Survivor-led charity launched in Donegal calls for femicide to be specific crime
A survivor-led national charity officially launched in Donegal has called for femicide to be recognised as a specific criminal offence - warning that the killing of women must be treated as preventable rather than inevitable.
The launch of SiSi (Survivors Informing Services and Institutions), which has recently attained charity status, took place in the Nesbitt Arms Hotel in Ardara.
Shortcomings in the response to intimate partner violence and the family court system were all highlighted as SiSi founder and CEO Mary-Louise Lynch said that 13 women have been killed on the island of Ireland so far this year.
“When something can be predicted, it can be prevented, and we need to apply that lens to femicide in Ireland,” Ms Lynch told Donegal Daily.
The launch heard that domestic violence is “through the roof in Donegal” and that sexual violence across the country is “out of control.”
SiSi is a national charity established by women with lived experience of intimate partner violence. It supports women and children navigating coercive control and the family court system, while ensuring survivors’ experiences are used to influence policy, services and institutional responses.
Ms Lynch said the organisation grew from an “outcry” among women struggling to understand and navigate what was happening to them within the family courts.
She said: “We came from individual women who were struggling to process what was happening to them in the family court system, who could not believe the difficulties and the barriers that they were facing.
“We started to talk to one another about how we could make changes and how we could better support each other, and obviously support women who come after us.”
SiSi has now provided ongoing court support and advocacy to more than 200 women, accompanying survivors to court on 204 days and providing 6,850 hours of remote court support.
More than 500 professionals across relevant sectors have received SiSi training, while the organisation has been involved in 16 policy collaborations with national organisations and institutions and participated in 10 major research studies.
It has also delivered the Freedom Programme over 116 weeks, supporting 93 women and training eight facilitators.
A major focus of SiSi’s work is reform of the family court system, particularly the operation of the in-camera rule, which restricts public access to family law proceedings.
Ms Lynch said the recently introduced family law reporting project was welcome but warned that gaps remain, particularly in private family law cases.
“We already see the gaps,” she said. “Private family law cases have the least amount of context in that report.”
She said cases involving child protection or social workers can receive more extensive reporting, while individual private family law cases often remain largely hidden from public scrutiny.
“Because of the in-camera rule, survivors and individual litigants aren't able to give context to their own proceedings,” she said.
“We would like to see a transparent and accountable system where from the outset, survivors' cases can be followed, so you know, the first point of contact with the court system, somebody can say ‘I’m okay with having a legal blogger or somebody report on my case’.
“That case can be followed as it makes its journey through the court system, quite often moving from the District Court to the Circuit Court if divorce is necessary, and while I know we have divorce now in the district court, it's not quite streamlined yet, and then also being able to follow all the way to the High Court if indeed we do need new case law to inform changes on the ground.
“We would like to see that assessors that are working within the court system, that they are exposed to the same level of scrutiny as any other public servant is in their work, so that their reports must be transparent and accountable.
“Obviously we don't want the identity of any parties involved to be revealed, but we have seen this work in another jurisdiction in the UK where the Transparency Project is doing this. there is case progression.
“The reports that are written for court can all be accessed by court reporters, so you can see the bias, you can see flawed methodology, you can see abusive thinking, and you can see the silencing of victim survivors and their experience, you can see the silencing of children survivors as they navigate the system.
“When you shine a light on something, that's the first point of making it better. All other justice is carried out in open, and for justice to be seen, or for justice to be done, it must be seen, and I think that's a key piece, so we're pushing very strongly for that.”
The organisation is also calling for a team of experts to be involved at the outset of family court cases, rather than waiting until complex disputes have escalated.
The launch in Ardara also highlighted the particular difficulties faced by women and children in Donegal and other areas along the border.
Ms Lynch said women regularly cross the border for work or to facilitate access arrangements, while children can cross between jurisdictions to visit family members, attend therapy and access services.
She pointed out that existing European legislation provides a potential mechanism for protection orders obtained in one jurisdiction to be recognised in another, but that the system is not currently working effectively on the ground.
SiSi wants a protection or barring order obtained in the Republic of Ireland to be recognised and enforceable in Northern Ireland, with the PSNI able to provide the same level of protection available south of the border.
“We would like to see this obviously fully implemented and then rolled out, where it becomes a matter of just filling out a form,” Ms Lynch said. The aim, she said, should be to ensure that somebody living on the island can remain protected “no matter where they are and no matter what time of day”.
Ballybofey-based Sinn Féin councillor Dakota Nic Mheanman said the issue was particularly important in Donegal.
“It is great that we are seeing this happening here in Donegal,” she said. “There are just not enough services and supports
“We are a border county and we do have to deal with that reality. There has to be something in place.”
Councillor Nic Mheanman said the statistics around intimate partner violence were “crazy” and “alarming”, and stressed the need for women to receive support before situations escalate, adding: “We also see so many cases where people are not surviving and we need to get early access supports to women.”
Senator Eileen Flynn and Councillor Brian Carr were the other public representatives in attendance at the lunch.
Donegal woman Jenny Vial, a Court Support and Accompaniment Project Worker, said women and their children can be fighting “complex, multi-faceted battles” both at home and in courthouses.
“Our project exists to help ensure that no woman has to walk through courthouse doors alone,” she said.
Ms Vial, herself a survivor of intimate partner violence and coercive control, described her own experience of navigating the courts.
“I remember the long waits and lonely journey it was, the confusion of the paperwork, the legal terminology, and the crushing weight of feeling entirely unseen and unheard by a system that was extremely difficult to navigate at times,” she said.
Ms Vial recently graduated from TUS with a qualification in Reflecting on and Responding to Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control. She said this education reinforced what SiSi live by on a daily basis.
“SiSi is trauma-informed, trauma-aware and deeply compassionate,” she said. “We do not just sit beside a woman in a courtroom; we hold a space of safety for her.
“We help her find her voice and we advocate strongly, fiercely and unconditionally for her right to justice.”
Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme