Trigger Warning for discussions of violence against women with disabilities, and discussions of sexual violence particularly within the context of psychiatric units.

Last week, news broke in the Australian state of Victoria that women who are patients in psychiatric wards are being routinely sexually harassed and assaulted by men who are patients in those same wards. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports:

The Victorian Women and Mental Health Network is calling for more wards to be segregated after reports of patient harassment and sexual assaults.

Victorian wards were de-segregated in the 1960s because of a perception that sharing spaces with women would help male patients.

The network’s chairwoman, Heather Clarke, says the assaults hinder the victim’s ability to cope with and recover from mental illness.

“Threats and intimidation, unwelcome sexual advances, sometimes males entering bedrooms and at times even sexual assault,” she said.

“This is very concerning when it’s recognised that a majority of women, 70 per cent of these women, already have past histories of physical or sexual abuse so these volatile environments are re-traumatising.”

Ms Clarke says while some facilities have female-only spaces, a lack of resources means it is not always enforced.

“Some wards have created women’s corridors, but there a number of issues with those corridors,” she said.

“There may not be enough beds in them for all women to be admitted and when they need extra beds for men they sometimes admit men to those those corridors.”

Well, it would have been nice if, when desegregating wards because of a perceived benefit to male patients, someone had bothered to ask what the impact might be on the women. That said, very few people with even a passing familiarity with these issues will be surprised by such revelations and accusations, and readers of this blog might recall that I’ve written about this very subject before. Unfortunately, a passing familiarity is much more than most people seem to have.

Julie Dempsey, a woman who has been a patient at various psychiatric units in Victoria spoke to the Age about her experience of being assaulted in a ward and witnessing other sexual assaults. Her comments offer invaluable insight:

”You’re told to go to hospital so you will be safe, but people are often put into vulnerable positions,” she says.

”I no longer feel comfortable even visiting someone in hospital, let alone voluntarily putting myself in as an inpatient to a psychiatric facility.

”Something needs to be done to make them safer.”

Like the rest of this story, what Dempsey has to say is not surprising, but it is devastating. It’s no secret that sexual violence almost always has a negative impact on the victim’s mental health, not infrequently going so far as to cause or otherwise trigger a mental illness (such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, to name only a couple of examples), or exacerbate one that’s already present. And, as the ABC articles note, 70% of women who are patients in Victoria psychiatric units already have a history of physical or sexual abuse, due both to the link between victimization and mental illness and women with disabilities’ particular likelihood of being chosen as victims by perpetrators of violence. That sexual violence is not good for women already struggling with mental illness is one hell of an understatement.

But clearly, this violence is not only having a direct negative impact on mental health, it’s also preventing women with mental illness(es) from seeking out treatment and services that they may otherwise feel would be beneficial to them. Inpatient psychiatric treatment is definitely not for everyone. But it certainly should be an option for those to whom it does look appealing. And if a woman feels that such treatment may be appropriate and helpful for her, but she is too afraid for her personal safety to seek it out, that is an enormous violation. I highly doubt that Dempsey is the only woman whose prior experiences with violence inside psychiatric facilities has caused this option to be taken entirely off the table for her.

Further, the fact is that not all patients in psychiatric units have freely chosen to be there. This is an issue that needs addressing outside the scope of this post and my knowledge base. But being forcibly placed in treatment against your will is usually traumatic and can be damaging enough to one’s sense of safety. Forcibly confining people in treatment against their will while placing them in an environment that subjects them to the constant threat of sexual violence is unconscionable on a whole new level.

I can’t claim to have the answers. While sex-segregated wards will strike many as an obvious and easy solution, they’re not without their problems, particularly as it concerns trans* patients. Wherever sex segregation is enforced, trans men and women are much too frequently placed by cis people in the units inappropriate for their genders, not only denying their identities but also placing them at risk of violence. Further, non-binary identifying trans patients are put between a rock and a hard place, and forcibly identified with a gender that does not belong with them as well as placed in an environment that may not be safe. While sex segregation almost certainly would reduce the rates of sexual violence by cis men against cis women, there’s a large possibility that it would come at the price of increased rates of violence (sexual and otherwise) against trans* people of all genders (or non-genders), when they likely face some of the highest rates of violence already. And that is a trade off that should be considered unsettling at the absolute least.

The fact of the matter is that gender integrated wards are also hardly the only cause of the problem here. Indifference and rape culture are also major issues:

Network chairwoman Heather Clarke said several sexual assaults had been reported to the network recently, including the rape of an 18-year-old woman by a male patient in an acute adult psychiatric unit.

”She had previously told staff that he was harassing her but they had dismissed her concerns,” Ms Clarke said.

Segregating by gender won’t ultimately have the full desired impact if abusers are still not being dealt with once they have been identified. Rather, the abusers will just get craftier or pick new victims. Further, in addition to failing to address violence at its roots, this strategy alone lets abuse enablers off the hook. Everyone deserves safety, no matter what their mental health or disability status. But there is an extra responsibility to keep safe those who have been placed in restrictive and vulnerable environments. That staff in many (quite possibly most) units are not up to the task, and indeed are sometimes abusers themselves, is a part of the problem and needs to be addressed if freedom from violence is actually to be accomplished.

Trigger Warning for rape apologism, brief descriptions of sexual violence.

This morning I was reading about a rape that was recently committed in Perth, Australia, by an assailant who accosted a nanny answering the front door at her employer’s home. The details of the attack itself are, of course, horrible and distressing. That the assailant followed up his attack by placing a call to the victim’s employers demanding that they not report the assault (as though they own their employee in the first place …) is additionally loathsome and likely acted as an extra trauma to an already highly traumatized victim.

But up to that point, the story was still an incredibly routine one — and I use the word “routine” here with the saddest of all tones. It’s not that these assaults don’t matter, not in the least. It’s that there’s only so much one can say over and over and over again about the fact that somewhere, someone decided to commit an act of sexual violence against another human being.

So it was not the grotesque act of violence that caught my attention, but the only slightly less routine commentary that went with it:

Det Snr Sgt Glynn said the attack was a timely reminder for women to be aware of their surroundings.

“Stranger attacks resulting in sex offences are unusual, they do happen but they are not common,” he said.

