women report violence committed against them by boyfriends and husbands, the Women's Resource Centre's annual report shows.

Since 1990, the number of reported cases of physical and sexual abuse of women and children has soared, forcing the WRC to consider hiring a full-time director.

A 60 percent increase in the number of reported cases of physical battery, including slapping, punching, choking, burning, stabbing and attempted drowning, was recorded in 1994, Centre chairman Ms Toni Daniels said.

Figures also show that reports of sexual abuse of women and children, including incest, rape and gang rape, have quadrupled in the last few years.

Ms Daniels pointed to heightened awareness as a major factor in the dramatic rise in the number of reported cases.

But she noted that few arrests had been made in the cases.

The WRC handled 208 cases in 1994, seven times the number dealt with in 1991.

The majority were for physical abuse and 98 percent of the clients were single women and the batterers were their boyfriends or husbands.

Of those who reported the crimes against them to Police, 16 percent resulted in arrest.

"The 1994 statistics continue the four-year trend of dramatic growth in the number of people seeking the WRC's services,'' she said.

She expects figures to continue the trend in 1995 following a flood of calls after the fatal stabbing in January of physical abuse victim Mrs. Rochelle West.

The "enormous'' workload facing the Centre's six part-time staff and volunteers has forced it to considering hiring a full time paid director, she said.

The work was becoming "unmanageable''.

"It is hectic,'' said Ms Daniels, who runs the centre on top of holding a fulltime day job. "We have been so busy all the volunteers and employees have been working flat out. We need someone full-time to man the office. We cannot manage this way'' Ms Daniels noted that prior to 1994, the majority of victims of sexual assault, child sexual abuse and physical assault did not report the crime to Police.

"There appears to have been improvements in respect to the number of women who reported crimes to the Police -- possibly due to the assistance of the Court Advocacy Programme. However, of the 80 women who reported crimes to the Police, only 13 of the reports resulted in arrests.''