Every Christmas there are women going into their local bars, having a few drinks with friends and being raped. A shock survey conducted by amnesty international has found that “Women are still being held to blame for rape”
The report found that while women are gaining equal rights in work and pay, they are still being treated unfairly when it comes to sexual behaviour. It found that 30% of people surveyed believe that being drunk is an invitation to sexual predators leaving the woman partially or totally responsible for being raped.
Now is a woman responsible for being raped if she is wearing sexy clothing? Apparently 26% of people surveyed believe so.
Suzy, now aged 19 was 18 when she was raped walking home after a night out. She had been out at her local nightclub, drank quite a lot and had been dancing with a guy she had met. Suzy was wearing a halter neck top, skirt and boots. She had drunk around 6 bottles of alcohol. Around 1:30am Suzy decided she was tired and wanted to walk home, a walk she had done many times after a night out so she felt safe dong it alone. She said goodbye to her friends and left the nightclub.
Suzy was less than 5 minutes away from home when a man came up behind her, dragged her into a side street and raped her. The ordeal lasted for around 15 minutes, when he had finished the man turned to Suzy laughed and ran off. As Suzy realised what had happened to her, she dawned on the horrifying fact she had known her attacker, she had been dancing with him less than half an hour ago.
Women’s rights groups remark that Suzy is one of the estimated 80% of women who know their attackers, battling the myth that most attacks are by strangers.
Suzy did not report the attack to the police she says, “I felt as if I had been through enough, I told no-one. The last thing I needed was to be dragged through painful court proceedings. I still wake up in a cold sweat; afraid he will come back and do it again. I see him around in town sometimes, he just smiles and walks off, and when I see him with another girl I’m afraid for her”
Experts claim only an estimated 20% of all rapes actually go reported and the actual number of women raped each year is over 50,000. When this is compared to the fact that just over 5% of reported rapes end in a conviction, is it really surprising that women aren’t coming forward and reporting what is happening to them?
MP Vera Baird, the driving force behind the recent Sexual Offences Act has said that a man will no longer be able to use “I thought she had consented” as an excuse anymore. She believes that jurors will also need to be educated about today’s society and that just because a woman is drunk or in revealing clothing does not give a man permission to rape her.
Home Office figures say that between March 2004 and March 2005 over 60,000 rapes were reported. This is a 17.5% increase from the following year. Now is it that rape is being less of a taboo subject and women feel able to come forward about it, or is it just happening more?
Since the Sexual offences act reform in 2004, the word “consent” has been redefined to make it clearer and now include penetration of the mouth as a form of rape. However a spokesperson from Amnesty International in Lincoln says, “The number of women raped every year in this country will not reduce until we change these attitudes we have”
Paula Tribe from Women’s Aid agrees. She says, “Eve was blamed for Adam not being able to help himself, since the beginning of time women have been used as an excuse for some men to do as they want and get away with it. She went on to say how she sees women who are raped and stresses that a lot of women know their attackers. It can be their husbands, their boyfriends thinking they are allowed to have sex when they want it. A woman in a relationship should be allowed to say “no” just as a single woman should also.
The Home Office say there are a variety of ways a woman can report the crime if she wants to such as directly to the police. However if she does not feel able to do so she can contact Victim Support on 0845 30 30 900 and get the support needed.
So the message this Christmas is to be safe and let someone know where you are. Tori Ashman from Women’s Aid says, “Women should be able to wear and do what they want without living in fear, but unfortunately we are living in a time where we cannot. By all means have fun, but try to stay safe and remember you have a responsibility to look after yourself”
© Emma-Jane Williams
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