The British Government and NI Assembly Have Failed Northern Irish Women
By Megan Dunlop, Policy Fellow 2025-2026. This article originally appeared in Europinion.
A few weeks ago, racist thugs overwhelmed Belfast. They set the city alight, assaulted the police and terrorised local communities. They claimed to be protecting the women and children of Northern Ireland, but the hypocrisy of these far-right ‘protectors’ is ridiculous. Similar racist riots occurred in 2024, it subsequently emerging that 48% of people arrested in connection to these riots had a domestic abuse conviction. Their outrage is misdirected. 30 women have been murdered in Northern Ireland since 2020. Where is our outrage for them?
Gender-based violence and femicide in Northern Ireland are at critical levels. An estimated 98% of women will experience some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime. The 30 murders since 2020 has resulted in the highest per capita rate in the UK and Ireland, and the third highest in Europe.
Despite evidence of an endemic crisis, this failure is only deemed newsworthy when another femicide occurs and never garners the outrage we have seen this week. Women such as Sarah Montgomery, Karen Cummings, and Ellie Flanaghan deserve more than temporary outrage. Women’s safety must be treated as a legal obligation by the government, not as an afterthought. The ongoing cycle of grief, outrage, and inaction must end, and both Westminster and Stormont share responsibility.
Understanding the socio-economic and psychological patterns behind these figures is fraught with difficulty. Nevertheless, in Northern Ireland such challenges have too often been used to justify inaction. Note the historical, structural, and policy influences that have articulated these outcomes. While Sonya McMullan’s observation that ‘it all goes back to the bloody Troubles’ is overly simplistic, factors such as deep religious conservatism, the influence of paramilitary groups, and the instability of Northern Irish politics are all significant. These may explain certain delays – they do not excuse them. Too often, they have been used to justify postponing legislation that other parts of the UK adopted years ago.
Since 2010, the Home Office has introduced several strategies to address violence against women and girls (VAWG), but these efforts have lacked consistent definitions, effective implementation, expertise, cross-departmental support, and adequate funding. As a result, they have not been prioritised. It is therefore unsurprising that many women have lost trust in the government's primary function to protect them.
In December 2025, the Home Office published its most recent action plan. The document initially appears robust, proposing a three-pillar, whole-of-society approach that includes prevention, pursuit of perpetrators, and support, with £550 million allocated to support services. This approach is appropriate, particularly the prevention pillar, which ranges from school curriculum to family support programmes, though its feasibility remains uncertain. However, it is disappointing that the strategy does not address sentencing, which often discourages women from reporting domestic violence and has consistently let down survivors who have come forward.
Although presented as a cross-government strategy, this document applies almost exclusively to England and Wales, with VAWG being viewed as a devolved issue. Phillips has been vocal and forthcoming regarding her support for Assembly regarding this issue, while this is vital, this support must be more clearly implemented into policy. Within the action plan the word ‘Ireland’ does not appear, even though Northern Ireland is under British legal jurisdiction. This omission highlights a deeper constitutional issue, where devolved responsibility for justice and policing is used to justify inaction by Westminster. While Northern Ireland possesses its own VAWG strategy, it was only introduced in early 2025, and lacks sufficient funding and support. A truly cross-governmental strategy should either engage meaningfully with devolved contexts or acknowledge its geographical and constitutional limitations.
Generally, Northern Irish policies to protect and support women are introduced years after implementation in other devolved nations. The Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act 2021 criminalised coercive control years after England and Wales, and its implementation has been inconsistent. Much of the British Government’s VAWG framework applies only to England and Wales, leaving women in Northern Ireland without comparable protections, despite facing greater risk. A more effective strategy would include direct legislative commitments for Northern Ireland or clear mechanisms to encourage and support the Northern Ireland Executive to develop equivalent provisions.
It would be inaccurate to attribute the failure to support women solely to the British government. The repeated collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive between 2017 and 2024 created significant institutional instability, resulting in a lack of accountability for VAWG policy and halting effective policy development. Although the strategy was published in 2025, it does not address the needs of women living in devolved nations during periods of political dysfunction. The British government should establish baseline statutory protections that remain in place during executive collapse, secure funding streams independent of ministerial continuity, and implement accountability mechanisms that function outside the political cycle.
A critical yet often overlooked aspect of the Northern Ireland context is the impact of sectarian conflict. After The Troubles, domestic violence in Northern Ireland increased in line with global post-conflict trends. Historically, paramilitary organisations intervened in domestic disputes, discouraging formal reporting. Women who reported abuse often faced social ostracism or direct threats. This dynamic persisted after the Good Friday Agreement. Any strategy that fails to acknowledge and address this context cannot effectively support the women most at risk in Northern Ireland. Transitional justice mechanisms have largely neglected gendered violence, and this strategy misses an opportunity to connect VAWG policy to the broader unresolved issues of conflict legacy.
This week's fires have already begun to cool. The news cycle will move on, as it always does. But Sarah Montgomery, Karen Cummings, and Ellie Flanagan will not be remembered by the men who claimed this week to be defending Northern Irish women. They never are. Until Westminster and Stormont treat femicide with political urgency, nothing will change. Thirty women since 2020. The question is not whether Northern Ireland has a crisis. It is whether anyone in power will ever treat it like one.
