Women & Girls

Empowering Women

The Community Foundation for Ireland and its donors are committed to Empowering Generations in Inclusive Communities. For over a decade The Women’s Fund has been an integral part of our work focusing on increasing participation, representation and leadership as well as combatting social issues which confront women and girls every day.

The Fund also engages the growing number of women who are philanthropists, keen to be part of the solution.

We work and support grantee partners in all 26-counties from smaller community groups to  national organisations and campaigns.

Together we are confronting inequalities, providing support to those in immediate need and advocating for the policy changes to bring about systemic change.

Since the establishment of the Women’s Fund we have seen some positive change. New laws to combat sexually based violence, more women elected, though still far short of full equality, as well health and wellbeing supports.

Despite these successes the impact of Covid-19 has shown inequality remains with women disproportionately affected both socially and economically.

As Ireland enters recovery an important moment has arrived. Our donors and our grantees working with and supported by The Community Foundation have an opportunity to confront inequality in all its forms and bring about real long-lasting change.

Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence

The crisis of violence against women and girls has hidden in plain sight for too long. Covid-19 and its lockdowns brought this to the fore with women and their children literally imprisoned in their own home with their abuser.

Huge spikes in calls for help have been reported. Our partners were responding to seven calls every hour of the Pandemic. SafeIreland, a network of 39-local support services, is clear in its No Going Back report that Covid did not cause Domestic Violence it simply shone a spotlight on it.

Donors to The Women’s Fund have delivered real policy change which must now be built on. Through our partnership SafeIreland has established a state-of-the-art legislative standard identifying and criminalising coercive control.

As well as supporting national networks and groups, our donors also worked with us to identify areas of need in specific communities. On International Women’s Day 2021 this led to an anonymous donor providing support for the First Ever Domestic Violence Safe House in West Cork. Additional supports resulted in increase is services around the country.

In addition, our ability to identify trends and work with partners on complex issues has seen focussed initiatives reaching out to women and providing supports in communities where domestic violence levels are even higher than in general society.

Sexually based violence is not confined to the home, nor is it confined within families.

The Women’s Fund at The Community Foundation for Ireland was instrumental in changing Irish law in 2017 by supporting a civil society campaign of over 70 groups, organisations and survivors to demand a re-focus to prosecute the buyers of prostitution rather than the women involved.

The Turn Off the Red Light Campaign achieved its goal. The law is having an impact and prosecution of buyers has increased. But this is a complex issue and there are still over 1,000 women and girls for sale online in Ireland each week.

Our approach is based on research, evidence and the testimony of those involved. The Sexual Exploitation Research Programme (SERP) at UCD, supported by our donors, has produced ground-breaking research such as Shifting The Burden of Criminality which outlines exit strategies needed so women can leave prostitution. In November 2021 further research Confronting the Harm shone a light on the damage prositution causes to the health and wellbeing of women and girls.

Advocates such as The National Women's Council of Ireland, The Immigrant Council of Ireland, Ruhama with frontline emergency workers at Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and The Trade Union Movement have with the support of our donors united to form Beyond Exploitation.

This survivor centred campaign together with the work of SERP is delivering results.

A Government commitment to quash the convictions of women prior to the 2017 law change has been secured as well as a further commitment to introduce pathways for undocumented women to regularise their status.

The campaign continues to secure other important goals.

In addition ground-breaking research undertaken with The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has shown that Most People believe Ireland has an issue around consent. This research is now paving the way for further actions.

You, our donors are key to ensuring that awareness raising, education and policy change happen to protect those women and girls in the most dangerous of situations.

Employment

The under-representation of women in various careers, in politics and in leadership roles across Irish society lies at the very heart of the inequality we live with today.

Gender accounts for one-in-three of all discrimination complaints in Irish workplaces. We see too discrimination in terms of earnings. In Dublin, which has the highest median wage in the country the gap is clear. Men earn €717.67 per week compared to €573 for women.

With the support of donors we have partnered with community groups, campaigners and national organisations like An Cosán. 

We have identified a continuing need to support women through further development of local education, training and employment services in the community. We also work with national advocates like the National Women’s Council to end employment discrimination in all its forms. The launch of the Marian Finucane Bursary Fund is opening up new opportunities.