Celebrating Our Sistahs ‘Victim-blaming stops victims coming forward’

Black women who suffer sexual or domestic abuse are getting rough justice.

By Leah Mahon

THERE ARE an estimated 128,000 victims of rape each year, 98 per cent of which are committed by men, Home Office figures show.

Just 1.6 per cent of rapes reported to police in 2020 resulted in a charge or summons. This means that the majority of survivors did not see their case even make it to court.

A large factor why most men escape justice is the fear of victims themselves will be made to feel in some way responsible.’

Victim-blaming culture is prevalent everywhere from society and social media, to the police and questioning by barristers in court.

Black women are even more likely to have their accounts doubted, and even blamed for the actions of the men who raped them.

For Black women, the experience of speaking out against violence is much harsher. Black victims of sexual assaults and rape were 1.5 times less likely to see police bring charges against their alleged abuser in comparison to white victims.

Black and ethnic minority women are more likely to be criminalised and viewed as complicit in violence perpetrated against them.

These women are less likely to be seen as victims of sexual violence and can endure harmful assumptions from professionals who pathologise violence as part of a “cultural norm”.

The Voice is supporting the campaign for Valerie’s Law which is calling for these very disadvantages stacked against Black women in particular to be stamped out.

The law calls for police and other government bodies to undergo mandatory cultural training to better support Black victims of sexual and domestic abuse in efforts to bridge this gap.

It’s named after Valerie Forde and her 22-month-old daughter, who were brutally murdered in March 2014 by her ex-partner after she made calls to the police about threats made to burn down her house. They were recorded as a threat to property, instead of a threat to life.

The case of Valerie, and many others, offer a glimmer into a culture of victim-blaming that is entrenched in societal norms at every stage that victims have to endure disclosing the abuse, to reporting to the police and how it underpins the criminal justice process.

The 2021 rape review itself was criticised by experts for failing to include the lived realities of ethnic minority women.

A major part of what’s lost in the debate around genderbased violence is the physiological impact on countless victims.

Misogyny

Veronica Simpson is a specialist in domestic and sexual abuse, and works closely with survivors from faith and ethnic minority communities. She believes that victim-blaming culture has had roots in misogyny for decades.

“When we’re talking about sexual violence, sexual abuse, sexual assault, it’s a man problem. It really isn’t the victim’s problem,” she explains.

“I work with victims, survivors, it is never up to us to decide whether the allegations are true or not. We have to ensure that we believe the victim when somebody discloses that they’ve been sexually assaulted. It’s not up to us to decide or make judgement, it’s for the courts to do that.”

She said the need to support victims was paramount. “They’re going to feel different than other people. They’re going to internalise those emotions of ‘why me’, that selfblame, shame, guilt in that they might think about suicidal ideation, suffer from anxiety, depression. The impacts can be lifelong.”

Victim-blaming is a part of a deluge of rape myths and is nothing new. But in an era of #MeToo and violence against women and girls, the onus of blame put on victims who come forward with allegations of rape and or sexual assault couldn’t be more obviously embedded into our culture.

When the #MeToo movement first emerged in 2017, it was a reckoning moment for women around the world as they shared their harrowing stories of sexual violence and harrasment.

The hashtag was coined by sexual abuse survivor, Tarana Burke, but Hollywood stars made it global and, when it did, it led to the downfall of abusers like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein.

Here in the UK, the allegations of sexual misconduct against Tim Westwood, which he denies, also faced similar scrutiny as some of his victims were underage and all were Black women and girls.

As each survivor came forward with their experience of abuse, there was backlash on how they came to find themselves as victims and the ways in which they could have prevented it. Veronica says that this unhealthy focus on blame instead of what the victim has disclosed, only minimises their experience and fails to hold perpetrators to account.

“One of the reasons people blame victims is to distance themselves from anything that’s unpleasant. We don’t understand it. We have an opinion, and we voice our opinion based on ignorance.

“It’s just a conversation for other people, it’s not their experience. People will say absolutely anything because it doesn’t affect them,” says Ms Simpson.

It was only weeks away from spring and, amid a nationwide Covid lockdown, that the coun- try was gripped and horrified that a woman walking alone at night suddenly went missing.

Sarah Everard was kidnapped, raped and murdered in March 2021 by a serving Met police officer as she walked home from a friends house. The case sparked vigils across the country and new questions about the scale of the toxic culture in the Met as well as the safety of women and girls on UK streets.

Sarah did everything right. She walked on a well-lit street and she rang her boyfriend en-route. Yet, amid the national grief of what happened to the 33-year-old marketing executive, there were still loud murmurs of why she chose to walk the street late that night and it was even suggested that women should hail down a bus if they felt threatened by a male officer.

The government’s rape review only unearthed how deep this culture ran. Published in 2021, this was an “end to end” report that prompted ministers to admit they were “deeply ashamed” that thousands of women were being failed by the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

Abigail Ampofo, Director of Service Delivery at Refuge, said: “Victim blaming is all too common when it comes to domestic abuse and sexual violence, perpetrators often use victim blaming to make a survivor feel the abuse they have experienced is their fault. Abuse is always the responsibility of the perpetrator.”

Impact

Victim-blaming culture has a huge impact on a survivor and can stop them reporting crimes that they have experienced or seeking support from specialist services.

“Only one in five survivors of domestic abuse report the crimes they have experienced to the police.

“Institutionalised racism within statutory agencies such as the police, social services, or housing authorities compound victim-blaming culture for Black women and girls. Refuge

TRAILBLAZER: Tarana Burke started the #MeToo movement, which first emerged in and saw women take to the streets hears about the additional barriers Black women face when coming forward to report domestic abuse.

“Black women and girls are being disproportionately dismissed and sidelined, we know that Black women’s concerns are less likely to be taken seriously and that they’re also less likely to be referred to support organisations.

“Refuge supports Sistah Space’s Valerie’s Law campaign to ensure cultural competency training is mandatory for all relevant government agencies, including the police to ensure Black women and girls are met with trauma informed support, not the current prevalent victim blaming culture.”

If you need to access specialist support, please call Sistah Space on 0207 846 8350 or visit their website at www.sistahspace.org