Minister for Children visits RCNI

16^th June 2011

RCNI to raise concern at increasing number of children and teenagers contacting rape crisis centres for help when Minister for Children and Youth Affairs pays visit today.

RCNI Today will discuss its concerns about the increasing numbers of children and teenagers attending rape crisis centres at a meeting with the Minister today the 16^th June.

Fiona Neary, RCNI director said ‘through our nationally coordinated data collection it is becoming clear that a much higher number of children and teenagers are attending rape crisis centres than has been previously appreciated. It may in fact be the case that rape crisis centres provide specialist services to more child survivors of sexual violence than any other non governmental agency. Generally, these children are sexually victimised outside of the family home and outside of the domestic context. Our findings again emphasise the need for national coordinated expert data collection across front line services, so that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs can have a clear picture regarding the sexual victimisation of children and who is perpetrating these crimes.

The RCNI will continue to monitor this data closely as we have a range of concerns, including whether or not there are sufficient supports available to teenagers, whether these numbers will continue to increase, how the RCNI can best support RCCs as resources continue to reduce and how this data can best be made available to government and all agencies working in child protection.

Notes:

·         72 children accessed rape crisis centres in 2009. RCNI will launch comprehensive data on 2010 in November 2011.

·         There are 14 member Rape Crisis Centres in the RCNI

·         In 2009 RCNI member RCCs provided counselling and support services to 787 adult clients who had experienced sexual abuse as children.