According to a recent survey, one in fourteen people who visit specialised health facilities in Ireland to report a rape or sexual assault experienced sexual violence while travelling elsewhere, reports Breaking News.
Doctors at the nation’s six Sexual Assault Treatment Units (SATUs) have been encouraged by the research’s findings to advise anybody who has been sexually assaulted while outside of Ireland to get medical help right away and receive the proper follow-up treatment when they return home.
Seven percent of all attendees of a SATU between 2017 and 2023 reported experiencing sexual assault in another nation, according to the study, reports Breaking News.
It also showed that, with the exception of 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, the number of recorded incidents of sexual assault outside of Ireland has increased significantly each year, rising from 55 in 2017 to 126 last year, or a 13% rise.
443 cases out of 6,447 attendances at the six SATU facilities in Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Mullingar, Galway, and Letterkenny during the seven-year period had documented a sexual assault occurring outside of Ireland, according to a study of the data, reports Breaking News.
Participants in SATUs reported attending from 66 different countries, with around half of the cases taking place in continental Europe.
With 19% of reported sexual assaults, the UK was the second most common place, followed by Africa (17.8%), North America (6.1%), Australasia (3.4%), the Middle East (2.0%), and Central/South America (1.8%), reports Breaking News.
According to the study, which was published in the International Journal of Legal Medicine, women made up slightly more than 90% of those who reported such incidents, with an average age of 26.6 years.
With 43% of the total, 18 to 25-year-olds were the highest age group impacted by what are known as “international cases.”
In school or third-level schooling, three out of ten people who reported experiencing sexual violence overseas did so, reports Breaking News.
African nationalities made for 17% of all overseas cases, while Irish citizens accounted for two-thirds.
In July or August, over 25% of all patients went to a SATU, reports Breaking News.
According to the survey, 24% of people sought help between seven days and a month following the sexual assault, and 38% of people went to a SATU within a week of the occurrence.
Eight percent of instances were characterised as appearing after long-term abuse or prostitution, and just under thirty percent of cases of someone being sexually assaulted while overseas were reported more than a month after the occurrence, reports Breaking News.
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