Mar

16

UK Report: Honest Information Harms Rape Victims

Filed Under Europe, International, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 9 Comments

In the UK, a recent government review on how rape cases are handled has come to some surprising and controversial conclusions about how the statistic that only 6% of reported rapes result in a conviction has been used:

Baroness Stern’s independent report into how rape complaints are handled called for politicians and campaigners to stop quoting the 6% figure. Stern said the way it had been used was “extremely unhelpful” and misleading, because it suggested there was little chance of attackers being found guilty in court. The fact that 58% of cases that reached court resulted in a successful prosecution was more relevant, Stern said.

Campaigners accused her of missing the point that many rape complaints never get to court, often because of problems with the police and prosecution system. Baird said she too thought the reports-to-convictions rate remained important.

…

Baird said more needed to be made of the 58% figure, which had increased by more than half since 1997. The government’s interim response said it agreed with Stern that the way statistics were reported too often did not reflect the reality of what happened in the courtroom.

The Stern review was commissioned by the government last year in response to concerns over the conviction rate. Baird said at the time that the report should offer answers on how to drive the rate up.

The crossbench peer instead came back with a report that called for a broader measure of success to be adopted, with support to victims to be given equal priority. She criticised the focus on the 6% figure, saying it remained important but was “not the be all and end all”.

While she heavily implied it in her quotes above, she also specifically argued that use of the statistic was preventing victims from reporting their rapes to police:

The report called for an end to the use by politicians and campaigners of the much-quoted 6% conviction rate, which represents the proportion of reported rapes that end in a conviction for rape itself. It was misleading and may be putting victims off reporting attacks, Stern said.

Unsurprisingly, as the articles note, there are many who disagree with her.

It seems that two things are being conflated here by Baroness Stern: harm being done to victims, and victims deciding not to come forward and press charges.

If there’s evidence out there that the decision to not press charges is harmful to victims, I’d love someone to show it to me.

But until that’s the case, it’s a false equivalence being suggested. I do not support discouraging victims from reporting if they want to report, in any way shape or form. But I also do NOT support, have never supported, and never will support actively lying to or misleading victims in order to encourage them to report their rapes when doing so only lead them into a criminal justice system that is an absolute mess, and will, statistically, leave their attackers off the hook.

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Feb

26

Turkish Activists Demand Action on Transphobic Hate Crimes

Filed Under Asia, Europe, International, LGBTQ, bigotry, human rights, misogyny, patriarchy, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, violence against women and girls | Leave a Comment

There are exceedingly few places in the world where trans people are truly safe. Turkey, then, is only one of many, many countries where trans people, usually trans women, are violently attacked and murdered at epidemic levels simply for being who they are. The abuses there, however, could be considered particularly bad — and regardless, should not be accepted anywhere.

That is why, following yet more murders, Turkish and international activists have sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Turkey, demanding both protection of trans people and real efforts to change the social attitudes which make this violence acceptable. An excerpt from the letter appears below:

In order to end the ongoing violence and murders of transgender people in Turkey, we respectfully urge the Turkish government to take the following measures:

  • 1. Ensure an effective investigation into the murders of Fevzi Yener, Derya Y., and Sinasi Halimoglu, which will be capable of leading to the identification and prosecution of the alleged perpetrator(s) of these crimes. Ensure similar steps are taken in the event of any future crimes against the LGBT community.
  • 2. Enact anti-discrimination legislation that includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected status.
  • 3. Collect, analyze and disaggregate national and local data on violence, including violence on the grounds on sexual orientation and gender identity as a recognized category.
  • 4. Provide training to law enforcement authorities on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.
  1. Include sexual orientation and gender identity in school curricula as a way to combat gender stereotypes.
  • 6. Establish permanent communication mechanisms between the police and Turkish LGBT organizations.
  • 7. Revise the Law of Misdemeanors (No. 5326) that provides police the option to fine or otherwise treat individuals as criminals on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. The vagueness of this law-which purports to “protect public order, general morality, general health, the environment, and the economic order”- allows for prejudicial enforcement by police.

The full English text of the letter can be found here. (Here is the Turkish version.) I highly recommend that you take a moment to go read it, for further context regarding Turkish trans folks’ situation.

I have little else to add, other than to repeat that violence against trans people is an epidemic in many parts of the world, including in the U.S., where I’m writing. The violence is not going to end until we eradicate transphobia, and transmisogyny in particular, and put to rest the idea that cissexual and cisgender identities are superior to and more “real” than transsexual and transgender identities. And that is an enormous and international task.