“I don’t expect people to change their habits because of this offence but at the same time they do need to be aware of their surroundings.”

“People”? I highly doubt that Sgt. Glynn is telling men that they need to be aware of their surroundings due to the threat of rape. And while I would absolutely love it if a detective being quoted in an article about rape was a gender activist purposely using inclusive language to acknowledge the incredibly real and highly prevalent threat of sexual violence faced by people of non-binary genders (or non-genders), given the context I’m going to go out on a limb and make an educated guess that this is very sadly not the case. I’m really pretty sure that Sgt. Glynn is referring entirely or almost entirely to women. The same people who are always told to keep an eye out on their surroundings and to try their damn hardest to not get themselves raped.

So a timely reminder to watch our surroundings and learn an incredibly valuable lesson about taking responsibility for our own safety? No. What this case is yet another a “reminder” of is not how important it is to be cautious, but that women aren’t safe in their own homes. That women aren’t safe at their places of employment. That women don’t just have to worry about being a potential target out at parties or bars or dates or other social events, or when we’re out at the store by ourselves at night or riding public transportation alone, but all the time. We also have to worry about answering the goddamn front door. Not to even mention who we might be sleeping next to at night.

But the very last thing we need is a reminder. Because a part of living as a woman in a rape culture is being reminded of that threat every day.

These reminders aren’t useful, they aren’t infrequent, and they certainly aren’t harmless. Women know to watch their drinks, they know to use the buddy system, and they know to check the peep holes in their doors. They’re told close to every time they switch on the news or open up a newspaper or think of stepping outside their front doors. They’re told just about every time someone wants to pretend to engage in “rape prevention.” They’re reminded every time they check the back seat of their cars before getting in or make sure to walk home before it gets dark out or fish the keys out of their purses well before they reach the door. (This is called a rape schedule.) They know.

So what this constant “advice” actually serves to remind women of is the fact that their bodies exist in a constant state of both perceived and actual vulnerability to those who do not see them as fully human. What these tips actually serve to remind women of is that they need to be kept in line and constantly sheltered by a society that really isn’t usually so eager to “protect” them once they talk about having already been assaulted. What these tips serve to remind women of is that if they don’t follow each and every one to the letter all the time and they are assaulted, they will probably be blamed for their own rape. What these tips serve to remind everyone of is that the victim really should have been more careful, and what a shame it is that she wasn’t, because this whole thing could have been avoided if she’d just read a list of safety tips in a pamphlet. What they serve to instill further into the social consciousness is that we can’t stop rapists, so it’s women’s permanent curse to just have to live with them and watch out for them at every turn.

And I can’t even imagine how awful it would be to have a man break into the private residence where you’re working and tie you up and rape you, only to then read in the papers about how your rape is a really good opportunity to remind women like you how important it is be aware of your surroundings and do a better job of making sure that you’re not raped, too. I can’t imagine the feelings of shame and self-blame it would likely inspire, nor the anger at having your trauma used to browbeat other women into taking responsibility for the actions of violent people and events they can’t control.

The people whose actual job it is to stop rape responding to rape not by telling victims how to come forward or where they can find resources, and not by discussing means of actual violence prevention through a focus on perpetrators, but by telling women how important it is to make sure they’re constantly on the lookout for assailants? That’s rape culture.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence and rape apologism.

Late last week, I wrote about how the tendency for police forces to engage in rape apologism or even sexual violence is not just an issue of individual officers engaging in bad behavior, but of a system that encourages police rape apologism and sexual violence and enforces few consequences for it. I was sad, this morning, to find a news story out of Australia that perfectly illustrates that point.

In 2004, rape allegations were made against St Kilda football players Stephen Milne and Leigh Montagna (pictured above). The full details of the allegations against Milne are available here — they are graphic, and they are definitely potentially triggering. (The charges that were being considered against Montagna are less clear.) Essentially, what Milne was accused of was attempted rape, regardless of any other circumstances — the victim allegedly said no to intercourse, and Milne allegedly kept attempting penetration regardless. The allegations go further, however, to claim that Milne was guilty of digital rape through deception, in addition to attempted rape. The alleged victim claims that in the dark room, he pretended to be Montagna, with whom the alleged victim had had previous sexual relations and would have consented to some sexual contact, in order to gain her sexual compliance.

At the time, charges were dropped, supposedly for lack of evidence. Now, a former detective on the case has come forward to say that lack of evidence against Milne was not the issue, but intimidation, harassment, and suppression of evidence were.

Former Sen-Det Scott Gladman, who led the investigation into the alleged rape, told Nine News that he received several threats from his colleagues over the case.

He also said that interview tapes were stolen and the alleged victim’s statement was leaked to the club during the probe.

The investigation was launched when a woman told police she was raped by Milne at the home of teammate Leigh Montagna.

The probe lasted six weeks, before the then-Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Coughlan QC, said it was impossible to convict Milne and dropped the case.

Mr Gladman told Nine News that he received several threatening calls from his colleagues while he ran the investigation.

“You better do the right thing. You better make sure that this is done properly,” one of the callers allegedly said.

Mr Gladman said that he “couldn’t guarantee the integrity of the security of the office”, and was forced to take evidence home with him to protect it.

“I couldn’t understand how something like that could become so big, and allowed to become so out of control,” he said.

A different article states:

Gladman said that on one occasion he received a telephone call from an officer who supported St Kilda demanding he stop investigating.

“(He said) `This didn’t happen, it didn’t happen the way she said it happened. She’s just one of these footy sluts that runs around looking for footballers to f…’ (were) the words,” Gladman told the Nine Network.

“‘You better make this go away, you better do the right thing, you better make sure that this is done properly, this is just bullshit’, and it was hung up.”

Gladman said that on another occasion, he was confronted in the street by an unknown officer with promises “he’d be looked after if the matter went away and threats if it didn’t”.

Now, we certainly can talk about this as an issue of personal responsibility. We can blame those officers who made the threats. And Former Detective Gladman could even be criticized for caving into pressure at the time. But with regard to the latter, I also think that life is not like a movie, and most of us are not heroes who are willing or even able to risk everything in order to do the right thing. And more importantly, I think that when we are not personally in a situation where our safety is being threatened, it’s in incredibly poor taste to pass judgment on the responses of those who are being threatened. We may all make different choices in the circumstances, but until we’re actually there, we don’t know what exactly the circumstances are, and can’t condemn what other people feel they have to do in order to remain safe.

