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Words That Wound – Speaking out about Verbal Abuse 

Sonas launches the “Killing Me Softly With His Words” campaign

10^th April 2013 – Sonas, a charity that provides housing, refuge and support to women and children experiencing domestic violence, is launching its ‘Killing Me Softly With His Words’ campaign which aims to raise awareness of the effects of verbal abuse on women in Ireland.

The washroom poster campaign which will feature in Dublin aims to create awareness of verbal abuse and the impact it has on women. Sonas has teamed up with prolific blogger Suzanne Jackson of Sosueme.ie and RTE 2 FM DJ, Ruth Scott to highlight the campaign.

Sonas CEO Fiona Ryan said: “Words can and do wound. The campaign shows how verbal abuse can be so psychologically and emotionally damaging that it can undermine a woman’s self-belief, self-respect and self-image to the extent she may feel there is nothing left.

“Due to the nature of this type of abuse, it can be hard for women to name it or show its impact. We are hoping that this campaign will get people talking about verbal abuse and if women are experiencing it that they can seek help. It is important to remember that verbal abuse is often part of a sustained strategy to undermine a woman’s self-esteem and confidence and is based on a cycle of control and power.”

The campaign will be visible online through Facebook and on the Sonas website, and will also be distributed through a strong washroom poster campaign displaying in pubs and shopping centres in the Dublin region.

Here’s a couple of photos from our launch with blogger Suzanne Jackson, 2FM DJ Ruth Scott and Sonas CEO Fiona Ryan.

Killing Me Softly With His Words Launch

Killing Me Softly With His Words Launch 2

For further information on Sonas contact the Press Team :

For more please read our Verbal Abuse Information Sheet.

Q102 Ad from Sonas Housing on Vimeo.

This is a Sonas ad produced by Q102 as part of their “making a difference in Dublin” campaign. We are very grateful to Q102 for the free airtime.

Anne McKeon, chairperson of Sonas Housing, is delighted to announce the appointment of the organisation’s new CEO, Fiona Ryan, the former director of Alcohol Action Ireland.

“We are delighted to announce Fiona Ryan is to join the Sonas team as CEO on 8^th April 2013,” said Anne. “Fiona is currently the director of Alcohol Action Ireland and brings a wealth of experience in the area of strategic development and campaigning. Fiona’s skills and experience will complement Sonas and help drive our ongoing commitment to high-quality service delivery and advocacy on behalf of women and children experiencing domestic and gender-based violence inIreland.”

“I am honoured to take on this role,” said incoming CEO Fiona Ryan. “Sonas is an amazing organisation not only because its primary goal is to maximise the safety of women and children using its services but that goal is based on the principle of empowerment – empowering women to move from crisis to safety and independence.

“My priorities as CEO will be to maintain provision of the highest quality services, ensure Sonas continues to grow and thrive and to be an advocate for the women, children and families Sonas supports on their journey to safety and independence.”

From 8^th April Fiona will be contactable on 087 219 5723 and by email fionaryan@sonashousing.ie.

The evaluation of the Freedom Programme delivered in 2012 is now available. Read the full report here. Once again the evaluation is a resounding endorsement of the Programme by its participants.

A great emphasis was placed on gaining a deeper understanding of their abuser’s behaviour. The participants felt that by being able to identify the various controlling tactics of their abusers, they were able to free themselves of any blame for the abuse and see it for what it is. This was something that almost every participant referred to and was central to the success of the programme.

All of the participants gained confidence from the Freedom Programme and felt it had a positive impact on their lives. 

You can read more in the full report which you can download here.

For more info on the Freedom Programme please contact the programme co-ordinator Aisling Griffin on 087-235 5358 or 01 – 866 2012 or email agriffen@sonashousing.ie

Every step makes a difference: by taking part you can get fit and raise money for women and children affected by domestic violence at the same time.  Last year over 20 women joined our team on the day and this year we hope to double that number, so start your training now and raise vital funds for Sonas Housing.

The marathon is great for all levels from first timers to running pros. The official website offers loads of great support like healthy eating advice and training plans to help you on your way.  So whether you’re walking, jogging or running the 10km, you’ve loads of training support to get you there!  So what are you waiting for – sign up today and take part in the world’s biggest all women event of its kind for Sonas!

Race Information

Sonas are proud to support the Turn Off the Red Light campaign all this week. The main drive behind this week is to get as many people as possible to go to this page: www.turnofftheredlight.ie/action and let your local representatives that this is an issue that means a lot to you. It only takes two minutes to do.

Please read the text below taken from the Turn Off the Red Light website outlining the scale of the problem and the solution.

From www.turnofftheredlight.ie/about:

About

Turn Off The Red Light is a campaign to end prostitution and sex trafficking in Ireland.

Speaking at the launch the Minister said: “Homelessness is an affront to every value that we assign to the concept of citizenship. In a real republic there is an onus on us all to ensure that all citizens have a place they can call home.”

The housing-led strategy is based on a housing-first model and supporting people within long-term, stable housing.

Sonas welcomes this model of service delivery that can be much more effective than a traditional staircase model of different intervention.

Sonas calls on the Government to ensure women and children who are homeless because of domestic violence are accommodated in the new strategy. “People homeless because of domestic violence can often be hidden because they may not present to emergency homeless services,” said Paula McGovern, policy and communications officer with Sonas Housing.  “Instead they may present to women’s refuges, which are funded differently and so are often not include in homeless counts, or other state services as well as stay with family and friends on couches.”

Sonas also welcomes the ambitious Government has set 2016 as the target for ending long-term homelessness. “While the target is ambitious it is achieveable if the government focus on homeless prevention and why people are homeless and tackle these issues as well as provide services for people who are currently homeless,” said McGovern.

Below is the original longer article of Paula McGovern’s article on domestic abuse for www.thejournal.ie

In the aftermath of the Magdalene report last week there followed an outcry of questions – how could this have happened? Who let this happen? What’s wrong with society, the state, that people could be abused and yet nothing was done to help? Is it the fault of institutions that allow abuse to happen or do we all have a part to play? One commentator wondered what other abuses are going on right now that we are pretending to ourselves isn’t happening.

There are probably many – but one that looms large is domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is happening all around us – in our communities and estates – but as a society, as a state and as individuals we have our heads firmly in the sand.

On St Valentine’s Day 2013 an international campaign is taking places that aims to get women and men to stand up and demand an end to this and all forms of violence against women. V-day One Billion Rising is calls on us all to act and to come together to express their outrage, strike, dance, and rise in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end to violence against women. There are events all over Ireland with a public flashmob dance planned in Dublin City Centre later today.

The reality is that male violence is the primary cause of death of women aged 15-44 – women worldwide are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined. Of the female murders in Ireland since 1996, half of the resolved cases were committed by a husband, ex-husband, partner or ex-partner.

Even with statistics like this structurally and culturally the issue of domestic violence is virtually invisible in Ireland and we lag far behind other western countries in how we deal with it in our social systems. It’s not even enough to say that it is hidden here – it is an issue we are actively encouraged not to think about. In Ireland domestic violence is not listed as a cause of homelessness which means that women struggle to get housing places even if their lives are severely at risk. Domestic violence is not recorded within Gardai/HSE protocols as a form of abuse which means it can get hidden under an anti-social issue or similar. Both of these factors means it can be difficult to record its prevalence and helps to keep the issue under wraps.

All domestic violence related court cases are held in camera so we don’t hear what happens at court and consequently there is little accountability. And when a woman is murdered by her partner, domestic violence is rarely named in the reporting of a case even when there is a long history of violence. It is not linked to the wider issue of domestic abuse and the case is reported as a singular event.

When the subject of domestic violence is addressed there is a very vocal argument that it should be gender-neutral, not female specific, which can effectively silence debate on the issue. 30 years of evidence and research shows that domestic abuse is a gendered issue that affects women disproportionately and it needs to be treated as such. Men can also be abused in the home – there is no clean gender line that says women can only be victims and men perpetrators. However biologically and economically women are more vulnerable than men and they do not have equal presence politically or in our social systems. This means there are marked differences in the patterns of abuse. It is worth noting for example that 30% of women who experience domestic violence are physically assaulted for the first time during pregnancy. In any event asking for domestic violence to come out of the shadows helps all victims, male and female.

