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	Victims Suffer in Silence Rather Than Face Grinding Justice System One in Eight Adults Has Been Raped Yet a Majority of Assaults Are Never Reported, Writes Alan Ruddock By Alan Ruddock Sunday Independent December 6, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/victims-suffer-in-silence-rather-than-face-grinding-justice-system-1965718.html The statistics on rape in Ireland tell a bleak story. One in every ten women has been raped and one in every five women has been sexually assaulted. Of the few rapes that are reported to the gardai, only a small proportion result in a conviction. While the focus, for the moment, is on the horrifying sexual and physical abuse suffered by children in the Dublin diocese, adult rape remains both prevalent and under-reported, an everyday occurrence that is largely unpunished. Many victims of rape suffer in silence while those that are prepared to pursue their attackers are subjected to a legal system that grinds slowly and unsympathetically. In England and Wales an accused rapist can be brought to trial within three months: in Ireland it can take three years. Apart from one specialised sexual crimes unit in Dublin, gardai lack training in dealing with sexual crimes, as do judges and prosecutors. Successive governments have promised change, but the promises remain largely unfulfilled and the criminal process remains a harrowing one for rape victims. Fiona Neary of Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) said: "The criminal justice system is failing in rape cases. Ireland's conviction rate is amongst the lowest in Europe. Survivors in rape crisis centres tell us of their fears about reporting. Those who have reported talk of the lack of dignity and respect in how they are treated; how they feel it is them who are on trial from the moment they report, how they have no voice in the system." Rape victims can still be cross-examined by their alleged assailants, cannot give evidence by video-link, cumbersome court procedures give rise to frequent delays and sentencing, when a conviction is finally secured, is inconsistent. There is no definition of consent in Irish law while the hastily revised laws on child rape, introduced as an emergency measure by Michael McDowell even though they were deeply flawed, remain in place. There has been some progress -- the establishment of Cosc, the National Office for the Prevention of Sexual Crime, should lead to a co-ordinated national rape strategy -- but the pace of change is glacial even though the template for an effective system is on view in both Northern Ireland and England. Tomorrow the RCNI hosts Rape Justice Ireland, in a one-day conference in Dublin, and will present the detailed findings of its study on rape in Ireland. The conference will also be addressed by a number of prominent players in the criminal justice system, including James Hamilton, the Director of Public Prosecutions and Paul Carney, the High Court judge. As part of its study, which has been compiled into a book on rape and justice in Ireland, 100 women who had been raped gave information about their experiences. Detailed below on this page are first-hand accounts of why women did or did not report a rape. The details that these women share with us bring to life the information in the RCNI Rape Crisis National Statistics, which tell us that the majority of victims do not report. You can hear their initial shock and disbelief, the way the women brush aside the evidence, their fear of the impact of reporting on others, their fear of the attacker, their fear of not being believed and their dread of the criminal justice system, among other things. Each of these statements is by a woman who was raped in Ireland since 2002.
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