Letter from the Irish times, which I reckon mirror the views of most women in the country and not the sensationalists.
Sir, – The UN Office on Drugs and Crime monitors the rates of homicide across the world. In 2019, the last year for which reasonably complete statistics are available, Ireland had the 11th lowest rate of homicide against women of the 193 UN member states.
With 0.33 homicides of women per 100,000 population, we had the lowest rate of the homicide of women in the European Union, and the third lowest on the European continent as a whole, behind Iceland and tiny Liechtenstein.
In countries such as Norway, Canada and New Zealand – often held out as nirvanas for women’s rights by NGOs and lobby groups – women die by homicide at rates of between 0.5 and 0.93 women per hundred thousand, in other words at between two and three times the rate of killing in Ireland.
These are the facts.
No level of murder is acceptable, and statistics provide no comfort when we are talking about the loss of life.
But if anybody beamed down from Mars last week and observed the media coverage of this issue, would they get the impression that the number of homicides against women in Ireland is among the lowest in the world?
On the contrary, one narrative was permitted, which is that the rates of murder, violence and sexual violence against women are completely out of control and rising exponentially, with women – all women – facing potentially mortal danger on a daily basis, and men – all men – being culpable for this.
One broadsheet daily newspaper had a front-page headline by a female writer which asked “Which of us will be next?”
What purpose does it serve to terrorise women and suggest that we should become prisoners in our own homes? What is the point of demonising all men as being responsible, and not the absolutely tiny percentage of so-called men who are the perpetrators
And why doesn’t a single female politician or representative group have the courage to shout “stop” to this hysteria? – Yours, etc,
SARAH-ANNE
CLEARY,
Strokestown,
Co Roscommon.