NWCI welcomes announcement to commence new survey on sexual violence

Published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) welcomes the announcement of a new comprehensive report on sexual violence in Ireland ('SAVI 2') and particularly that the survey will be conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). NWCI is very concerned, however, about the long timeline which will mean the report will only be published 2023 at the earliest - 21 years after the first one in 2002.

Orla O’Connor, Director of NWCI said,

“We really welcome the fact that the CSO is now responsible for this critically important report and will survey and research sexual violence in Ireland on an ongoing basis. However, we are seriously concerned about the long timeline of five years until the new report will be published. We urgently need up to date data on sexual violence in order to develop effective responses and prevention measures. If more resources are needed to reduce the timeframe, these should be urgently made available by the Government.”

She continued,

“We are also concerned about the knock on effect of the long timeline for the overall SAVI 2 report on understanding sexual violence in relation to specific groups, including Travellers, migrant people, people from the LGBTQI community and women with disabilities, as it is our understanding that these will be commenced after the full survey is published in 2023. We believe specific research projects for these groups should run in parallel with the overall survey. Sexual violence affects women in girls in Ireland every day. They simply cannot wait another five years for new data to be made available.” 

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For more information, please contact Silke Paasche, Head of Communications, NWCI, Tel. 085 858 9104, silkep@nwci.ie