All of these factors do help to cloak the issue in a veil of secrecy or silences what minimal debate there is. Our silence and our inability to maturely and responsibly talk about it fosters an environment that suggests domestic violence is not really a significant issue at all. This means that women who are in a position of abuse feel even more isolated and alone. In effect they are doubly victimised – by an abuser and by a system that does not want to acknowledge her experience.

We haven’t as a society yet learned to maturely name domestic abuse and adequately deal with it. We are effectively putting our fingers in our ears, closing our eyes and shouting ‘nanananana – not listening; not listening’; in the manner of your average four year old.

Last week I heard from a woman who went to her local garda station on advice of her doctor. She has been abused by her partner for some time with the abuse steadily getting worse and more violent. Her doctor is fearful for her life. At the garda station she was told that they didn’t have the resources to deal with her and to wait until there was a more serious incident to come to talk to them. She asked them were they saying she had to go home and wait to be beaten up again for something to happen. She was told that effectively yes but they were sorry there was nothing they could do and that her case wouldn’t go anywhere in court without more evidence so she would be wasting her time.

I spoke to a local authority official about a case he had come into contact with at the housing placement desk. He said that he knew that sometimes women wanted to leave home because of domestic violence but he couldn’t ask the question because it wasn’t on the forms. Also even if she did say she was homeless because of domestic violence there was no policy in place to say this gave her eligibility for a home so it was pointless anyhow. Also he didn’t want to upset them – what if she started crying?

There was one woman in particular who seemed edgy, upset and had bruises all over her. There was a suspicion something was amiss but no questions outside protocol were asked. Ultimately her application for housing was not successful because she didn’t have serious enough reason for housing – she already had a local authority house in her name with her partner. So she went home – possibly to a dangerous abuser, possibly to her death. But thank god she didn’t start crying at the counter eh? I’m sure that would have been way more upsetting than having to go back to an unsafe environment after being refused shelter from state services.

The really awful thing about the above two scenarios is that there is really nothing awful about the officials in question – they are normal folk, doing their job in highly pressurised and public environments within the confining bureaucracy of their organisations.

But it is a flawed bureaucracy that is at best deeply ambivalent to women and children escaping domestic violence and at worst deeply obstructive. While there are some positive glimpses happening and good individual work practices, there needs to be real practical changes to social systems to ensure the issue of domestic violence is adequately policed, prevented and victims protected and supported.

Our societal structures are also not the only problem. We are all complicit and responsible in the hiding of the issue. When I tell people where I work I am now accustomed to the pregnant pause of awkwardness that ensues. ‘Oh er domestic violence?’ Eyes shift, heads bow, fingers fumble. ‘That must be.. er..tough’.

There is nothing wrong with people’s discomfort either. I understand their reluctance to think about a subject that is as disturbing as it is heart-wrenching. However the unwillingness of people to ‘go there’ is part of the problem. The silence and unwillingness to tackle the issue allows abuse to continue with impunity along the lines of that that oft misquoted phrase – all it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.

Because it is a crime – domestic abuse – that’s one thing many people seem to forget in the ‘oh I don’t want to get involved’ and ‘there’s probably two of them in it’ kind of logic. The fact it takes place in the home doesn’t make it any less a crime but it does make it harder to prove. The fact there are emotions, sometimes children, and family entanglements involved can also cloud and hamper the whole legal process which can be a cold mechanical place to find yourself at a time when your whole world is turning upside down.

Our silence and our own inability to talk about this issue fosters a culture that says domestic violence is not an issue at all. And so if it happens to a woman or becomes part of her experience our societal norms tell her that she is the one with the problem and there is nowhere for her to go. Or worse – she tries to get help and her feeling of isolation is compounded by being actually told there is nothing that can be done and there is really nowhere for her to go.

Is this really the legacy we want for our generation? That we carried on with the same shameful silent tacit tolerance of abuse in the home in the same way previous generations accepted the Magdalene laundries and clerical abuse?

Michael Palin has a fantastic quote that is so apt for this country and how we deal – or don’t deal – with our shadows: ‘Torture is a dark area of human experience but if we are afraid to look into it we condone it.’

In 2011 February was the month of highest demand for our services. It comes after the holiday Christmas period is over, when women often try to hold families together for the sake of the children, and the reality of living with abuse descends once more.

You can read more about this and other trends in our most recent annual report which you can download here.

Want to know how you can support more women and children homeless because of domestic violence? Read how here.