Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I understand that this debate is about violence against women in Ireland, but we must acknowledge it is a worldwide experience. UN statistics show that one in three women worldwide experiences some sort of sexual or physical violence. In line with the statistics here, it is mostly by an intimate partner. Fewer than 40% of women who experience violence seek help of any sort and 42% of women experience intimate partner violence and report an injury as a consequence of that violence. Those are the parameters in which we are having this debate.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Urantsetseg Tserendorj. I hope I have pronounced that noble woman's name right. She was a migrant worker from Mongolia who lost her life on her way home from her work as a cleaner in a bank. She was a mother of two. It is worth mentioning her name here.

I also went into the matter this morning but I again refer to the details around the lack of space in refuges and also the housing crisis itself. There are many forms of violence against women. The lack of housing and homelessness are also forms of state violence against women. Indeed, something like 40% of women who are in homeless accommodation have suffered physical abuse. If that is a global figure and the global picture, we must ask ourselves why is it happening. This is rooted in the system of profit, the system that for generations and hundreds of years has insisted on and set the demarcation in society that women stay at home and breed children, rear them, do all the caring work relating to them and ensure that they are socialised, fed and ready to become the next generation of workers. That is what for thousands of years has put women in the dark and ensure they are not recognised as unique human beings. I quote a journalist named Fiona Vera-Gray in The Guardianwho says:

We are living in a world where women’s humanity is constantly undermined. Where what we look like is more important than what we do, and where what is done to us is more important than who we are. Research on men’s sexual aggression has shown that the denial of women’s 'human uniqueness' is a driving factor for some men who commit [violent and] sexual offences.

I really want to push the question of education and non-ethos-based sex education in our schools. It must be of that nature, otherwise we are not going to rear a generation of men and boys, and indeed girls, who understand that uniqueness of human beings.

There is also the question of why it is that women's bodies, women's shapes and women's images are used to make vast amounts of money. The pornographic industry is one of the most lucrative businesses on the planet. There is a fact that was published recently which indicates that the traffic of those accessing porn on the Internet - and it must be said that pornography on the Internet involving women is increasingly more violent and deadly in certain circumstances - from on sites that stream it is more per month than the traffic relating to Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. That is a startling statistic and it reflects so badly on the world we live in, which is a world that undermines women's humanity. The question of culture is a big part of it here and non-consent of women is seem by some as titillating, as attractive, as a barrier to be overcome and as a challenge. Coercion is often seen as being sexy and the brutality of that cannot be overstated. Thus, we will not change the minds of men just by talking about it; we change their minds by starting with the root-and-branch causes of it.

I will finish on the role of this House. We cannot exonerate the previous Government for its failure in this area. It was mentioned in the newspapers this week, and I mentioned it several times in the previous Dáil, but what has happened to second SAVI report? The Minister's predecessor, Francis Fitzgerald MEP, replied to me in November 2017 when I asked her if she could lean on the then Taoiseach to spend the money to produce the second SAVI report. She stated:

We need up-to-date macro information on sexual and domestic violence in this country.

[...]

This matter was discussed at a Cabinet sub-committee last week. The initial scoping work has begun to determine how precisely it will be carried out.

That was almost five years ago, and a new report is almost 20 years overdue. How then do those on the Minister's side of the House explain the inadequacies in dealing with this problem if the Government cannot even produce a report?

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