VICTIM BLAMING FURTHERS INJUSTICE

It is said that one of three women would face some kind of sexual violence in their lifetime. While this is already a deadly fact, I feel like the judicial system has been failing rape victims for a long time. Rape is independent of culture, race, location and has been occurring around all parts of the world. Yet, many of the cases are not reported to the police.

To be fair, no one can ever know how rape victims feel unless one actually experiences their pain. Our body’s reaction to suffering and fear is irrational, and we cannot blame the rape victims for not choosing to make it public.

Often times, people belittle rape victims for not coming forward or not doing anything while being raped. This mindset is totally inappropriate as our body’s fightor-flight response takes over our ability to think correctly. When a victim just lays there and stays frozen, it’s often mischaracterized as willing submission and people use this to blame the victim for not fighting back.

For instance, one argument is “why didn’t she scream”? In my opinion, the definition of consent is very clear; someone who is scared, drunk or unable to communicate cannot give consent.

Nonetheless, rapists take advantage of the fact that teenagers often will not be able to come out and speak about what happened to them. In the case where a child, who is not even able to communicate clearly to describe what happened to her, does not scream – does that mean that they gave consent? I do not think so.

I feel like people do not know how to deal with rape cases and often times it is the victim who suffers the blame. That’s why most victims do not dare to report their mishaps and prefer to suffer in pain.

Harshini Boodhun, UPEI student