Gladman may well bear some personal responsibility here (I honestly don’t know). And the officers who engaged in intimidation most definitely do. But regardless of what individual reprehensible actions were taken, the fact is that it was ultimately a system of police corruption and rape apologism that created an atmosphere of intimidation. The fact that police officers, quite possibly superiors, felt comfortable making threats against Gladman is a systemic problem. The fact that Gladman apparently felt there was no safe place to report those threats is a systemic problem. The fact that evidence was stolen and leaked and next to nothing was done about it is a systemic problem. And the fact that anyone felt comfortable suppressing a rape case specifically through apologism, denialism, and misogyny is also a systemic problem.

And when I refer to these problems as systemic, I’m not only referring to law enforcement systems, but also to broader social systems. In a lot of ways, police behavior is simply reflective of social values. Police have their own independent power — lots of it — but that power is actively supported by a culture made up mostly of people who don’t personally benefit from that power, but also don’t directly suffer from it. It would be difficult for police to maintain their power and “right” to commit abuse of power, in other words, if most citizens were not content or even enthusiastic and eager to let them.

Cops don’t have a long history in the U.S. of brutality against black people because cops specifically think that black people deserve violence — the history exists because of wider social messages that say the bodies, safety, and rights of black people are worth less than those of everyone else and are deserving of violent subjugation. Police officers don’t tend to use excessive force in the U.S. just because excessive force is something that police officers believe in — they use excessive force because whenever they do, the public is ready to back them up, reminding victims that they should have been more deferential and less likely to have ever brought police attention their way, no matter what the circumstances.  And police don’t tend to engage in rape apologism only because they personally hate rape victims or think that rape victims had it coming — they engage in rape apologism because the rest of society does, too, and thinks that rape apologism is acceptable or even admirable.

And this bears out particularly in this case, as there is a long history of Australian footballers being accused of rape and other sexual assaults, only to be supported by their teams, coaches, and fans. In the U.S., we’ve seen this dynamic play out whenever a popular athlete has been accused of sexual violence — for example, years ago with Kobe Bryant, and more recently with Ben Roethlisberger. Women who accuse sports stars of rape are rarely treated well or even decently by the public and media, and this holds true across many countries. In Australia, it’s footballers specifically who receive the most protection, from everyone from friends to law enforcement. Footballers, apparently, like Stephen Milne.

Again, police abuse of power does not exist in a vacuum, and is not just an issue of “bad cops” bringing the rest of the force down. As this case shows, even the “good cops” who want to do the job properly are still sometimes held back rather deliberately by systemic forces. And when police who are corrupt, abusive, and/or violent engage in atrocious acts, they’re not acting alone — they’re acting with the support of multiple oppressive systems that say what they’re doing is acceptable, and no one will feel safe trying to stop them, even if they want to.

Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence, rape apologism, and racism.

In Adelaide, Australia, a taxi driver named Hajy Baba Rahmanian was found guilty of raping an unconscious passenger. The details of the rape itself are, of course, rather horrific:

The court heard that in June 2006 the 19-year-old victim got into Rahmanian’s taxi after a party at North Adelaide.

Her friends rode with her to Hindley Street in the city where they got out to continue celebrations and told the taxi driver to take the victim home because she had been passing out and was severely intoxicated.

The Court of Criminal Appeal judgment said a GPS tracking system in the taxi showed Rahmanian travelled towards the victim’s house in Adelaide’s southern suburbs but then veered off course.

He took her to his own house at Dover Gardens and had sexual intercourse with the unconscious teenager.

The victim remembers nothing of what happened, except for waking up some hours later with some clothing removed.

It was not until months after the rape that police tracked Rahmanian down, when he went to the victim’s house and left a jar of honey on her doorstop, then tried to call her.

It is, however, the descriptions and defenses of this heinous crime by Rahmanian’s defense attorney that particularly interest me. He has pleaded for mercy, and his reasoning starts off pretty appallingly:

In sentencing submissions, Rahmanian’s lawyer Grant Algie urged mercy, saying the crime was odd and at the lower end of the scale.

The lower end of the scale?

Personally, I abhor “ranking” sexual violence at all — sexual violence is sexual violence. But if kidnapping an unconscious woman who was entrusted in your care — which is precisely what purposely taking her somewhere other than her intended location and keeping her there was — and then raping her in his home is on the “lower end of the scale,” one really has to wonder what kinds of sexual violence just don’t register on Algie’s scale to begin with. As I’ve stated before, there is no such thing as an “accidental” rape, but choosing to kidnap the victim explicitly shows intent and premeditation on Rahmanian’s part. As for the crime being “odd” — I’m not exactly sure since when an act of violence being “odd” diminished the perpetrator’s accountability.

But the plea for mercy gets a lot worse. Indeed, Algie claims that because of Rahmanian’s background as an Iranian immigrant, he didn’t understand that rape is, well, wrong:

He said the Iranian immigrant did not fully appreciate the severity of the crime under Australian law.

“There is a very reasonable possibility that given his cultural background and limited insight into laws and sexual behaviour, he didn’t realise that having intercourse with somebody who is unconscious and therefore not consenting is a very serious crime,” Mr Algie told the court.

“Mercy, in my submission, could and should have a significant role to play in Your Honour’s sentencing.

“He is extremely remorseful about the current situation concerning the impact on his family.”

You know, cultural relativism is an interesting thing. Sometimes, it’s rightly used to point out to racist, condescending, xenophobic assholes that the awful thing “those people” do isn’t really so different from awful things that “good,” white, Western people do. Sometimes, it’s properly used to point out that attempts at changing “those people” are imperialist, colonialist, objectifying, devoid of context, and invoking a white savior complex, without actually asking what “those people” want and need in the first place.

Other times, it’s abused to argue that in certain contexts, and almost universally when victims are non-white, acts like rape and murder are okay. Indeed, frequently, supposed “cultural relativism” is just dressed up racism, used to argue that “those people” just don’t know any better, that they’re barbarians who aren’t like us and simply can’t help it. And it’s no less racist just because the trope is being pulled here out to defend the man it simultaneously maligns.

