Why do I write about rape? (GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING)

[This article contains graphic content and traumatising descriptions of rape. Please do not read this feature if you are sensitive to the subject being discussed. Bess is currently studying criminology, which is why she was given full approval for this piece. - Laura]

If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed that I go through phases of ‘informing’ (ranting) my followers about the abysmal way rape victims are treated in England and Wales. I am often inundated with abuse (from women more often than men) about why this is so.

Apparently, men falsely accused of rape have their lives ruined. I don’t doubt this. I don’t doubt that anyone who falsely accuses another of a crime they didn't commit should be held to account for their actions.

But I question the logic that being accused of rape is worse than being accused of all other crimes: murder? Child abuse? Arson? The suggestion that false rape accusations are more common than false accusations of other crimes is lacking in all empirical foundation. All evidence suggests rape victims are more likely to lie about being raped than not being raped. Rape is the most under-reported crime. If you’d like to know why, pop down to your local Crown Court and sit in on a sex crime trial. Consider how the complainant is treated. You’ll believe me then.

Writing about rape is miserable. I have an uncanny ability to turn tube rides, dinner parties and job interviews into assessments of how society treats rape victims. It’s not a skill I put on my CV. Because writing about rape, working with victims and confronting perpetrators isn’t a whole barrel of laughs. Throughout the time spent working on my theses I’ve read more graphic accounts of sex crime than I could ever recall. But there is one that will stay with me forever. It is a constant reminder of why there is a need for people to stand up and hold society accountable for our treatment of rape victims.

The story in question isn’t a western story. It was part of a study that examined the behaviour of soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congo has been heralded as the ‘rape capital of the world’. I read the story of a woman who was gang raped in front of her two children. Another of a woman who was raped by men - and by their weapons. Weapons that were then discharged inside her. A third story of a woman force fed her young son’s genitalia. Have you had enough yet? I could go on.

The atrocities that have happened in the DRC are incomprehensible. What people are capable of doing to one another sickens me. Rape dehumanizes. Rape is about exerting control. Rape is all about the perpetrator. It is never about the victim. The victim could have been anyone. The victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that is true whether the issue is war crimes or relationship crimes. Any other mother in that African village, or any other person in the bar on the fateful night that you gave out your number: never knowing it would spiral into the most abusive years of your life.

I write about rape to try and express how it makes me feel. The despair. The frustration. The exhausted, angry tears. Desperately seeking to give a voice to victims. Because if we, in Britain – with a justice system heralded for fairness – can’t “do” rape trials right, what possible hope is there for those in countries without a functioning government? Who are treated like objects every day of their lives? Who will watch their daughters grow up in fear and poverty, and wait for the same fate to befall them.

I don’t want my daughters to feel like they will be judged if they are violated. I want them to grow up in a world where victims are supported, defendants are accorded their due process rights, and offenders face their punishment.

We’re not there, so I keep writing.