THE murder of 64-year-old Alyson Nelson has once again put the spotlight on the level of violence perpetrated against women in Northern Ireland society.
The retired nurse became the 14th name on the list of woman violently killed here since 2020.
The murder of 23-year-old school teacher Ashling Murphy in Co Offaly in January sparked a widespread outpouring of grief and anger over the dangers still being faced by women in 2022.
But the threat appears more apparent in the north, which in recent years was shown to have one of the highest rates of domestic killings per capita in Europe.
PSNI statistics show 26 women were killed in the north by either an intimate partner, family or relative between 2017 and 2021.
The seven murders in 2021 left Northern Ireland with a rate of 0.73 killings per 100,000 of the female population.
In the cases where the perpetrator was an 'intimate partner', the rate was 0.52 per 100,000.
The most recent data available for England and Wales, put the rate there at 0.27 killings per 100,000 in 2018.
The Northern Ireland branch of the ROSA feminist movement, which campaigns against gender-based violence, said Alyson Nelson’s name had been added to “the heartbreaking list of women who have been killed by men's violence in Northern Ireland”.
Stormont commenced work earlier this year on strategies aimed at tackling both domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.
It followed the introduction of new legislation in February, which made coercive control a specific criminal offence for the first time in the north.
As part of the initial work on the new strategies, Stormont’s Executive Committee heard evidence last month on research that showed 92 per cent of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with male violence against women and girls.
The research, presented by the Women’s Resource and Development Agency (WRDA), found while more than 80 per cent of respondents had been impacted by male violence, only 21 per cent had reported it to the police.
Addressing the committee, Rachel Powell of the WRDA said: “For way too long we have focused on the behaviour of women, told women how to do things safely and how to not be attacked and how to not be assaulted.
“Women have said to us that needs to change, the focus needs to be on men and boys’ behaviour and actions.”
The group has called for the future strategies to be appropriately resourced.
“We can’t have a strategy which just sits on the shelf,” she told MLAs.