First of all, it’s my understanding that ignorance of the law is no excuse. And if there is ever a type of case where that rule really, really ought to be upheld, I’d say that rape is quite likely it. How exactly Algie thinks that “he didn’t know it was bad under Australian law” could constitute a valid defense is beyond me.

Secondly, Algie says it’s possible that Rahmanian didn’t realize that raping an unconscious woman is a very serious crime? He’s your client, Mr. Algie. Either he understood or he didn’t. Did you speak to him to find out? Or are you blatantly lying about Rahmanian’s knowledge, but using words like “possibility” to cover yourself?

Additionally, “having intercourse with somebody who is unconscious and therefore not consenting” is perhaps the most long-winded and convoluted euphemism for “rape” I’ve ever heard — both impressive and despicable at once. And am I supposed to feel sympathy towards Rhamanian’s remorse towards the impact on his own family?

Most importantly of all, Algie’s irresponsible defense unfairly and remarkably maligns Iranian men and Iranian culture. I do not doubt that Iran is a country full of misogyny — I’ve yet to encounter many countries that are not full of misogyny, including my own, and the work I’ve seen from Iranian women activists indicates that they face many, many forms of gender based oppression. But while far from being a paradise of gender equality, stating that an Iranian background makes one categorically unable to understand the nature of rape, consent, and violence — not to mention the basic cultural norms of a society in which one has been living long enough to gain employment — is racist, xenophobic, and white supremacist.

The facts are very simple: Hajy Baba Rahmanian did not rape a woman because he is Iranian. He raped a woman because he independently chose to do so.

Just like rapists who are American, Australian, British, Canadian, and from other Western nations where rape is very, very common, but about whom you’d never see such a similar, offensive defense made.

But in addition to what this defense says about Iranian men, what does it say about Iranian women? How badly have their rights and autonomy just been thrown under the bus? This line of argument was used in an attempt to mitigate an assault against a presumably Australian victim, it is true. But if the rape against this Australian victim is mitigated by the “fact” that rape of unconscious women is just run of the mill and unremarkable in Iran, how much has Algie just excused the actual rapes of Iranian women? How appallingly has he just brushed those actual rapes aside, presented them as an occurrence so mundane as hardly worthy of a shrug? How exceedingly has he just devalued the very lives, experiences, and suffering of countless women? How greatly has he just dismissed their pain and trauma as not “very serious”?

How many Iranian victims did Algie slap across the face with his words?

And how deeply have those words and ones like them sunk into Western consciousnesses? I find it no great coincidence that the only other reports on this story I found were from Islamophobic, white supremacist sites that are concerned about the purity of good, Western, implicitly white victims, and not the slandering of all Iranian men as rapists and the erasure and dismissal of all Iranian rape victims. (No, I’m not linking those sites. If you don’t believe me, or wish to see for yourself, harness the power of google.)

And no, it doesn’t surprise me that most of the outrage is not about rape apologism and racism, but about the threat of a non-white man getting away with a crime that white men get away with every single day.

Thanks to Cinnamon for the link.

In Australia, a man named Farah Jama was recently released from jail after spending 15 months there on a wrongful conviction for rape. Jama (pictured left) had an alibi for the night, was not seen by any witnesses at the scene of the alleged crime, and was not identified by the alleged victim, who was found unconscious and remained unsure as to whether or not a sexual assault was committed against her. Jama was convicted on the sole basis of DNA evidence — evidence that was later found to be contaminated.

In a scathing independent review of the “disastrous” case of Farah Jama, former Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent found a miscarriage of justice had occurred when the DNA evidence that prosecutors used solely to convict the Sudanese man was contaminated and forensic procedures did not adhere to national standards.

He also found that “warning bells” about the lack of evidence in the case were overlooked by police investigators and prosecutors because they were so blinded by the DNA evidence.

“In this present case, the obviously unreserved acceptance of the reliability of DNA evidence appears to have so confined thought that it enabled all involved to leap over a veritable mountain of improbabilities and unexplained aspects that . . . could be seen to block the path to conviction,” Mr Vincent wrote.

Mr Jama spent 15 months in jail after a sample of his DNA contaminated one taken from a 48-year-old woman believed to have been raped at an over-28s nightclub in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs.

The 22-year-old was not seen by any witnesses in the nightclub or in the area, the alleged rape victim had no memory of the sexual assault and Mr Jama had an alibi for the night of the incident. Despite this, police went ahead with the prosecution and a jury found Mr Jama guilty.

“It is almost incredible that, in consequence of a minute particle . . . by some mechanism settling on a swab, slide or trolley surface, a chain of events could be started that culminated in the conviction of an individual for a crime that had never been committed by him or anyone else,” Mr Vincent wrote.

I take issue with the assertion that an assault never occurred — while that may be the case, evidence that no rape was ever committed is not presented here. In any case, it does seem incredibly clear that unlike most cases, where a lack of evidence or failure to convict does not mean that the accused was not actually guilty, Jama is indeed innocent on all charges. Further, if Vincent is correct that no assault took place, and there was never any legitimate evidence from the rape kit that an assault was committed, that just makes the conviction here even more negligent and appalling.

Obviously false rape convictions are bad. They’re not what we want, and do a far better job at allowing rape to continue than at stopping it. To be clear, police here initially did the right thing — even though the woman did not recall an assault, women are raped while unconscious all the time. A rape kit was certainly in order, so long as she willingly consented to one. But evidence is not found in all rape kits. And clearly, DNA evidence still has its flaws, especially when a police force was not using sealed rape kits at the time. (The mind, it boggles.)

But my interest in this case extends beyond the horrible injustice suffered by Mr. Jama. Because I think it’s also excellent evidence of the many flaws present in current judicial systems, and the rape myths that allow those flaws to go unchecked until something utterly atrocious happens, as did here.

Jama was not just convicted of a crime that he did not commit, based on nothing other than contaminated DNA evidence — he was wrongfully convicted on those grounds in a climate where actual rapists go free all the time. He was convicted in a world where rape victims who have genuine forensic evidence to back up their claims, and who remember their assaults and can name their assailants, are openly disbelieved and mocked, told that they wanted it or deserved it. Victims who know they were assaulted by real rapists who don’t have alibis walk away without punishment, vindicated in the public eye and attempting to shame their victims as liars. And here, Jama was convicted based on the claims only of “science.”

