National conference on violence against women in Westport

SAFE Ireland, the national social change agency working to end domestic abuse and coercive control, will hold its Safe Homes Safe Communities National Conference at Knockranny House Hotel, Westport, this Monday, November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Mayo Women’s Support Services (MWSS) is a Safe Ireland service on the ground.

The conference will hear from a number of international experts, including the first White House advisor on violence against women, Lynn Rosenthal.

New, surprising findings on public attitudes to gender equality, roles and responsibilities in 2019, as well as their views on domestic abuse and coercive control, will be presented at the conference. The qualitative element (focus groups) of this research concentrated on views in Connaught particularly.

In addition, Safe Ireland will launch a new vision strategy to make Mayo the safest county in Ireland as a pilot site for change in the way we prevent and respond to domestic violence and coercive control.

The conference will also focus on the offence of coercive control, with speakers Ryan Hart, whose mother and sister were murdered by his father in the UK, and Davina James-Hanman, a leading international expert on the terrorising pattern and eroding impact of coercive control. Coercive control was recognised as a crime in the new Domestic Violence Act 2018, which commenced on January 1 this year.

It will look at new emerging evidence on the scale and costs of violence against women and girls in Ireland, with a presentation from Caroline Forde of NUI Galway. It will also hear from Detective Superintendent Gordon McCreadie, Police Scotland’s National Lead for Domestic Abuse, Forced Marriage, HBA and Stalking and Harassment. He will share his learning and experience on policing the crime of coercive control and how Scotland is leading the way in responding to it.

Other highlights at the conference include singer-songwriter Sharon Murphy, who will talk about the impact of racism in Ireland, and Mary McDermott, educator and feminist philosopher, whose talk, Ground Zero, will look at where we are at with regard to gender equality.

Safe Ireland commissioned Behaviour & Attitudes to carry out independent quantitative and qualitative research to measure contemporary attitudes to Gender Matters in Ireland 2019.

International research over recent decades has led to an increasing consensus that violence against women can be understood, and best prevented, when examined through the prism of individual, group and societal attitudes towards gender equality, roles and responsibilities.