Irish society is "victim blaming" women rather than "educating young men", a journalist has claimed.

In her latest column, journalist Sarah Harte asked whether there should be signs in men's bathrooms asking if they are sexual predators.

Ms Harte said there currently signs in women’s bathrooms warning them about how to avoid being spiked - when alcohol or drugs are put into someone’s food or drink without their knowledge  – but there are no signs telling men not to break the law. 

"Should there be a sign on the doors of the men’s bathrooms saying, are you a sexual predator, is your friend a sexual predator, do you have plans to spike a woman’s drink tonight, are you going to report somebody for spiking a drink, be part of the solution to violence against women," she said.

Zero tolerance

On Lunchtime Live today, Haven Horizons spokesperson Madeline McAleer said that signs in men's toilets need to be part of a "bigger awareness campaign".

"There's two fundamental questions that need to be answered, why is this happening - and it is getting worse - and where is it leading us to as a society?" she said.

"Once we can answer those two questions, then we can say, what do we need to do, and at what levels do we need to be working at to ensure that we can have zero tolerance of this type of behaviour?"

Horse tranquillisers

Ms McAleer said their organisation is actively getting reports of young men and boys buying "horse tranquillisers" in order to spike women.

"We're getting reports now, lots more reports, of women in their homes, their food being drugged in order to harm them, to know that they are doing this so they can sexually assault or rape them when they're semi conscious or unconscious," she said.

Colorful shot drinks in bar in night. Image: Grigor Ivanov / Alamy Stock Photo

Ms McAleer said the answers to why this is happening is all in the new research.

"It's this nexus of technology, misogynistic influencers and violent pornography that's being fed into the feeds of younger and younger children by these algorithms, and they're not being held accountable," she said.

"Research last week from Australia showed that perpetrators are as young as 12, and British research showed that boys as young as nine and girls as young as nine are being shown this violent pornography."

Responsibility

Ms McAleer said that these spiking posters in women's bathrooms are putting "the responsibility back onto the victim".

"To write that poster, to print it and to put it up, that means, as the owner of the premises, that this is happening, you know that there are people on your premises doing this," she said.

"I mean, you have staff that are seeing it, you have CCTV, and you print the poster, and you put it into the bathroom where women and young girls are going to be, and you put the responsibility back onto the victim."

Person spiking womans drink. Image: Chris Rout / Alamy Stock Photo