What this case tells us is that faulty, improperly kept DNA evidence¹ is worth more in many criminal justice systems than the word of women.

Victims are disbelieved; really, truly awful forensic “evidence” is trusted. Victims are called liars and whores with regrets about a wild night; contaminated rape kits are treated as gospel truth. By police, prosecutors, and juries, those who point out an assailant and say “he raped me” are looked upon with extraordinary, condescending skepticism; by police, prosecutors, and juries, all other evidence is overlooked in the face of some DNA. Juries let rapists go, reasoning, “well, she willingly went home with him”; juries convict innocent men, reasoning, “all of those crime TV shows can’t be wrong.”

This is not just about the fallibility of DNA evidence: it’s also about who and what we trust.

There is, of course, also undoubtedly an element of racism here:

“It’s a tragedy that this man served time in jail for a crime he didn’t commit,” Mr Boden told reporters.

He said the magistrate didn’t throughly question the complete lack of evidence in the case while the committal hearing simply rubber stamped the case for trial.

Police also treated his client like he was guilty and showed no interest in assuming his innocence, he said.

When asked if he felt the jury was also prejudiced in the case, he said: “I certainly do.”

Jama’s conviction took place in the context of a country where, like in all Western nations, racism is still incredibly prevalent against non-whites. Further, Jama is a black African Australian (some news sources say he is Somali, others Sudanese) in a country where African Australians are still a very tiny minority and perceptions of African-descended black people are very largely drawn from American depictions, which still regularly portray black people in a rather negative light.

This combination of misogyny against women rape victims and frequent racism against both victims and perpetrators (depending on the races of the accused and accuser) leaves current judicial systems oppressive and highly unreliable. And that impact is not just felt in relatively rare cases of wrongful convictions like Jama’s, but very largely by the victims those systems claim to represent.

Trigger Warning for rape apologism and discussion of victim grooming.

Last year, a teacher from Northern Territory, Australia was arrested for engaging in sexual contact with a 13-year-old student. He was arrested because this contact, which he had willfully and knowingly engaged in, is illegal. It is illegal precisely because it has been determined in NT that minors under the age of 16 cannot consent to sex. And “sex” without consent is … what exactly? Rape. Yes, yes, rape is the proper word.

I outline all of his very carefully because it is apparently not intuitive, even to those who are highly familiar with the law — so familiar, in fact, as to be on the NT Supreme Court. You see, this week, the teacher pleaded guilty. And when a newspaper printed a headline calling the teacher a “rapist” — I would imagine because they followed the logic used above — Justice Dean Mildren chastised that newspaper, not only for using language different to that found in the law, but also because he thought the act committed by the teacher could in no way be defined as rape. According to Justice Mildren, it was “consensual.”

Justice Dean Mildren this week sentenced the teacher to a minimum two years in prison for the four-month relationship with his student.

The physical relationship started after the girl confided to the teacher that she was the victim of a sexual abuse.

Justice Mildren attacked the Northern Territory News for a headline calling the teacher a “rapist”.

“He is not charged with rape. There is no suggestion in the Crown case that the sexual intercourse in this case was without the consent of the child.”

In addition to being appalled at this outright defense of the teacher — by the way, Mildren said in sentencing that he was “unlikely to reoffend and was remorseful,” something I will get to in a minute — I find it especially regretful that such a statement was made so soon after this excellent piece was published in Philadelphia Weekly, urging reporters to do exactly what NTN did, and call rape what it is. To attempt to shame media outlets for using proper language and supporting rape survivors is atrocious, and the fact that Justice Mildren is far from the only person who will engage in such behavior is one of the many reasons why the battle for proper language in rape reporting is going to be such a long one.

The good news is that both major Australian political parties have come out in opposition to Mildren’s statement and denounced it as the rape apologism and denialism that it is. Both have stated that a 13-year-old cannot consent to sex with an adult, and at least one has gone so far as to explain that the purpose of the law is to make that clear. Good for them.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this case is one that isn’t being discussed at length: the teacher started his “relationship” (read: “grooming for sexual assault”) after the student disclosed to him that she was being sexually abused.

A 13-year-old cannot consent to sex with an adult. But in the highly unlikely event that there was ever any doubt, this is especially true in a case where the adult is the minor’s teacher, and thus in a particular position of power. And it is yet again especially true when the teacher begins his assaults after the victim has disclosed prior assaults to him.

No, this is not because victims/survivors of sexual abuse do not know what is good for them, and are uniquely unable to make sexual decisions. Far from it. It’s because victims/survivors of sexual abuse are uniquely vulnerable to future abuse. This is because those who have already been assaulted are vulnerable to beliefs that abuse is “normal,” to beliefs that they are to blame for abuse, and to being unable to voice meaningful boundaries, all as a result of the abuse perpetrated against them. I do not believe for a second that it’s a coincidence that this abuse began after the student disclosed prior abuse to her teacher. The teacher didn’t magically form an “attraction” to her while he was “counseling” her. He saw someone as vulnerable, and chose to abuse her trust.

We should be appalled in all cases of sexual abuse by teachers against students, no matter what the genders of each party and no matter what the circumstances. But we should be especially appalled at a teacher who has chosen to abuse one of the most sacred forms of trust of all, in using an abuse survivor’s history as a weapon against her.

Along with his remarks regarding “consent,” that Justice Mildren has chosen to mark this perpetrator, of all perpetrators, as remorseful and unlikely to reoffend, only emphasizes his dire misunderstanding (or willful obfuscation) of sexual violence. His continued presence on the court would seem to be a very real danger.

One year ago, Veronica Baxter, an Australian woman who was both Aboriginal and trans, was arrested on drug charges. Less than one week after her arrest, she died in custody.

On March 10, 2009, three days after Mardi Gras, 34-year-old Veronica Baxter was arrested by Redfern police. She was charged with six counts of supplying a prohibited drug and held on remand at the all-male NSW Silverwater Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre.

An attractive transgender woman, she was placed in the maximum security, male jail.