I found the news of this letter via Helen G at Bird of Paradox. At the bottom of her post is a long list of links to other posts she has written on trans rights (or more accurately, the lack thereof) in Turkey over the past year. I strongly encourage you to click through and view that list of links, at the very least, as a visual reminder of the magnitude of the problem, and to take the time to read some of them.

Jan

15

Alleged Victim Slut-Shamed, Rape Case Thrown Out

Filed Under Europe, International, assholes, bigotry, courts, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, slut-shaming, violence against women and girls | 10 Comments

A particular rape case has been making the rounds lately, for its especially ludicrous and misogynistic outcome. In short, a U.K. woman made allegations of a gang rape by five perpetrators. The case made it to court. And then, the judge ordered the jury to return a not guilty verdict when “evidence” was presented — not by the defense, but the prosecution — showing that the alleged victim had made statements online about her fantasies involving group sex. The revelation that she had had group sex fantasies was, in fact, the entire reason presented for the dismissal of the case. Indeed, agreeing with the prosecutor, the judge remarked that with the admission of these fantasies, “her credibility was shot to pieces.”

Many have written about this case by now, ranging from the F-Word, to Penny Red, to Pandora Blake (Note: images on this site may be NSFW). These are all great posts that each touch on several important points — I particularly like Pandora’s concise statement that “Desire is not consent. Consent is consent.” — and I highly recommend that you go check them all out, right now, if you have not already. Especially since I’m going to avoid repeating those points very much here.

Because with all of the astute analysis I’ve seen, one thing I’m not seeing discussed a lot is the nature of the fantasy itself. I’m very, very glad, on the one hand, to see that a fantasy of group sex is not being treated as some sort of abnormal, shameful thing for a woman to fantasize about, and that women are not being treated as immoral for having sexual fantasies at all and particularly immoral for having a fantasy that involves multiple partners. This is very important, and good on everyone for it.

But I also think it’s important to acknowledge the cultural context in which the decision was made. And that cultural context is one of a world in which group sex is seen as being among the most debasing things that a woman could think about, let alone do. In a misogynistic world where sex is seen as inherently degrading to a woman’s sense of integrity, sex with multiple partners at the same time is seen to leave her with no integrity left at all.

And so while I’m willing to be entirely proven wrong, and while I put absolutely nothing past the courts at this point, I think it’s a lot less likely — possible, but less likely — that we’d be seeing this case exist if the woman had fantasized about “vanilla” intercourse with a single partner, and then was raped by a single man. I think this case is less about whether or not a woman has a right to refuse consent to something she has previously expressed interest in — though it certainly is about that as well, and this is an ongoing source of horrific rape trial outcomes — but more about whether or not a “slut” has a right to ever say no to anything. The victim in this case has been officially portrayed, by way of her fantasy and cultural attitude towards it, as a “slut.” And the answer to the question by the prosecutor and judge alike is “no, a slut does not have that right.”

Again, in our society some women are more vulnerable than others to both sexual assault and rape apologism. And though virtually any woman can be made to be seen as unrapeable, some women start out closer to that status already. Among the many factors that can make a woman unrapeable in the eyes of our society, including race, gender identity, and disability, is the willingness to behave sexually. “Sexual” women are automatically seen as less rapeable than “chaste” women — “bad girls” more unrapeable than “good” ones. And women who behave sexually in ways that are less culturally approved are more unrapeable still.

This inevitably influenced the decision here. Judges and prosecutors are not magically immune from thinking nasty things about “sluts” when most of the general public does the same, nor are they immune from thinking that a fantasy about group sex makes a woman a dirty, dirty slut when this misogynistic notion is culturally ingrained.

The very official reason behind this decision seems to be “she openly fantasized about doing it, and thus she likely consented when the opportunity was presented to her” — and that assumption is a problem of proportions so enormous it’s impossible to overstate. But the prejudice behind that reason is “look what as slut she is, thinking about group sex with several men — how could a slut like that have possibly said no?” And that? That is an epically huge problem, too.

Jan

14

Swedish Court Decides Sexual Assault is Not a Crime

Filed Under Europe, International, bigotry, courts, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 13 Comments

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual assault, apologism, and victim-blaming

At a New Year’s party in Sweden, a 17-year-old girl laid down to sleep on a sofa. The 49-year-old father of the boy hosting the party proceeded to lift up her skirt while she was unconscious and photograph her genitals. He then, in some unspecified manner, spread the photo to other people.

The victim pressed charges, once she learned of what had been done to her. Then, the court dismissed the charges — not because they found that there was insufficient evidence, or because the victim changed her mind about pursuing the case, but because they said that lifting an unconscious person’s skirt without her consent and photographing her genitals, also without her consent, is not against the law.

