Rape Crisis Midwest launches website
THE COURAGE of a Shannon woman in speaking out publicly about the rape ordeal she suffered as a teenager may have been behind a massive increase in reporting of sexual assault to gardai this year. A meeting of the Shannon joint policing committee heard that gardai in Shannon recorded 11 allegations of sexual assault in the first nine months of the year. This was in comparison to two in the same period last year, and many of the reports concerned alleged incidents which happened as far back as the 70’s and 80’s.
Shannon woman, Fiona Moran, gave an interview to national media in July, in which she revealed how she was raped at 15 years of age by a gang of boys whom she had thought were her friends.
Fiona went on to pick up the pieces of her life and to become a rape crisis volunteer. She spoke out a time when core funding for the Rape Crisis Network was under threat, saying that she wanted to highlight how important the service is and to encourage men and women who are survivors of rape.
“Part of my soul has been damaged and probably will be forever. I’m telling my story to show men and women who have been raped that you can survive,” she said in her interview.
Miriam Duffy, Rape Crisis Midwest, said that it is not unusual in the days and weeks after a story such as Fiona’s becomes public for people to take the step of making a formal complaint.
“It is entirely likely that Fiona’s courage in speaking out prompted people to report their experience. For many, the penny drops and they decide that if they don’t report it after reading something like that, they never will,” said Miriam.
”Fiona worked here with us and she is an extraordinary woman. It’s quite possible that because her story had a positive outcome, survivors of abuse were encouraged to come forward”.
But the number of cases reported are tiny in comparison to the number of people who seek help after a sex assault, Miriam added.
“A much higher percentage of people come to us than go to the gardai. We would deal, on average with 250 to 300 people each year and of those, about 150 would be new. Even what we hear about is only the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
Ms Duffy was speaking to the Limerick Post as Rape Crisis Midwest launched its new website.
The website provides user-friendly information about the services as well as information about sexual violence.