Six days later, after a 14-hour break between checking her cell, she was found dead, hanging in her single cell.Veronica Baxter was an Aboriginal woman from the Cunnamulla country, south- west of Queensland. She dressed, appeared, and had identified as a woman for 15 years and was known by family and friends as a woman.

Yet she was placed in a male jail against NSW government policy, which states that transgender people be placed in the jail of their choosing.

Of course, it’s important to note that it doesn’t matter how attractive Baxter was, whether or not her family accepted her true identity, and whether she had publicly identified and lived as a woman for 6 decades or one month. What was done to her was wrong, period. Suggesting that her manner of dress, personal appearance, and familial relations have any bearing on whether or not her identity should have been recognized and treated as seriously as any cis person’s is to further marginalize those trans* people who are among the most vulnerable.

The article also goes on to explain at length that while trans* inmates are supposed to be placed in the gendered facility of their choosing, the enforcement of this rule is transphobic, frequently dangerous, and otherwise discriminatory:

Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association and elder of the Wiradguri nation, and has been fighting black deaths in custody for decades and campaigning around the Baxter case for a year.

He explained: “If trans people are post-operative transgender women, they are considered real women, and are placed within the women’s jail. If they are pre-operative transgender women, they are considered ‘male’ and are normally processed in a male jail.”

Transgender people face a disproportionate amount of abuse, rape, and murder in jail. Consequently, in Australia, strict guidelines exist, requiring protective segregation of transgender people from mainstream prisoners.

The Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999 states “any person received into the custody of the NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) who self-identifies as transgender has the right to be housed in a correctional facility appropriate to their gender or identification”. It says: “Transgender inmates are to be managed according to their chosen gender of identification.” Transgender women normally request to get placed in women jails.

“After processing in the male jail, pre-operative transgender women are then given an opportunity to go to a women’s jail, but have to stay in solitary confinement because they are still considered ‘male’”, Jackson told Green Left Weekly.

“Pre-operative transgender women won’t be in solitary confinement in a male jail, but they will suffer more harassment, assault and abuse.”

This policy discriminates against poor transgender people. In Australia it costs up to $20,000 for a male to female operation and up to $14,000 for a female to male operation. Baxter was allowed to move about Silverwater, among other male prisoners, and had not been checked on for 14 hours before she was found hanging from her cell hook. This contravenes another Department of Corrective Service (DCS) policy of regular cell check-ups.

Why Baxter was not moved to a women’s jail is currently unclear, because over one year after her death, and despite both requests and demands from Indigenous leaders like Jackson and LGBT groups like Community Action Against Homophobia, an investigation into her death has still not been conducted, and paperwork on her case has not been publicly released.

It’s impossible to adequately and accurately look at this case without considering both institutionalized transphobia and the legacy of colonization and atrocities committed against Aboriginal Australians.

Transphobia exists virtually everywhere. As the article notes, in Australia, violence is common against trans women when they are placed in male jails, and solitary confinement — quite arguably a form of violence in itself, seeing the institutional force behind it and severe mental repercussions — is common when they are placed in women’s jails.

While unable to find arrest rates for trans* Australians, it’s well-documented that Aboriginal Australians are arrested at hugely disproportionate rates to non-Aboriginals. In the 90s, Aboriginal Australians were over 17 times more likely to be arrested and 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aboriginals. Over-representation in prisons continues.

There is also a very long and ugly history of Aboriginal deaths in police custody. In the 80s, a Royal Commission on these deaths, and their disproportionate and very high numbers, was conducted. But despite the many recommendations for change made at that time, deaths still continue 20 years later. And while violence on behalf of others and neglect are common reasons for these deaths, so is suicide.

What exactly happened in the case of Baxter’s death and how it ties into this historical and social trend is currently unknown. But many are suspicious, and certainly want to find out.

Queer rights activist group, Community Action Against Homophobia is demanding action on this campaign. Steaphan Markatony, CAAH co-convenor, said: “Was Veronica Baxter killed in custody by transphobic guards or inmates? We don’t know. The only way we will find out is if there is a full, open inquiry. Support CAAH’s campaign to get it!”

Sign CAAH’s petition demanding a full, open inquiry into Veronica Baxter’s death. And if you know of further action that can be taken, please leave it in the comments.

h/t @blackfellas

A new survey of Australian attitudes towards violence against women reveals that a lot of those attitudes are incredibly disturbing. While the full study (pdf) certainly shows some good news — for example, only a very tiny percentage agreed that a man hitting a partner was ever “justified,” in a wide variety of presented circumstances — as well as many significant improvements since a similar 1995 study, many attitudes still held by respondents perpetuate a culture that promotes violence.

One subject of concern is that a rather high numbers of men and women agreed that there are some situations under which domestic violence is “excusable.” Twenty percent of men and 17 percent of women thought that “Domestic violence can be excused if it results from people getting so angry that they temporarily lose control.” Further, 27 percent of men and 18 percent of women agreed that “Domestic violence can be excused if, afterwards, the violent person genuinely regrets what they have done.”

The study authors carefully note:

Viewing the perpetration of domestic violence in terms of a ‘loss of control’ misses the fact that domestic violence is chosen behaviour. Studies of relationships in which violence occurs suggest that in order to escape detection and continue their control, many men choose with care how, where and when they will be violent (Pringle 1995). Australian research finds that men who are violent in their intimate relationships are more likely than other men also to be violent outside the home (Mouzos and Makkai 2004, p59). At the same time, most men using violence against intimate partners do not use violence elsewhere, with the research just mentioned finding that only 12 percent of men who had inflicted violence on their intimate partners had also been violent towards anyone outside the family. In other words, those men who use violence against their female partners or expartners typically do not also use violence in the workplace or in other non-intimate relationships. Men can and do exercise control over their violent behaviour.

It is concerning too that substantial proportions of the community agreed that violence against an intimate partner can be excused if the violent person ‘truly regrets’ what they have done. Expressions of regret or remorse are a regular feature of men’s patterns of abuse of their female partners. Men using violence may apologise for motives ranging from genuine contrition to manipulation designed to receive forgiveness or win post-abuse favours (Stark 2007, p246). In addition, male partners’ apologies for the abuse (as well as promises to change, denials of responsibility, withholding of contact with children, threats of harm, and other actions) make it more likely that women will stay with or return to violent partners (Holtzworth-Munroe et al. 1997, p197). Community support for this excuse has the potential to compromise women’s own resolve to take action as well as the responses of service providers and law enforcement personnel.

