VIOLENCE against women and girls in Northern Ireland is a critical issue and one we cannot ignore.

Earlier this month, 23-year-old Ellie Flanagan died in her home in Enniskillen.

Martin McCarney (45), also from the town, has been charged with her murder.

While that case remains before the courts and should not be commented upon, it is a fact that almost 30 women have been killed in Northern Ireland since 2020.

We have one of Europe’s highest per capita femicide rates.

We have a serious issue in this part of the world that needs to be addressed if we are to stop violence against women and girls. And we all have our part to play in that.

It is a complicated issue, that’s certain. We have ingrained, post-conflict patriarchy, low reporting rates, and struggling organisations that have to battle for funding every year so they can supply support services.

We also have the very real issue of how violence was and still is normalised and celebrated in some quarters of this place.

People of violence are celebrated and commemorated, painted on gable walls, guns in hand, under slogans about being undefeated or ready for war.

People who have inflicted violence have bands and parks named after them and some of our leaders pay tribute to them.

Murder has and still continues to be justified and celebrated – someone deserved death because they were security forces or paramilitary.

How many times have we heard that someone who was kneecapped ‘didn’t get it for nothing’.

We have a serious problem here of imagining what is good violence and what is bad violence.

Add to the mix the pressure on communities not to talk to the police – the old ‘tout’ and ‘informer’ labels have been handed down through the generations like precious heirlooms.

So, when violence happens in homes and communities, it goes unreported, no-one is held accountable, the violence continues and women stay silent.

And that silence has consequences. It creates the perfect environment for abuse to take root and thrive.

It teaches men who use violence that there will be no repercussions, and it teaches women and girls that their fear, their hurt, their disappearance into themselves is something they must simply endure.

We have built a culture where too many victims feel safer staying quiet than seeking help, and where too many perpetrators feel protected by their community’s unwillingness to challenge them.

That didn’t happen overnight. It was shaped by decades of conflict, by systems that failed women, by the stories we told ourselves about who deserved what, and by the glorification of those who inflicted harm.

But cultures aren’t fixed. They’re shaped by people, and they can be reshaped by people.

Stopping violence against women and girls starts with refusing to accept the attitudes and behaviours that allow it to flourish.

It starts in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our WhatsApp groups, our social and community spaces. It starts and ends with us.

We can all challenge the casual misogyny that still slips so easily into conversation.

We can refuse to laugh at the jokes that dehumanise women, refuse to stay quiet when someone blames a victim for what was done to her, refuse to tolerate words that excuse controlling behaviour as ‘just the way he is’.

All micro-moments, but they matter.

We can teach our sons – and our daughters – about consent, about empathy, about boundaries, about healthy relationships, repeatedly, from childhood into the teenage years when it matters most.

We can support the organisations on the frontline - the centres, the charities, the counsellors, the outreach workers - the people who show up day after day to pull women out of danger and help them rebuild their lives.

We must continue to demand better from the systems meant to protect women.

We need properly resourced policing. We need courts that don’t retraumatise victims. We need education programmes that begin early and aren’t optional.

We need the burden to be carried by the perpetrators and not the victims.

There are 29 women in Northern Ireland who should still be alive. Their names should not become a grim list we add to year after year.

If anything should come from such a monumental and heartbreaking loss, it’s the determination to say: no more.

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© The Irish News