Guest post by Sarah Learmonth, Coventry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.
About 2000 women a week are raped in the UK, but the first Rape Crisis Centre to support victims of rape and abuse did not open until 1976. It was a momentous step and finally provided a level of justice to victims previously unknown in the UK.
Justice not only that the perpetrator should be stopped from harming anyone else, but that the victims should feel that their experience had been honoured and believed, whether or not they chose to report their crime to the police.
It is true that huge changes have taken place in the criminal justice system since then to address the victim’s experience, but only in terms of prosecuting the perpetrator. Once that process is at an end, the victim is still left with very little support to help them come to terms with what has happened to them.
Unfortunately only a small percentage of victims report to the police at all. The 2008-2009 figures from the Crown Prosecution Service suggest that 14% of rape victims reported to the police and of that total percentage only 5.5% were charged.
But why? Why don’t victims report and why don’t their cases get to court?
Two reports, both published in March 2010, provide some answers. The Stern Review which looked at the criminal justice response to rape victims; and Taskforce Alberti which reviewed the response of the health service. Their conclusions do not make comfortable reading.
The reports outline the gaps in the process for dealing with rape victims. And there’s lots of them – institutional disbelief of victims by statutory sector agencies; lack of training in how to take a disclosure sensitively; badly trained forensic medical examiners (most of whom are men); video statements taken on equipment so faulty that the case cannot be processed; and a national conviction rate of around 6.5%.
But maybe the problem is so small that it is not cost effective to address these issues? The evidence in these two reports suggests otherwise: 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys under the age of 16 has been raped or abused in the UK. Most never tell anyone.
The British Crime Survey estimates that about 2,000 women a week are raped in the UK. That means that more women and girls are raped than suffer diabetes or coronary heart disease, but with nowhere near the same amount of funding to support victims or the same emphasis on resolving the problem.
When the two reports were published, only Stern received any media interest. The Alberti report was not mentioned on any radio or TV programme, nor did any newspapers cover the story.
And so the societal disbelief of rape victims continues, most recently against a backdrop of the debate on rape anonymity for defendants when David Cameron stated it had been prompted by ‘significant numbers of false allegations’. This, as the government has since discovered, is plain wrong as the Stern report clearly points out.
As a society we have pity for specific cases. For instance, the 13-year-old who was trafficked and who had the courage to stand up in court to testify against her perpetrators; or the woman attacked on her way home by a stranger. These are also sympathetically reported by the press.
But the reality of rape – that most women are attacked by someone they know seems to be completely unpalatable to the press and the general population.
So the teenager who self-harms after being raped and repeatedly abused by her step-father and who goes to hospital to have her arm sewn up, is not given an anaesthetic by the doctor because ‘you like the pain’. Or the pre-teen suffering from cerebral palsy is automatically given sedatives by the doctor to calm her down although she had been raped by a babysitter and had been too afraid to say she might be pregnant.
And then there are the all too numerous victims who can barely whisper what has been done to them when they call our helpline who often receive little sympathy from others or who are even sometimes told they were “asking for it.”
Rape is not a rare occurrence. It is happening in epidemic proportions. And we should be outraged that it is allowed to continue. For starters, we need to educate primary school children, fund rape crisis centres and implement a national media and communication strategy so victims know how and where to get help. It is only in that way that attitudes of disbelief can start to change.
If you would like to do something about the rape and abuse of women and girls, you can get in touch with us as follows:
Website: www.crasac.org.uk/
E-mail: info@crasac.org.uk.
Helpline no: 02476277777 (open Mon-Friday 10am-2pm and Mon and Thurs evenings 6-8pm)
Office no: 02476277772
CRASAC supports around 3000 victims of sexual violence each year via its helpline, counselling and advocacy services.
I was gang raped at a friend’s party by 4 boys when I was 14 and raped by a work colleague when I was 15. I think the British culture is that sexual violence against females and children is collateral damage – something men do and whilst people may wring their hands, that’s just to make themselves feel better. No amount of paper changes to the law will make any difference until men and women change their attitudes to rape – that a women or child’s no has to be respected by men and this principle has to be upheld by juries, policemen and women, social services and the whole population. At the moment, this is so far from being the case. The media makes huge amounts of money out of portraying women as sexualised animals – base things with no feelings, intellect or humanity who spend their whole time waving their genitals at the nearest camera. Any woman that doesn’t do this or rolls around drunk or drugged is ignored by the media, creating an attitude towards females that is inhuman because they are inhuman. Used by a political party against a group of people, this would be called propoganda – used by one gender against another – it is called nothing.
Vicki, thank you for this very personal comment. Are you sure you want me to publish it. Entirely up to you.