Marie Brown to discuss paramilitary-related coercive control with Dr. Aisling Swaine and Máiría Cahill

The Foyle Women’s Aid director will join Dr. Aisling Swaine, Professor of Peace, Security and International Law at Sutherland School of Law, UCD, and writer Máiría Cahill for a panel debate on The Impact of Paramilitary-related Gendered Coercive Control at the Belfast Campus of Ulster University.

The event follows a report by Dr. Swaine, commissioned by Foyle Women’s Aid, that focused on the Derry area, and gathered testimony from women who had suffered coercive control from partners and who spoke of the influence of paramilitarism.

Ms. Brown said: "This report highlights the experiences of violence many women suffer within their relationships and is intensified by the layers of paramilitary coercive control that occurs at community level.

"It is vitally important to take away an understanding of what is really happening to women in these communities and the level of threat they are under, from everywhere."

The event is sponsored by The John and Pat Hume Foundation.

Dawn Purvis, Vice Chair of the John and Pat Hume Foundation said: “26 years after the Good Friday Agreement, it is outrageous that there is still criminal paramilitary organisations which threaten, instil fear and continue to exert control over women in many communities across NI. As John Hume said, ‘The basis of peace and stability, in any society, has to be the fullest respect for the human rights of all its people.’”