The true number of people who experience sexual violence in Ireland is likely to be “considerably higher” than studies show due to a difficulty in defining experiences, academics have said. The prevalence of sexual violence varied between sexes with one in five women reporting being raped, compared with one in 10 men. However, Dr Caroline West, a sex educator and host of the Glow West podcast, believes the true figures are higher than reported as victims of this violence struggle to label incidents as sexual assault. “I think that all the things that would influence how the numbers are reported are likely to result in underreporting. We need to start to think why are we accepting this and what are we going to do to fix it,” she said.

Source: The Irish Times November 25, 2020 18:37 UTC