{"id":410666,"date":"2026-04-21T21:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/410666\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:30:08","slug":"millions-earmarked-to-tackle-northern-irelands-epidemic-of-violence-against-women-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/410666\/","title":{"rendered":"Millions earmarked to tackle Northern Ireland\u2019s \u2018epidemic\u2019 of violence against women \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tackling misogyny in young men will be central to the next phase of a Stormont plan to end violence against women and girls, Northern Ireland<\/a>\u2019s First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

As femicide rates continue to rise in the North, O\u2019Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly<\/a> confirmed on Tuesday that a further \u00a32 million has been earmarked for the second stage of a seven-year Executive strategy.<\/p>\n

Youth leaders, student nurses and academics were among those who attended the launch and gave accounts of training delivered in schools, sporting organisations and hospitals to address gender-based violence since the programme began two years ago.<\/p>\n

Referring to the violent deaths of 30 women<\/a> in the North since 2020, O\u2019Neill described the levels of violence as an \u201cepidemic\u201d and a \u201cscourge of our society\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCultural change takes time … whilst we\u2019re making strides forward, we\u2019ve a lot more to do,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with young boys and younger men in particular around behaviours, misogyny, coercive control and helping young people to understand what healthy relationships look like … that\u2019s a really good place to start [for phase two].\u201d<\/p>\n

The North\u2019s gender-based violence strategy has received a \u00a35 million (\u20ac5.75 million) investment since 2024 compared to the \u20ac363 million strategy announced by the Government in the Republic in 2022.<\/p>\n

Addressing the impact of the first phase amid concerns about the number of women killed, Little-Pengelly said the value in the strategy is in \u201cwhat you don\u2019t see\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s those who don\u2019t get murdered and do not live with violence every day,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0It\u2019s the \u2018subtle signs\u2019: Hairdressers in North get police training to spot coercive controlOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

At the heart of the plan is the \u201ckey principle of prevention\u201d through training in schools and youth groups which will require \u201csustained investment\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, the strategy was never immediately going to end violence against women and girls. We said that at the time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Criticism of online platforms promoting misogyny was also made by Little-Pengelly, who described social media as \u201can absolute sewer\u201d.<\/p>\n

She spoke of the personal impact of online threats she received and suggested that the response demonstrated that societal attitudes had to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had somebody who has been jailed for threatening to kill me online. Some of our newspapers etc barely referenced it,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone who is the Deputy First Minister, jointly leading this Executive, has somebody who is jailed for quite a period of time for a threat to kill and yet there will be focus on other issues … to me that is an indication that people are not taking these issues seriously. People do not understand the impact that has on a woman, on a person in terms of the fear people feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one example I personally experienced and there was a conviction, that person was jailed under the Online Safety Act. But more must be done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tackling misogyny in young men will be central to the next phase of a Stormont plan to end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57346,61,60,3659,43,2443,103173],"class_list":{"0":"post-410666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-emma-little-pengelly","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-michelle-o-neill","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-northern-ireland-assembly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}