The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre recorded an 18 per cent increase in the number of calls to its crisis helpline last year.
The centre's 24-hour crisis line received 11,808 "genuine calls" in 2002, up from 10,000 in 2001, its annual report, published yesterday, reveals.
The 2001 figure represented a 20 per cent increase on the previous year's 7,200. Ms Muireann O'Briain, chief executive of the centre, said media coverage of sexual abuse, including documentaries such as the BBC's Suing the Pope, had been "important in making people feel its OK to come forward".
They showed it is "ordinary everyday people" who are abused, and they haven't done something wrong themselves.
Ms Clare Collins, a statistician who worked on the report, said an increasing proportion (34 per cent) of people contacting the crisis line had been raped or sexually abused by a stranger, compared with 32 per cent last year and 21 per cent in 2000. The proportion of male callers has also increased, up from 12 per cent in 2001 to 19 per cent last year. The vast majority of callers were under 30, with 8 per cent under the age of 15, 32 per cent aged between 15 and 19, 27 per cent between 20 and 29 and 33 per cent aged 30 or older.
Ms O'Briain also said there was an increasing number of refugees and asylum-seekers contacting the centre. "We are doing research to get numbers on how many and from which countries they are from. We don't have exact numbers but we have noticed they are increasing."
She said the vast majority had suffered rape or sexual assault in their native countries as a result of war or torture. Research on this, she said, would be finished by the end of the year, with a view to working with other agencies on how best the centre could help victims.
Ms O'Briain said it would be "wrong" to rely on the Garda crime statistics for an accurate picture of the need for counselling and therapeutic services.
Just 33 per cent of those cases the centre dealt with, she said, were reported to the gardaí. In 2001, when the centre received 10,000 genuine calls the gardaí recorded 314 sexual offences in the Dublin area and 154 in the eastern region.
In 2000, when the centre received 7,200 calls, the gardaí recorded 78 instances of rape in Dublin and 59 in the eastern region. The 2002 Garda crime figures will not be available until September. Some 74 per cent of calls to the centre were from Dublin callers, with 26 per cent from around the State.
Ms Angela McCarthy, head of training at the centre and a therapist, stressed the need for more education in secondary schools about sexual violence. "So that, without alarming young people, they know about the fact it can happen, that they have rights and that they can get access to help if it does happen."
She said their volunteers had been invited to a number of schools, but a lack of resources prevented them extending the service. The centre has 17 other centres around the State.
