A woman in Wales has been sentenced to 8 months in prison for perverting the course of justice by retracting a rape allegation against her husband. Reporting her husband had raped her 6 times, the woman withdrew the allegations a few months later, before again contacting the police to assert that the attacks had actually taken place. She claimed that her husband had been emotionally blackmailing her during the breakdown of their marriage, causing her to retract her initial allegations.
The police did not respond with any attempt to ensure the woman's safety and stability in the aftermath of a pretty hellish period. No. They arrested her instead.
What. The. Hell?
I obviously know only the details of the case which have been made public, and one cannot discount the possibility that the woman was making the claims up all along. However, that is besides the point - by imprisoning this woman, the police force have further kicked a boot into any woman that has been raped. I've blogged about the appalling statistics regarding rape conviction before, but it is important to remind ourselves that there are wider issues. Definitions of rape as commonly held by society are shockingly narrow: rape is the pretty young girl walking home alone at night and attacked by a barbaric stranger. But we forget that rape is:
- the woman who has been drugged, or plied with alcohol until paralytic and taken advantage of
- the elderly woman in a care home who suffers at the hands of her carer
- the wife forced to comply with her husband's wishes
- the girlfriend coerced into sex with the threat of damaging rumours
- the woman who has been consistently demoralized by her partner until she "consents"
- the prostitute who hasn't been paid
- the porn star who has been belittled and objectified until she has no control over her own sexuality
(Rape is obviously not just a male on female phenomenon, male on male and female on male rape do occur, and I take my hat off to those who study them, but my work is primarily male on female so forgive the one-sided bias.)
Society often ignores these victims - in some cases she meets the legal definition of licit sexual intercourse - she has "consented". But how can a woman consent if she is not in a position where she can give it, where she has no ownership of her own sexuality, when she is threatened by unspoken violence, when she has consented to marry this person, when she cannot withdraw that consent? Juries come to their verdicts on the basis of their own poorly-understood definitions of rape, and the law gives weight to this. A woman in fear of her life may 'consent' to save her life, but that is still rape.
Rape law across the country (and as I will argue, the world) needs to be overhauled. Consent is a flawed notion which holds no water. Rape is sexual activity forced upon a woman, where force may include but is not limited to violence, coercion and threats.
If we are to give this ridiculous situation the backing of the law then of course women won't report that they have been raped to the police. Already minuscule conviction rates will fall and those who do report will be wary of the possible outcomes. In the emotionally fragile time after being attacked, a woman should not have to weigh up whether it is worthwhile to report it to the police.
We are only a step away from the appalling situation in countries like Pakistan, where the infamous Safia Bibi case gained worldwide attention from human rights advocates. A 13 year old blind servant, Safia Bibi was gang raped by her master and his son, an attack which resulted in pregnancy. Upon reporting the rape, her pregnancy was accepted as evidence of her partaking in illicit extra-marital sexual relations whilst her attackers were released on the basis of lack of evidence. How can we be outraged by cases like this when we are committing the same offence against women?! The Pakistan Human Rights Commission released figures displaying the appalling truth - a woman in Pakistan is raped every 3 hours, every second is a minor and every fourth is gang-raped. I repeat, rape law must be overhauled.
In better news, I was very pleased to read that the government have dropped plans to introduce anonymity for those accused of rape. Anonymity is fine if it is applied to all those accused in criminal proceedings, but to single out rape cases, where the majority of victims are female is to display institutional distrust in the word of women. Unacceptable.
Every one of these stories betrays the ugly truth - women are not protected by the law and are distrusted by wider society. The law is an ass which needs to be put out of it's misery for all of our sakes. Now find me my shotgun and I'll get us started.
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