Questions on the subject of sexual violence returned some similarly distressing results. In addition to 16 percent of both men and women agreeing that “If a woman is raped while she is drunk or affected by drugs she is at least partly responsible,” a truly staggering 38 percent of men and 30 percent of women thought “Rape results from men being unable to control their need for sex.”

Just when you think that work on a particular rape myth is going pretty well, the truth hits you in the gut. Let me just repeat the fact that the above myth is incredibly misandrist. Every single decent man I know is hugely offended by the idea that he doesn’t have enough self-control over his sexual urges and genitalia to avoid seriously traumatizing another human being. The idea that men are ruled by their impulses and cannot exercise critical thought to control themselves is hugely insulting to men. And the myth is not just misandrist, it’s also used to prop up misogyny, by saying that men cannot be truly blamed for their sexual violence anymore than one can be blamed for blinking. As portrayed under this viewpoint, both are natural phenomena that are simply out of human control. One just happens to result in violence, usually against women.

One last disturbing finding I want to touch on is the rate at which respondents believe that women lie about different types of violence. Only 28 percent of respondents disagreed that “Women going through custody battles often make up or exaggerate claims of domestic violence in order to improve their case” (with 49 percent agreeing and 23 percent unsure). Just as chilling, only 61 percent of respondents thought that “Women rarely make false claims of being raped” (with 26 percent disagreeing and 13 percent unsure). In other words, Men’s Rights Activist’s myths are working, especially in the case of beliefs regarding custody battles. And the myth that women regularly lie about rape is nothing new, but proving extremely resistant to change.

The full study is 80 pages long. Having been unable to peruse the whole thing, I’m sure I missed quite a bit, so let me know what you find.  I do wish that the survey had worked with a definition of sexual violence and intimate partner violence that was a bit more open. While it’s important to notice that the vast majority of such violence is committed by men against women, it’s not useful to erase violence committed with different gender pairings or to overlook the serious rates of violence against people who are trans*, including those who don’t identify within the gender binary. So regularly seeing research that seemingly deliberately excludes the various forms that these kinds of violence can take, and how structural oppression is still linked to them much more often than not, is frustrating and not conducive to an end goal of ending IPV and sexual violence for everyone.

via @abyss2hope

Trigger Warning for discussions of child pornography and child sexual abuse.

In Hobart, Australia, a family court has made a truly confounding and infuriating decision to require two girls to visit their father every other weekend, including an overnight stay — even though the father has been convicted on child pornography charges, the ruling also acknowledges the need for a lock on the girls’ bedroom door, and at least one of the girls is very much unwilling to go on such visits:

A Family Court judge in Hobart has ruled that the girls must visit their father every second weekend provided another adult is present in the home overnight.

The father involved in the case has been convicted of accessing child pornography and possessing child abuse products. He will remain on the sexual offenders register for at least another year.

But the judge has declared that it is in the best interests of the girls, aged eight and 10, that they spend time with their father, who cannot be identified.

He says there needs to be a lock on the girls’ bedroom door as the “father acts impulsively from time to time and that the children need some protection from him, especially at night”.

The mind absolutely boggles.

As some commenters have noted over at Hoyden About Town, it’s absolutely true that there’s no indication that the girls have ever made allegations of abuse against the father. (ETA: Not exactly true. See update.) Possessing child pornography is not the same as abusing one’s own children.

But I think it’s also important to explicitly note that child pornography charges should not ever be construed as “non-violent.” Possessing child pornography does not involve physically enacting abuse yourself. But child pornography involving actual children is by its very nature violent, since what is depicted in child pornography is always abuse. The creation of child pornography requires the rape of children. The ability to possess child pornography requires the rape of children. The act of watching and enjoying child pornography requires watching and enjoying the rape of children and condoning the rape of children. Possession of child pornography inherently requires violence. And while not only condoning but enjoying that violence is not necessarily evidence that one is willing to personally inflict similar violence with their own body, it is a pretty big risk factor.

And so is so-called impulsive behavior that requires little girls to lock their bedroom door every night to make sure that daddy doesn’t get in. The fact that such a requirement exists isn’t evidence that the judge considered all angles to the situation and made a nuanced decision based on all of the facts available — it’s evidence that all of the facts available showed considerable reason to believe that the girls would be unsafe around their father, and that the ruling wholly disregarded their safety by trying to present it as something open to compromise.

How is a second adult in the home at night supposed to protect against abuse? A great deal of child rapes take place with a second parent in the home, fast asleep in bed, unaware of what is being committed down the hall. Is the second adult required to stay awake all night and sit in a chair outside the girls’ room? If so, is the knowledge that it is needed supposed to make the girls feel safe? What if the girls — again, they’re 10 and 8 — forget to lock the door? What if their dad sneaks a moment with them and assures them that it’s really unnecessary? What if the lock is easy to pick or break? (Have you seen the kinds of locks that usually come on bedroom doors? They’re not exactly high security.) And who are these girls to trust and turn to for help if one of these things happens and the father does something abusive? The same adults who put them in an abusive situation to begin with?

Further, it’s impossible to argue that the decision was made with the children’s best interest in mind when (at least) one of the children disagrees with it herself.

Former magistrate Barbara Holborow is upset by the decision and says one of the girls said she did not want to visit her father.

“That view should be respected, no matter what the age of the child,” Ms Holborow said. “And unless you’re doing that, you cannot say it is in the best interests of the child.

“She doesn’t want to be there. That’s in her best interests. Don’t let her go. If she doesn’t go, unless another adult is accompanying the other child, she shouldn’t go either.”

Ms Holborow says it is not enough for the judge to place conditions on the visit and think nothing untoward will happen.

“My goodness it’s not as simple as that,” she said.

“As for the children staying over there? No. School holidays? No. Visits? Yes – a trip to the zoo or to some other entertainment, but never sleeping over at this stage of their lives.”

…

“We’re treating him as though he’s entitled to this, to visitations, but I don’t believe he is.

