*Trigger warning* Judge blames victims for low conviction rates

Yesterdays (27/0814) headline in the Mirror

Woman judge says rape conviction rate will not improve until women stop drinking heavily

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-judge-says-rape-conviction-4108960#ixzz3BgDc5MKy


This particular judge has a habit of screwing over victims of sex offences, including child victims of sex offences, letting off scot free a man who had over 7,000 child pornographic images on his PC including of as nine year old girl. However the ramifications of this continued focus on the responsibility of victims of rape to somehow prevent their rape - to essentially make women stop living lives and spend all of their energies in rape prevention, even though over 85% of rape in England and Wales are by partners, ex partners or family members.

On yesterday's Today programme on Radio 4 presenter John Humphrey's asked one of the female victims, a victim of child sex abuse remember, whether she could have done anything differently to save herself from the perpetrators. Not only are we blaming adult female victims for our rapes but more and more often we do so to female victims of child rape.

This piece discusses some high profile cases in the UK and US where this has happened, Link.

Here is another case from the UK in 2007 where a female victim of child sex abuse, 10 years old at the time of her rape, is blamed by the judge for her rape. TEN!

No amount of anti-rape nail polish or anti rape panties or pointing to victims telling them not to drink, dress nicely will prevent rape, the ONLY thing that will begin to tackle the problem of rape is to change how we socialise boys and young men, on consent. And teach all our kids from an early age that everyone gets respect and that consent to any act is imperative no matter what someone is wearing, whether they've had a drink or 10, whether you're in a relationship with them, whether you think they 'owe' you - CONSENT is vital and if you don't act within consent boundaries then YOU not your victim is to be held accountable.

The ONLY way to increase rape convictions is to stop blaming victims, stop pointing at them and saying "why did you drink/you're dressed like a slut/well you're a sex worker what did you expect/you were promiscuous/you enjoy sex so couldn't have said no really/ you were wet when raped? you must have enjoyed it/you weren't wearing anti-rape panties so you wanted it really/well she wasn't wearing anti-rape nail polish so she didn't care if you got raped or not....." and start pointing to the RAPISTS and holding them to account "why did you rape this unconscious woman? Wouldn't the lawful and moral act have been to get her help?/surely you were aware your victim was a child at the time of your attack?/why did you drug your victims drink in order to rape her?/why are you a rapist?/just because she left you doesn't give you the right to rape her/ and so on .... once we as society and the justice system starts holding the perpetrators to account instead of the victims THEN conviction rates will improve significantly and not before.


Just to illustrate the world we as women live in, and the power of male privilege this happened to a woman at this years Notting hill carnival, Link she was being groped, asked him to stop, he continued, she pushed him away he hit her hard on her face, she spent 9 hours in A&E (ER). Too many commentators have said of this incident that she shouldn't have made an issue of it. She should in effect have allowed this man to touch her, to sexually assault her (yes groping IS sexual assault according to legislation) and do nothing. Again it is her fault not his - BOLLOCKS!!

Out of curiosity I have done an internet search on male victims of rape blamed for rape - no hits on the first page of google other than two academic papers. The same search re female victims of rape blamed for rape produces more than I wished to read on the first page alone.

Even giving implicit support to any "what women could do to prevent rape" products, precautions etc is the thin end of the victim blaming wedge and we all need to stand up against victim blaming and be very explicit when doing so.