Women feel safer disclosing incidents of sexual violence to a much broader selection of contacts than men do, research carried out by Rape Crisis Ireland shows.
According to Learning from Survivors of Rape and Sexual Violence – Rape Crisis Statistics 2023, published on Thursday, boys and girls aged under 13 years were just about as likely as each other to disclose abuse to their parents.
But as they get older the differences between the sexes widened. In relation to abuse which occurred during teenage years, men were much more likely to first disclose abuse to a medical professional – at 25 per cent of cases – compared to women (7 per cent).
“The overall pattern is that women [who reported sexual violence] felt safe accessing a much broader set of opportunities and choices for disclosure, whereas men were assessing some of those options as less safe and trusted places for them to turn to,” said Dr Clíona Saidléar executive director of Rape Crisis Ireland.
“While acknowledging that 88 per cent of sexual survivors were women, the 12 per cent of male survivors must not be forgotten,” she added.
All 17 rape crisis centres in Ireland welcome male victims through their doors and offer them counselling and other supports, she said.
The statistics showed male survivors of abuse in adulthood were most likely to disclose to a partner (26 per cent), a member of An Garda Síochána (26 per cent), a family member other than a parent (16 per cent), or a medical professional (11 per cent).
Dr Saidléar said it was clear from the statistics the organisation collated that while, “in essence, sexual violence is the same for all survivors, there are key and impactful differences in the way male and woman survivors were targeted and received a response”.
She said “men are targeted differently and the difficulties they face following sexual violence are different too, which means how we think about creating safety, healing and justice for men must be different.”
“What happens to men is a powerful insight into how our culture creates a climate of hostility for survivors and opportunity for perpetrators. How we discriminate on the grounds of sex, gender and sexuality helps to silence and shame survivors, blames and disbelieves them, and minimises both the harm to them and their right to vindication and justice,” she said.
* The Rape Crisis Ireland’s 24-hour national helpline is 1800 77 8888
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