Monday, November 21, 2005

rape crisis....

Fuckin 'ell, I can hardly believe it - "1 in 3 people believes that women who behave flirtatiously are at least partially responsible" according to the Amnesty International report published today.

This cannot be true as Rape is not sex - it is violence and it's about power, not attraction.

I have been reading a lot about rape and people's attitudes on various blogs over the last couple of days. I did think that I would leave other people to shout about this one, as there are so many issues I can't cover them all. But this is not something I can ignore and not post about.

David Fickling in the Guardian says -
"Police recorded nearly 13,000 rapes last year, a figure thought to amount to only 15% of the true total since most rapes are never reported. The conviction rate for rape is 5.6% - the lowest ever recorded, with 741 cases resulting in conviction last year.
A study in 2002 found that one in 20 reports of rape led to conviction, compared to one in three in 1977. "There's pretty much a rape crisis in this country," said Amnesty spokesman Neil Durkin."

What is going on - why was it SO much easier to get a conviction nearly 30 years ago!!!!

The campaign to Stop Violence Against Women has to be worth signing up to. Make sure you challenge any myths.

For a full discussion on some of these issues see a great post and comments on this site - Feministe and if you follow the links one of them leads here - Alley which sadly backs up the report referred to earlier.

2 comments:

birdychirp said...

terrifying isn't it? We seem to be (as a society) getting anti feminist! How on EARTH this happened...

Winter said...

I feel too disheartened to write a post about this!