A court in Halmstad on the southwest coast of Sweden has dismissed charges against a man who reportedly took a photo of a 17-year-old girl’s genitals while she was sleeping. The court said that the incident was was not a punishable offense.

…

Citing several other cases, the Halmstad district court said that the man had not committed a crime. There is no general prohibition against photographing people without their consent. The same applies to people who are asleep.

The fact that other people have seen the photograph, as claimed by the prosecutor in this case, doesn’t make the incident a punishable offense either, according to the court.

What we’re looking at here is a legal system which has absolutely no respect for women’s bodily autonomy — a legal system that says “so long as she’s there, you can do whatever you want with her.”

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Nov

16

Man Allegedly Murdered Albanian Woman Because She Was Trans

Filed Under Europe, International, bigotry, courts, misogyny, patriarchy, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, violence against women and girls | 1 Comment

Trigger Warning for transmisogyny and discussions of violence against women

In September, Kristina Muça was brutally murdered in Tirana, Albania. Her neck was slit, allegedly by a man she had only just met. The alleged motives for the crime were, according to prosecutors and to defendant Sefedin Hoxha’s now recanted confession, transphobic hatred towards the victim.

I’ve learned of this story through reader Kim Burton, who translated the local media reports into English and forwarded them to me, among others. She has verified the translations with a colleague and friend. All links in this post are to google documents of Kim’s translations, with the links to the original articles at the bottom of each. Please note that she has translated them faithfully, including the extremely disrespectful and ungendering language that so regularly accompanies reports on violence against trans people, and use caution when clicking through. The reports generally refer to Kristina as a “man,” “homosexual” or “transvestite,” complete with use of an incorrect name, though her boyfriend has strongly indicated that Kirstina identified as a woman, and prosecutors seem to be referring to her correctly. In the sections I have copied into the post, I have redacted Kristina’s male name, changed the pronouns, and altered or deleted some other disrespectful language when not used in direct quotes or noted otherwise by me. The original documents, however, are unchanged.

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Oct

26

Lawyer Claims Rapist “Misread the Situation”

Filed Under Europe, International, courts, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 11 Comments

In Scotland, a man was convicted of raping a woman who fell asleep on his couch. She was unconscious throughout the assault, and woke to find herself partially undressed. Craig Byars admitted to the rape and has been sentenced to four years in jail.

But in spite of that confession, his lawyer is still making excuses — assuring us of what a good guy Byars really is, and that raping a sleeping woman is the kind of thing that can happen to the best of us!

Defence counsel Shahid Latif said Byars apologised for the consequences of his actions on the victim.

He said: “I have to stress that what happened was a gross error of judgement on his part. He misread the situation.”

He misread the situation.

The tendency for defenses of a rapist to continue even after he has been convicted or has confessed is something that gets under my skin at the best of times. There is seemingly a compulsive desire by every rapist and those close to him to ensure that the world knows he’s actually a good person. First of all, whether or not he’s a “good person” is incredibly irrelevant to the subject of whether or not he raped someone. Secondly, as we live in a world where only bad, bad men, evil, slimy subhuman creatures, are considered to be capable of raping, the insistence that raping someone was out of character for this particular rapist, a simple mistake, an error in judgment, seems to me to be the same thing as saying “yes, so he raped a woman this one time! But that doesn’t make him a real rapist.”

But this specific defense strikes me as a particularly awful and apologist way of making an already awful and apologist argument.

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Oct

1

Teacher Groomed 13-Year-Old Girl Through the Internet, Raped Her

Filed Under Europe, International, assholes, courts, education and schools, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 14 Comments

This case is appalling on multiple levels. In the UK, 24-year-old man — a man who worked as a teacher — groomed a 13-year-old girl through the internet using a 15-year-old female alter ego, and then met her in person and raped her.

After Matthew Knott raped her, the girl reported the attack, and he has since been convicted on charges of grooming a child for sex on the internet and having sexual activity with a child (read: rape, because consensual sex with a child is impossible). I see no real reason to reproduce the details of the grooming and assault here; you can click through to read about the ways in which Knott manipulated the girl, and how he assaulted her not only through a lack of meaningful consent due to her age (more than enough), but also by obtaining her compliance through ordering her around in a threatening manner. He was sentenced to four years in prison, and is barred from working with children for five years.

