What do you need to know about gender based violence in rural areas?
Living rurally in NI as a woman can be idyllic, surrounded by beautiful landscapes and close knit communities but there are many challenges for rural women when it comes to addressing and having to live with gender based violence. It is a topic which is consistently raised by Northern Ireland Rural Women’s Network along with other organisations such as Women’s Aid NI but there continues to be little awareness and few interventions which reflect the rural experiences of women facing these issues.
The geography of the land, dispersed communities, distance from services and sheer nature of living in a rural area can provide an environment for gender based violence that is invisible and hidden from sight. New research has shown that 98% of women living in rural NI have had at least one incident of gender based violence in their lives.
In Northern Ireland, within rural communities, very often there is a patriarchal culture with regard to where power and influence lies; who owns the local shop, who the GP is, who deals with local policing. All of those front line, citizen facing services remain very male-led. It's very difficult if women want to disclose an incident of gender-based violence but feel they won't be believed or their experience minimised. This brings with it shame and guilt and a direct result is a lack of reporting or accessing support. There is a culture of silence and privacy in rural communities where people do not wish others to know their personal struggles; this means that women are very isolated and can feel both physically and emotionally very far from help.
One of the primary challenges many rural women face today is, access poverty, the ability to access to services. In the face of gender based violence this lack of access can literally be a case of life or death. Service support to deal with and report such incidents along with the under-resourcing of policing in rural areas to tackle gender based violence means that risk is significantly increased for rural women. It is a well researched fact that domestic violence risk is higher in rural areas. It can last much longer and leave women extremely vulnerable and isolated.
One of the persistent mantras related to those who misunderstand relationships based on coercive control is; ‘why doesn’t/didn’t she just leave?’ Those of us who work on this or have experienced gender based violence know that it is never this simple and research illustrates that women are most vulnerable when leaving or having just left an abusive relationship. If women are to leave they require safe places to go to. The decrease in funding for Women’s Aid; which offers refuge space and support reduces the safe space options for rural women with the result that they remain in dangerous situations for longer.
Lack of social housing in rural areas and lack of private rented accommodation means that to leave women often have to wholly uproot themselves and their children from their locality; including schools, doctor surgeries, peer support. This is such a huge change that we know rural women are very reluctant to leave unsafe homes, particularly when it will create so much disruption for their children. Many rural women are living in houses built on their husband/partner’s family land, often surrounded by his family members’ homes. This means, in a domestic violence situation, women will choose to leave the marital home and often have to move out of the area.
If a rural woman chooses to remain, post separation, in the family home but that home is attached to a family farm even if she has a protective order against her husband/partner, if he holds the farm ID number; he is still able to come and tend to the farm animals as often as he likes; passing her home at any time of the day or night thus negating the safety provided by a protection order rendering it useless. Animal health and welfare supercedes that of women and children in rural Northen Ireland. leaving her very vulnerable. How does she protect herself when the laws in place can’t protect her?
Lack of access to flexible, affordable transport can impact on a woman’s ability to leave a violent relationship. So, when people ask; ‘why doesn’t/didn’t she just leave?’; even setting aside the complex coercive, emotional and financial factors, we would ask in reply; where does she go and how will she get there?
We need to ensure that those in policy making and decision-making spaces understand the challenges facing rural women but also acknowledge and recognise that rural may need different solutions and resources to address what seems like the same issue, in this case violence against women and girls. Appropriate resourcing and services must take account of the needs of rural women along with the knowledge and awareness that these services exist should a woman be presented with a situation in which she must leave her home.
We also need to ensure that every member of society has a vested interest in eliminating violence against women and girls. This is not an issue solely for women to deal with; it is not a private issue but one of public policy and the responsibility of all citizens to acknowledge the culture of gender-based violence in NI and be intentional about addressing it. To men we say it isn’t enough to say ‘not all men, not me’; we require men, rural men to be allies, to be active, to support us with this; to tackle and challenge negative attitudes towards women and girls where the see and hear it and to support initiatives in their rural community to support women facing any type of gender-based violence. It isn’t enough to say; ‘not me’ you must ask; ‘what can I do?’.
This is an important societal issue for us all to address. We are long overdue a Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy in this region; our women and girls deserve nothing less. NIRWN call for recognition that NI has a gender-based violence problem; we call for the end of gender-based violence against women today. Freedom from all forms of gender-based violence is a fundamental human right. We need to ensure that all women feel safe in their daily lives and that solutions are resourced effectively and are appropriate for rural women’s needs.
About the Author - Charmain Jones is employed as Women’s Spaces Co-ordinator (Rural) at NIRWN and has worked for over 20 years in the field of Good Relations, Peacebuilding, Community Development and Youth Development.
