The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre is for the first time recording levels of ritual sexual abuse. About five cases of the abuse - which is described as methodical, systematic, and sometimes involving torture almost to the point of death - were seen by its counsellors last year.
Ms Angela McCarthy, clinical director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (RCC), speaking at the publication of its 2003 annual statistics, said incidents of ritual sexual abuse accounted for 0.5 per cent of cases coming to the attention of its counsellors last year.
This particularly horrific abuse is an extreme sadistic form of abuse of children and non-consenting adults. As well as being methodical and systematic, it is sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse and often includes mind control, torture, murder and activities such as child pornography and prostitution.
The abuse is intended to break the victim's will and is justified by a religious or political ideology. Its effects are devastating and the victim may never get over it, said Ms McCarthy.
Ms Rosemary Daly, Dublin RCC chief executive, said the centre was having to close its waiting list "for weeks at a time", as it does not have the resources to respond to all those who seek its help.
She expressed concern at the "powerlessness" of teenagers who have been sexually assaulted in accessing help if they do not have their parents' consent.
Ms McCarthy said 11,863 crisis calls were received by the centre's national helpline, an increasing proportion of which related to adult rape and sexual assault.
"Fifty per cent of calls were related to adult rape and seven per cent to adult sexual assault. That's a 4 per cent increase on 2002, and while that may sound small, it's about 300 extra people," said Ms McCarthy. Forty-one per cent of calls related to child sexual abuse.
Eighty-five per cent of calls were from females. Some 64 per cent of callers were under the age of 29, said Ms McCarthy. Twenty per cent of callers were in the 15 to 17-year-old age group.
"That is of concern to us," she said. It was of particular concern that just 4 per cent using the counselling service were in this age group.
The centre was "constrained" in the services they could offer this age group because of the "legal bind" that they could not offer counselling to anyone under the age of 18 without their parents' or guardian's consent.
She said a teenager may not want to tell their parents they were seeking counselling for sexual abuse or assault. This aspect of the legislation "should be looked at". The centre planned to meet other organisations, such as Children At Risk in Ireland (CARI) to discuss how services might be made more available to this "powerless" group.
Ms Daly said the demands for counselling were so high people were sometimes being told they could not get on the waiting list.
"Tragically, current resources are not adequate and we are having to close the waiting list for periods of a couple of weeks."
The purpose of this was to ensure people were not waiting inordinate lengths of time to see a counsellor once on the list.
The centre for the first time also recorded the ethnic background of its clients. While 95 per cent were Irish, 2 per cent were other Europeans, 1 per cent African, 0.5 per cent North American and 1 per cent 'other'.