Again, there are multiple levels of outrage here. There’s the fact that Knott committed this assault in the first place. Then there’s the fact that he did so as a teacher, someone who is entrusted with the well-being of children and adolescents every day, even if his victim was not one of his students. Further, there’s his mere sentence of four years in prison, which seems a bit short to me, though I suppose that it is in fact much longer than most rapists ever receive. And there’s the sickening knowledge that he will be able to legally work with children again in five years — I assume that means one year after his release? — even though he has raped a 13-year-old, and the school at which he taught at the time of the rape is for students age 11 through 16. One can only hope that no one would be so foolish as to hire him for a position that involves working with children, and certainly not for a teaching job.

Oh, wait, and then there’s this comment from the judge:

Judge Michael Henshaw told him: “It is perfectly clear to anybody here and those reading about these offences to see these were carefully planned calculated offences carried out in a devious way to enable you to meet this child for the purpose of having sex with her.

“The type of activity you engaged in is of enormous public concern.

“Parents throughout this country are no doubt worried sick what their offspring might be doing when they are using the computer.

“There are people like you who adopt identities to encourage children to commit offences.”

Yes, yes, mhm, agreed … what?

I keep trying to read that line another way. Maybe he meant “there are people like you who adopt identities in order to commit offenses through encouraging children”? Maybe, but that’s not what he says. Either way you read it, no matter how generously, the judge here frames grooming a child for sexual assault as “encouragement,” when in fact those two things are worlds apart. That is a big problem. And the way I’m reading it, he also frames the child who has been raped as having committed an offense.

No. No, no, no. Pretending to be a teenager and then telling an actual teen that they ought to go egg someone’s house is adopting an identity to encourage children to commit offenses. Pretending to be a teenager in order to obtain explicit photographs of an actual teen, and then to get her to meet you in order to rape her, is not encouraging children to commit offenses. It is victimizing a child, it is committing an offense, and the suggestion that the child has somehow been corrupted or merely been subject to a bad influence by someone who ought to know better is frankly disgusting.

Treating the rape of a child as just “having sex” that general society finds icky is a huge and pervasive problem. Pretending that grooming children is the same as seduction is a similar problem. And acting as though teenage sex is something just as fearsome, just as valid for parents to be concerned about as an adult raping a teenager, is something that regularly keeps victims marginalized and blaming themselves, and something which only encourages rapists — those like Matthew Knott.

Aug

8

Greek Woman Allegedly Set Attacker’s Genitals on Fire

Filed Under Europe, International, assholes, courts, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sexism, violence against women and girls | 32 Comments

A woman in Greece was out at a club. A man, a British tourist out at that same club, allegedly exposed his genitals and started waving them around and making obscene gestures and remarks. He then allegedly forcibly fondled the woman, including between her legs.

During the course of this alleged assault, the woman allegedly told him to stop harassing her, and when he did not, she poured her alcoholic beverage on him. When he still refused to stop harassing and assaulting her, she allegedly got out a lighter.

Stuart Feltham is in the hospital with second degree burns on his body, including his genitals. Marina Fanouraki is in court.

Fanouraki says that she did not light Feltham’s pants on fire, that she poured the liquid on him after he assaulted her, and he must have accidentally lit himself on fire while trying to light a cigarette. Feltham denies the sexual assault and harassment, with his parents defending him as a “kind-hearted, generous boy.”

I don’t know what actually happened. Neither do you. And there is so much to write about here — the common assault of Greek women by British tourists which has made Fanouraki a hometown hero, the government response that this is somehow a lesson about alcohol, and more.

But I do know what most people seem to believe happened. Most people seem to believe that Feltham harassed and assaulted Fanouraki, and that Fanouraki responded by pouring her drink on him, and lighting him on fire. I do know that most people believe that this is what has happened, and that Fanouraki is the only one who has been charged with a crime. (Note: Fanouraki’s lawyers apparently intend to take legal action against Feltham. But unless the court system is vastly different from the American one, I would assume that those would be civil rather than criminal charges.) I do know that most people believe that this is what happened, and are placing the blame entirely on one person. And it’s not the person who is alleged to have committed a sexual assault.

Time and time again, women who act in self-defense are charged with crimes while the man they were defending themselves against walks free and is treated as the victim. And the woman who defended herself is scolded and dismissed as overreacting, going to far, and being a crazy, vengeful bitch. The man, oh, he was wrong of course. But the woman — why the woman, she should have responded better! Why didn’t she more carefully analyze all of her options for protecting herself and choose the one that was the least forceful, regardless of expected effectiveness? Couldn’t she have just politely and quietly asked him to stop?

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Jun

26

Russian Trans Woman Murdered By Her Boyfriend

Filed Under Europe, International, LGBTQ, bigotry, misogyny, patriarchy, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, violence against women and girls | 10 Comments

kamillaTrigger Warning

Via Womanist Musings, I’ve just learned the devastating news that yet another trans woman has been murdered in an apparent hate crime.  (Note: because of transphobia in the article, I am not quoting directly from it. Please read at your own discretion.)

