
Listening to women makes clear that the current peace in Northern Ireland is partial.
While this research focused on women’s experiences, paramilitary-related coercive control will affect different people of different ages and genders, in different ways, requiring much better understanding and response.
Real peace will only come when everyone can experience daily lives that are free of fear and risk of harm, inside and outside the home.
Aisling Swaine is professor of peace, security and international law at Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin, and Marie Brown is CEO of Foyle Women’s Aid and Foyle Family Justice Centre. The research was funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund. The research is being launched at an event at the Ebrington Hotel in Derry on Monday
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