The Irish and Ulster rugby rape trial is not a one-off – this is what it’s like to be a woman in Northern Ireland

Ireland is a cruel and toxic place to be a woman seeking agency over her own body. Time and time again, our bodies are proven to be not our own

After a gruelling nine week trial, Irish and Ulster rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, and two of their friends, Blane McIlroy and Rory Harrison, have been found not guilty of raping a 19-year-old female student at a house party two years ago.

For women, especially Irish women, it’s been an emotional, exhausting and traumatic nine weeks.

The woman did what we are all taught to do. She sought medical help, went to the police and reported the incident, agreed to be a prosecution witness, and sat through nine weeks of humiliation as every detail of that night came under scrutiny inside and outside the court. What was she wearing? Had she been drinking? Her blood-stained underwear was passed around the court and her character was dragged through the mud by the media and public.

Sexual violence and abuse is endemic in Northern Ireland. In 2016, 810 rapes and 30,000 incidents of domestic abuse were reported in Northern Ireland. In the last five years, the country has experienced a 40 per cent increase in the number of rapes reported yet less than 1 in 10 rape cases ended in prosecution.

And what happens if a woman who has been raped becomes pregnant and wants to terminate her pregnancy? Northern Ireland has one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe and abortion under any circumstances, including rape and incest, is illegal despite the UN contesting that the law violates human rights. If a woman wishes to have an abortion, she has to travel to mainland Britain to procure legal and safe healthcare, undergoing more trauma and financial expenses. While a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment which prohibits abortion has been confirmed for 25 May in the Republic, in the north there’s no such movement towards a change in law.

Ireland is a cruel and toxic place to be a woman seeking agency over her own body. Time and time again, our bodies are proven to be not our own. In 2016, a 21-year old Northern Irish woman was reported to the police by her flatmates for taking illegal abortion pills because she couldn’t afford to travel to mainland Britain. She was taken to court and given a three month prison sentence.

When I grew up in Northern Ireland, the Troubles were no longer the biggest threat of violence facing its people – instead it’s the state’s control of women’s bodies. Irish women can’t win. If we don’t report sexual violence, we’re told it’s our fault that assailants get away with it, yet if we do report, we’re called liars and attention seekers. No woman goes through two years of trauma and humiliation for the attention.

In the aftermath of the verdict, Irish women have been vocal in their rage and frustration at yet another incident of a woman not being believed or trusted.

Rallies have been held and people are using the #IBelieveHer hashtag to show their support for the woman at the centre of this case.

The repercussions of the trial will be deeply felt. The police and charities are concerned that the verdict and public shaming of the woman in this case will stop others from coming forward and reporting sexual violence. Meanwhile, Jackson and Olding are preparing to return to rugby, or as the Belfast Telegraph ran in their headline: “Four young men and their families now face challenge of putting lives back together after harrowing case.”

And the woman? How will she put her life back together after two years of being called a slut, liar, and having every detail of her life paraded in front of a court?