The woman’s name was Kamilla; the only English language report I’ve been able to find does not give her last name.  She had been living with a boyfriend of two years, named Vladimir.  When Vladimir asked asked Kamilla to marry him, she declined.  Apparently believing that she could not have possibly turned him down for her stated reason of not being ready to wed, he started going through her things, and found letters addressed to her former name.  Upon further invasions of her privacy, he learned that she was trans.

Then he shot her dead.

Vladimir also slit his own wrists after murdering Kamilla.  Of course he is still alive, and is now thankfully facing murder charges.

The circumstantial evidence quite clearly indicates that Vladimir murdered Kamilla because of transphobic and transmisogynistic hatred.  And so, in fact, does the physical evidence.  In his suicide note, Vladimir stated that he killed Kamilla because of her “betrayal.”

That’s right.  Vladimir saw Kamilla being the person she was as a “betrayal” to him.  And because the lives of trans individuals, and of just all women period, are seen as so expendable, he decided that the perceived “betrayal” was enough reason to take her life.

In other words, he saw his own cis gender identity as so much more valid than Kamilla’s gender identity that he decided she didn’t have the right to live. Instead of accepting her as the woman that she was, had always been, and had always presented herself as to him, or in fact instead of just walking away from the relationship, he decided to shoot her.  When he learned that she was trans instead of cis, he didn’t only fail to continue seeing her as a woman.  He failed to continue seeing her as human.  And then in a supposed “last act,” he tried to pin his own actions on her.

I absolutely dread to see what the trial will be like.  I imagine that the “trans panic” defense exists in Russia, too, and particularly judging from Vladimir’s note, it will almost certainly be used if he pleads not guilty.  But I can only hope that the judicial system will recognize what Vladimir willfully ignored in his act of hatred: that Kamilla’s life, like all of our lives, had value and worth.  And I hope that the most justice that can possibly be done will be done.

Rest in peace, Kamilla.

Jun

17

UK Officials Assigned to Fight Rape Actually Promote Rape Myths

Filed Under Europe, International, assholes, courts, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 9 Comments

It’s no big secret that the rape conviction rate in the UK is utterly and depressingly low.  And that unfortunately is something that will not be fixed over night.

But, while I would never be so foolish as to become optimistic, I was indeed hopeful when I learned that the Home Office was working on a campaign to tackle violence against women and drive up rape conviction rates.  Especially when I learned that prosecutors were going to start challenging rape myths in court, as a response to the Home Office survey.

Now, a Guardian article (h/t Gauntlet) gives us the disappointing and upsetting news that even that much was ill-founded.

We know that currently in nearly three-quarters of all reported rapes, the perpetrator is never charged and the case isn’t referred to the CPS. The reasons are numerous and have been debated in various arenas over the past few years. However, in a recent interview, Dave Gee, rape adviser to Acpo and the Home Office, admitted that Britain’s appalling conviction rates were often due to poor evidence-gathering and negative mindsets, which he said too often led to cases being “undermined rather than built up”.

Police forces across the UK and Wales have all been allocated “rape champions” to oversee the roll-out of their sexual violence action plans, to implement good practice guidelines and to tackle the “negative mindsets” within their forces. Along with specially trained officers, they have received sexual violence training and are part of the initiative that we have been assured will help to address the culture of disbelief that we know, from what women tell us, still exists. However, at the Home Office violence against women consultation in the east of England in May, a rape champion for one of the police forces in the east of England stated openly that “everyone knows most women and girls who report rape can’t be believed”.

It is truly concerning that rape champions, who oversee the training and work of the specially trained sexual offences officers in police forces, hold these views. It has long been acknowledged by Acpo that miscounting rape statistics – most specifically recording women’s withdrawal from the process as a false allegation – has not helped to change the police’s wrong assumptions that at least 25% of women reporting rape won’t be telling the truth, when in reality that figure is no more than for any other crime. If frontline officers are assuming that 25% of the women who come in to their stations to report rape “can’t be believed”, one wonders how this affects their response to all victims of this most serious of crimes.

First of all: how the hell does this guy still have his job?  Can we get him fired, please?  Preferably, yesterday?

Secondly, what kind of training are we really talking about if this is the view that those undergoing it walk away with?  That “everybody knows” that women aren’t really raped, and are actually lying, vindictive whores?  If this is the post-training attitude, I doubt that I even want to know what the attitude is pre-training.  Though I suppose if, as suggested above, the general thought is that 25% of rape reports will be false, that’s actually an improvement over the rape champion’s assertion of most!

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