Don't Try To Justify The Unjustifiable

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Over here in the UK, we have depressingly low rape conviction rates - less than 10%, and when it's estimated that only 6% of actual sexual assaults are actually reported to police, it's staggering to think about how many must be taking place with no rapists ever being brought to justice.

So I was appalled to read an article on the BBC website, about a woman who had been raped - and then told by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) that as she had been drinking prior to the incident, her compensation would be cut by 25%.

What. The. Fuck???

The more positive news is that this decision has now been overturned - the woman's lawyer, Debaleena Dasgupta, successfully argued "it was wrong to regard alcohol consumption as a contributing factor in rape cases." Kudos to both this lawyer and this woman for being so brave as to challenge this decision and force CICA to admit it "had applied its rules wrongly."

But I'm still shocked by this attitude that women who are raped somehow contribute to it by drinking, or by wearing a short skirt, or by going out late at night. It made for depressing reading on a lot of the comment sections on news websites - it seems a lot of people just can't stop making excuses for rapists. As the BBC article quoted "it is not illegal to go out and have a drink, it is illegal to rape somebody."

I found an interesting comment on one website though - a reader suggested, that if a man got drunk, and then was raped, would people believe HE was "asking for it"? What does everyone else think?

Posted by MaraJ3791 - August 13, 2008, at 04:55PM | in Sexual Assault