Madam, - I must respond to Margaret Martin's letter of July 21st in which she suggests that I, and John Waters, "are deliberately trying to mislead readers" regarding the National Crime Council's report on domestic violence.
The statistics quoted in my letter of July 19th are accurately taken from the NCC report. They include the figure that 15 per cent of women and 6 per cent of men suffer severe domestic abuse. According to the report this represents 1 in 7 women and not 1 in 6 as inaccurately stated by Ms. Martin (see pages 52 and 169). So much for the "interests of truth". I also accurately included a number of other statistics from the report, relevant to the ongoing debate.
In doing so I was giving a much more comprehensive presentation of the findings than Ms Martin who selectively quoted just two statistics - one inaccurately. In its 224 pages the report elaborates on all statistics, but obviously it is not possible to do so in a short letter. One should of course exercise caution in reading any statistics, particularly having regard to the finding that one in three women report to the Garda but only one in 20 men do so.
Interestingly the thrust of her letter is to exclude "nasty behaviour" from the definition of domestic violence. This is an amazing about-turn by Women's Aid. It was those in the "violence against women" movement who redefined and broadened the definition of violence to include behaviours other than physical attacks (with the unstated proviso that the victim has to be a woman). The obvious intention was, of course, to inflate the statistics, but it had the inevitable consequence of increasing the number of male victims too. Do they now propose going back to the pre-1996 definition, as outlined in the O'B versus O'B judgment If so they should note that the NCC study finding on physical abuse alone was 13 per cent for both men and women. Oh, what a tangled web they have woven!
It should also be borne in mind that the steering group set up to oversee the NCC study was composed entirely of people involved in the "violence against women" movement. Those with experience of male victims were inexplicably excluded from the steering group and also from the training programme for telephone interviewers. Those who controlled the study should now accept its findings in their entirety rather than quoting selectively (and inaccurately) from it. - Yours, etc,
MARY T. CLEARY,
Chairperson, Amen,
Navan,
Co Meath.
Madam, - I make the following comments regarding the controversy about Amnesty International's recent report on violence against women. Violence against women by their domestic partners is bullying in the extreme. With no social or other restraints, and seen only by partners and children, males are free to demean and abuse their partners until they have sufficiently vented their own feelings of low self worth.
Yes, there are instances of females abusing males. However, the inequalities of social stature and physical size ensure that the overwhelming number of victims are women; this is supported by hospital, police, and social services reporting. We can't begin to fix the problem until we acknowledge it exists. - Yours, etc,
ANN KING,
Donaughmore,
Bandon,
Co Cork.