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FIGURES show that four per cent of all PSNI-recorded domestic violence crimes with female victims occur within the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area.
In 2023/2024 alone, Omagh Women’s Aid supported 102 women and children.
Organised by the Inner Wheel Club in Omagh, the event entitled ‘Ending Violence Against Women and Girls in Fermanagh and Omagh’ was attended by almost 100 people.
Among the main speakers was Kerri Flood, Interim Director of Women’s Aid in Fermanagh.
Figures show that the county is one of the worst affected by domestic violence, with a total of 15 per-cent of the femicides in Northern Ireland having taken place in the county.
Speaking at the event, Kerri Flood said that women and children locally now faced a ‘high-risk scenario,’ and that the border region was being exploited by abusers.
“There are lovely benefits to living in rural communities, they are tight-knit and supportive. But alongside that comes visibility and so it is often harder to report incidents of domestic violence,” she said.
“This can be because there is a real lack of infrastructure. In a council area such as Fermanagh and Omagh, there are real barriers to report incidents of domestic violence.
“Domestic abuse does not get better, it gets worse and escalates over time. In a rural setting, that means a much higher risk scenario for women and children. We have three per-cent of the population but figures have shown that 15 per-cent of femicides take place here.
Heather Flanagan, a detective constable in the PSNI’s Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking team, revealed that the organisation receives one call every 15 minutes and 30,000 calls annually in relation to domestic violence.
“That equates to 80 domestic abuse calls each day, or one every 16 minutes,” she added.
“It has been estimated that there will be at least 30 incidents of domestic violence before something is reported to the police. But I would imagine that the figure is even higher than that,” she said.
“We have been involved in a particular case here. Fermanagh and Omagh like everywhere else is no different and has its share of exploited people and women.
Detective Flanagan said that at the moment, there are around 500 people annually trafficked to the north. But she added that, while prostitution was usually carried out visibly on the street, the practice was now organised and delivered via mobile phones.
“As I made my way here to Omagh tonight, I drove past at least one brothel that I have investigated. That may or may not be a shock. On any given day, there are dozens of women advertising sexual services here. In years past that might have been on a street corner, and quite visible certainly in Belfast and maybe locally.”
Organised by the Inner Wheel Club in Omagh, the event entitled ‘Ending Violence Against Women and Girls in Fermanagh and Omagh’ was attended by almost 100 people.
