The heterosexual experience of IPA

In Ireland, there are three key sources of prevalence data for domestic abuse. The first, a national survey called “Making the Links”,93 _{commissioned by Women’s Aid,}94 _{was the} first study of its kind carried out in the European Union. The survey set out to determine the extent, type and impact of violence, and the service response to women who have experienced violence. The findings are based upon a national postal, self-completion survey of women and interviews and surveys conducted with women attending doctor’s surgeries in Dublin. A total of 1,483 women aged 18 years and older were randomly selected for inclusion in the national survey, 46 per cent (679) responded. The research found 18 per cent (101) of women reported at least one form of violence at some point in their lives by a current or former partner. The most common form of domestic abuse reported by the women was mental cruelty95 _{(13%), followed by physical violence (10%) and threatened} physical violence (9%). A smaller number of respondents reported sexual violence (4%) or had their property damaged (2%) by a current or former partner. (Kelleher & O’Connor, 1995, pp. 15–17).96

The second Irish nationwide survey exploring domestic abuse (Watson and Parsons, 2005) examined prevalence and attitudes to domestic violence – primarily, it is concerned with victims and their interaction with the criminal justice system. The report estimates that 15 per cent of women (one in seven) and six per cent of men (one in 16) have experienced

93_{Kelleher and Associates, and O’Connor. (1995) Making the Links.}

94 _{Women's Aid is a leading national organisation that has been working in Ireland to stop domestic violence}

against women and children since 1974.

95_{‘Mental cruelty’ was included in the study’s definition of domestic violence.}

severely abusive behaviour of a physical, sexual, or emotional nature from an intimate partner at some time in their lives. The report recognised for the first time that the risk of domestic abuse exists for men and women across the general population. The survey found in the region of 213,000 women and 88,000 men in Ireland had been severely abused by a partner.97 _{Similar to international research, the study found women are more likely to} experience severe physical abuse, while 6 per cent of male respondents indicated they had experienced some form of severe abuse from a partner at some point in their lives. With this 6 per cent of male respondents, 4 per cent experienced severe physical abuse, 3 per cent reported emotional abuse, and one per cent disclosed that had experienced sexual abuse (Ibid, 2005). However, the report did not ask respondents to verify the sexual orientation of the respondents or if the abuse they were reporting happened in a same sex or a heterosexual relationship. Therefore, we must ask what these statistics can really tell us. The identified limitations of large-scale national studies could offer a possible explanation as to why national prevalence studies report greater victimisation experiences for those in same sex relationships. For example, Janice Ristock (2011) drew attention to a serious omission with the data from the Statistics Canada research on violence and victimisation. The report indicated that IPA was more widespread in same sex (15 per cent) relationships than in heterosexual (7 per cent). However, questions had not been asked whether the abuse occurred in a same sex relationship. Similar issues were identified with the UK’s main prevalence data for domestic violence, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Smith et al. (2010) explored data from the CSEW intimate partner violence module that included a lesbian, gay and bisexual sample.98 _{Lesbian and gay respondents} (13 per cent) were more likely to experience any domestic violence and abuse than those who were heterosexual (5 per cent). Lesbian women were also found to experience the highest prevalence of sexual assault from any perpetrator, followed by gay and bisexual men (Smith et al., 2010). Without capturing knowledge of the perpetrator of the abuse and the nature of the relationship in which the abuse occurred, prevalence studies in their current format contribute to disseminating inaccurate prevalence rates about domestic and sexual violence victimisation experiences for non-heterosexual women.

97 _{Domestic Abuse of Women and Men in Ireland: Report on the National Study of Domestic Abuse.} 98 _{The CSEW asks questions to capture sexuality of respondents. Due to low numbers of respondents}

identifying as bisexual, lesbian, and gay, the authors merged CSEW data from 2007/08 and 2008/09 to produce a sample (n=500) of bisexual, lesbian, and gay respondents.

The third source of prevalence data in Ireland is the SAVI Report 99 _{- the Sexual Abuse and} Violence in Ireland (McGee, Garavan, de Barra, Byrne, & Conroy, 2002).100 _{Up until this} point, the only information available on sexual abuse was based on the number of people seeking counselling or reporting to the Gardaí. The SAVI findings were based upon telephone interviews with 3,118 randomly selected respondents, representing a 71 per cent participation rate. The research found that “in the case of both women and men who experienced sexual violence, the abuser was more often known to the abused person than a stranger (70% versus 30% for women and 62% versus 38% for men). Similar numbers of men and women (25% male and 30% female) reported some level of sexual abuse in childhood. Almost one quarter (23.6%) of perpetrators of violence against women as adults were intimate partners or ex-partners. This was the case for very few (1.4%) abused men.101