“I think you just need common sense. You cannot get over the statement by that little girl. She doesn’t want to be there.”

It would seem that the father has likely either done something directly to one or both of the children to make the girl uncomfortable or afraid around him, or that the girl is very reasonably afraid of him after learning that he was convicted on child pornography charges. There are of course other possibilities, but these seem the most probable. And explicitly ignoring the girl’s own autonomy and personhood simply because of her age not only puts her physical safety at risk, it’s also an emotionally abusive action in itself.

Unsurprisingly, fathers’ rights activists — who always say that they do not support abusers or unsafe situations for children — are hailing the decision as the right one:

John Abbott from the fathers’ rights group Blackshirts says the court has taken all precautions to protect the children.

“What we have here is a situation where there’s no real allegation that the court has found against the father molesting his own children,” he said.

“And we have to keep in mind that alienating children from parents is a very serious matter.”

Much more serious, it would seem, than forcing children against their will into a situation with their father so unsafe that they shouldn’t be allowed to be alone with him, and cannot sleep in their own beds without first ensuring that the door is locked.

It’s true that parental rights should be terminated with the utmost care and hesitancy. Historically and currently, the right to remove children from the homes of their parents and deny parents access to their children has been used as a misogynistic, racist, classist, ableist, homophobic and transphobic tool of oppression. And separating children from their families without due cause can itself be a highly abusive act.

But while the right to parent one’s own children is an incredibly important right, it’s not a right that should ever come before the safety of children. Rights are only rights until they infringe upon the rights of others. And the father’s right to parent in this case most certainly, as the ruling itself even acknowledges with all of its stipulations, infringes on the right of the girls to safety and to choose whether or not they must interact with someone who they explicitly do not wish to interact with. It does not work the other way around.

The idea that a parent’s ties to their children are more valuable than the children’s safety is one that frequently ends in abuse and trauma, and sometimes ends in even worse tragedies. I hope with everything I have, for the sake of those little girls, that I and so many others are worried over a possibility that will never materialize. In the unspeakable event that we are not, the father will be 100% responsible for his actions. But the judge will also bear some of the liability and guilt for whatever happens to those girls. And taking responsibility after the fact simply isn’t good enough.

UPDATE: This article states that there are indications of abuse allegations, namely that “the father had invited one of the girls into his bed, and had ‘demonstrated affection toward her in a way that was, in all the circumstances, inappropriate for a child of that age’.” Even worse, the court actually heard these allegations and believed them. This of course only makes the situation all the more troubling, and validates my inclination to believe that the father had done something to frighten and/or traumatize the oldest child. Thanks to Akeeyu for the link.

Trigger Warning for rape apologism and graphic descriptions of sexual violence

In Sydney, a U.S. sailor has been acquitted on charges of raping a sex worker who told him to stop — even though he admitted, in court, to using a “lock down maneuver” to pin her to the bed.

A New South Wales District Court jury cleared Petty Officer Timothy Davis, 25, of a charge of sexual intercourse without consent, with the aggravating factor of causing the woman actual bodily harm. The charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Davis was one of 3,000 Marines and Navy personnel on shore leave in Sydney after the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu and guided missile destroyer USS Halsey arrived in the port in October, 2008.

The woman told the court she had protected, consensual sex with Davis at the brothel where she worked, but said he became aggressive when she told him his time was up and forced her to have unprotected sex. The jury was shown police photographs of scratches on the woman.

Davis denied forcing the woman to have sex, but admitted in court that he used a “lock down maneuver” to pin her to the bed when she said she wanted to stop. He told the court he backed off when she kicked him, though he said he muffled her mouth with his hand when she began to scream after he demanded his money back.

Could we possibly be reading this correctly? Let’s try another source:

She said he “ripped” off his condom, telling her he had paid for sex and he was going to finish it off “like a real man”.

The slight woman said he pushed her head into the pillow, started suffocating her, and had unprotected sex for 30 seconds.

The jury was shown police photos depicting scratches on the woman, who described Petty Officer Davis as an “animal” during an angry outburst at the trial.

In his evidence, the sailor – who agreed his weight was more than double the woman’s – admitted using a “lock down manoeuvre” to pin her down to the bed when she said she wanted to stop.

He said he told her he was going to “finish”, but when she kicked him away, he backed off with his hands in the air.

So, she told him to stop. And even only as far as he admits, instead of stopping as he was told, he pinned her to the bed and told her he was going to continue anyway. I repeat: against her wishes. After she told him to stop.

Which means that as far as any reasonable definition goes — hell, even working off an antiquated and misogynistic definition of rape that requires physical violence to be present — he confessed to raping her.

And yet, despite his clear admission of rape, he simultaneously claimed that it wasn’t rape — as we know, men will frequently admit to behavior that classifies as rape so long as the word rape is not actually used. The fact that he would do so in a court of law, though, is particularly shocking, exposes some extremely concerning cognitive dissonance, and most appalling of all, displays a clear belief by his defense attorney that such a tactic would succeed, and that the jury would accept that cognitive dissonance right along with him.

That belief was, of course, ultimately validated by the jury. But why? Because the victim was a sex worker, and many people believe that sex workers have no right to bodily autonomy, and therefore cannot be raped? Because she had consented to the sex up to that point, and many people believe that women who have consented to sex generally have no right to bodily autonomy, and therefore cannot revoke or renegotiate consent once it is given? Because the rape may have “only” lasted a few moments, and how could a rape — of a sex worker! who had previously consented! — possibly “count” as real rape? Because Davis is a member of the U.S. military, and therefore he doesn’t look how most people expect a rapist to look?

My best guess is that all of these forms of misogynistic prejudice played a role, most likely in the order I’ve listed them. Yet again, even a blatant confession in a court of law is not enough to earn a conviction from a jury pulled from a culture that thinks men are never to blame, and women always are.

After all, the men and their feelings are the only ones that matter:

Davis made no comment to reporters following the verdict, but his attorney, Sam Macedone, said Davis was very happy with the outcome.

“He is glad it’s over,” Macedone said. “It has been very stressful for him.”

Yes, clearly too few of us spend enough time thinking about the toll that rape accusations take on rapists.

link via $pread