OUR STORY
The starting point of this project was a simple statistic. People who are subjected to non-fatal strangulation (NFS), are 750% more likely to subsequently be murdered by that same perpetrator [1]. The lived reality of this statistic is that many organisations working to combat domestic abuse (DA) and/or intimate partner violence (IPV), consider NFS as the last ‘warning shot’ before fatalities occur [2].
Whilst we are aware that statistics can often silence complexity, our research into NFS, particularly in Northern Ireland (NI), does not mirror this. For us, it rapidly became clear that NFS was more common than it was understood.
NFS is in the conversations with peers and friends that equate this crime with a kink, namely choking, during sex.
NFS is ubiquitous in pornography, where violence against women and girls is being normalised and men’s control over women’s bodies is rehearsed and performed.
NFS is also a pattern occurring in the violent deaths of women in Northern Ireland. Non-fatal strangulation or death by strangulation was a feature in 52% of all femicides in Northern Ireland since 2020. [3]
OUR GOALs
RAISE AWARENESS OF NON-FATAL STRANGULATION
OFFER IMPARTIAL ADVICE AND AVENUES FOR SUPPORT
PRESENT RESEARCH-LED RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE TO TACKLE NFS
This project was undertaken by the following students undertaking the MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at Queen’s University Belfast:
Salomey Adu, Chantelle Annan, Liz Biron, Milly Boyle, Hannah Ferguson, Kate McClellan, Helena Meehan, Corinn
Olson, Gregor Stanley, Alex Stevenson.
The project was supervised by Dr Aishling Mc Morrow (a.mcmorrow@qub.ac.uk) at Queen’s University Belfast.
The project was kindly funded by the CiviContribution Fund and the Faculty Research Initiatives Fund both at Queen’s University Belfast
Sources
[1] Training Institute for Strangulation Prevention; Domestic Violence Services Network, Inc.
[2] Alliance for Hope International, https://www.allianceforhope.org/training-institute-on-strangulation-prevention/online-courses
[3] Where details of cause of death are known. The real figure could be much higher (Mc Morrow, forthcoming)