Last Friday, Titania Kumeh wrote an excellent blog post at Mother Jones about the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, and the over 100 sex workers and advocates who protested outside. The protest was about how U.S. funding to fight HIV transmission explicitly and deliberately excludes sex workers, even though they are one of the groups most vulnerable to becoming infected and transmitting the virus to others.

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) requires that funds do not go to sex workers or those who work with sex workers, and has done so for years. In fact, it recently came up in a post that I wrote about police abuse against sex workers in Cambodia. But while the situation is nothing new, it is discussed far too little, and needs to be highlighted whenever an opportunity presents itself. Because it’s killing people.

Back in 2003, Congress mandated that in order for any group or organization to get US global HIV/AIDS funds, it must have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” (See: Sex, American Style). The 2008 PEPFAR fact sheet states “prostitution and sex trafficking are abusive and dehumanizing to women, and they fuel the spread of HIV.” It’s not clear whether former-President Bush—who implemented PEPFAR and its anti-prostitution pledge—recognized the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution, spoke to any sex worker-run organizations that combat exploitation, or spoke to groups that seek HIV preventative care and battle sex trafficking. The anti-sex worker, anti-trafficking pledge left sex worker organizations—which incidentally work with one of the most at-risk populations for HIV (PDF)—out in the cold.

“We need HIV treatment but we don’t need the mandate that sex workers are excluded,” says Pisey Ly of Cambodia’s Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), a sex worker advocate organization. When WNU applied for US HIV prevention funds, it was denied and told to drop its sex worker status, Ly says. It refused. “The original idea behind WNU was to be an independent sex worker organization, to provide sex workers with ownership and leadership to speak about the issues that effect their lives,” Ly says. Because of PEPFAR’s anti-prostitution policy, Ly says, many donors and NGOs that once worked with Cambodian sex workers have abandoned them for fear of losing their US funding.

Meanwhile, unprotected intercourse between sex workers and clients is the main cause of new HIV infections in Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Really, you should go read the whole post. I wholeheartedly mean that — quoting as much of Kumeh’s text as I would like to would genuinely constitute copyright infringement.

What it comes down to though, is this: U.S. policy is not only failing to help sex workers, it’s actively harming them. Through requiring that any group oppose sex work in order to receiving funding, we’re not just failing to provide funding to those who already didn’t have it and leaving them where they started — though when the situation is so dire, that would be unconscionable on its own. No, we’re ensuring that organizations that previously worked with sex workers and trafficking victims, providing them with information, resources, and care that they needed, no longer will. Because they can’t keep working with sex workers and trafficking victims and afford to stay open.

It’s very similar to the Global Gag Rule. It’s probably just as deadly, if not more so. And it deserves every damn bit as much attention from feminists and other people who care about women’s rights and welfare.

The PEPFAR policy is blatantly misogynistic and sex worker-phobic. It makes sense that organizations should be anti-trafficking in order to receive funds — kidnappers and rapists don’t need anymore money than they already have — but it certainly doesn’t make sense to say that organizations can’t even assist trafficking victims as a part of their work, as such victims are usually among those who most need assistance. To further extend anti-trafficking sentiment to anti-sex worker sentiment is to conflate two issues, and obscure them both. And to deny funding and services to sex workers because they are at particular risk for contracting and transmitting HIV is more than counter-intuitive, it’s downright nonsensical. No — it’s malicious.

I would go so far as to say (and do not doubt that I am not the first) that such a denial of funds constitutes a direct act of violence. With a vast majority of sex workers being women, it constitutes an act of misogynistic, gender-based violence. With sex workers also being disproportionately women of color, trans*, and/or non-straight men,  it further constitutes an act of racist, transphobic, and homophobic violence. And when the U.S. has such great financial power over those who are most vulnerable to it, the label of colonialist violence also applies. We know that when sex workers don’t have access to condoms and information about how HIV is transmitted and prevented, they die. And yet, we continue as though we’re not killing them, or as though their deaths do not matter.

I greatly resent the notion that PEPFAR’s anti-sex work rule has anything to do with “protecting” women. The paternalistic notion that sex work is inherently “dehumanizing to women” isn’t based on a concern for women’s health and well-being. If anyone was concerned about that, the rule wouldn’t exist. The rule is about shaming and punishing those women who step outside of society’s bounds, whether through choice or coercion or force, of what a proper woman acts like. The rule is about appeasing the concerns of religious groups and middle-class moralists and generally taking out society’s hateful, misogynistic disgust at sex workers at those who can be harmed the most. It’s about taking power and abusing it in the worst way possible, just because we can.

Just because we can, and because we can simultaneously tell ourselves that by doing so, we’re doing something good.

And until the rules regarding access to U.S. anti-HIV funding are changed, it’s just yet more blood on the nation’s hands.

h/t @audaciaray

Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence and police violence, specifically including violence against sex workers and transphobic violence.

Earlier this year, I wrote about an Amnesty International report about sexual violence against women in Cambodia, and the judicial response (or more accurately, lack of judicial response) to sexual violence. A section of that report dealt with sexual violence against sex workers, and the fact that good portion of such violence is actually committed by law enforcement officials.

Now Human Rights Watch has released a more detailed report specifically about police abuses against sex workers in Cambodia, including but not limited to sexual violence. You can view and download the full report here. The Human Rights Watch press release states:

Police arrest sex workers in regular sweeps on the streets and parks of Phnom Penh. Some of the violence is opportunistic, while other abuses commonly occur in periodic crackdowns and raids by police and district authorities, at times targeting sex workers specifically  and other times picking up sex workers along with other groups of marginalized people on the streets.

Police abuse sex workers with impunity. Sex workers told Human Rights Watch that police officers beat them with their fists, sticks, wooden handles, and electric shock batons. In several instances, police officers raped sex workers while they were in police detention. Every sex worker that Human Rights Watch spoke to had to pay bribes or had money stolen from them by police officers.

A 2008 Cambodian law on trafficking and sexual exploitation criminalized all forms of trafficking, including forced labor. Human Rights Watch found that police officers at times can use those sections of the law that criminalize “solicitation” and “procurement” of commercial sex to justify harassment of sex workers. The provisions are also broad enough that they can be used to criminalize advocacy and outreach activities by sex worker groups and those who support them.

Human Rights Watch urged the Cambodian government to consult with sex worker groups, United Nations agencies, and organizations working on human rights, trafficking, and health to review and address the impact on the human rights of those engaged in sex work of provisions in the 2008 law on trafficking and sexual exploitation, before implementing those provisions.

In Phnom Penh, police refer sex workers to the municipal Office of Social Affairs and from there to NGOs or the government Social Affairs center, Prey Speu. Conditions in Prey Speu are abysmal. Sex workers, beggars, drug users, street children, and homeless people held at Prey Speu have reported how staff members at the center have beaten, raped, and mistreated detainees, including children. Local human rights workers, citing eyewitness accounts, allege that at least three people, and possibly more, were beaten to death by guards at Prey Speu between 2006 and 2008.

This is sadly the problem with far too many efforts that purport to be anti-trafficking: they actually don’t work to prevent or address trafficking, but merely serve as a cover to abuse all sex workers and trafficking victims. The stigma, revulsion, and misogyny (combined with many other prejudices) directed at sex workers is enormous. And verbal taunts and harassment easily lead to physical and sexual violence. Dehumanization of sex workers through slut-shaming, classism, transphobia, etc., enforces a culture that turns the other way to such abuses, or actively affirms them. And while not the only perpetrators, law enforcement is always first in line.

That’s why it’s absolutely vital that anti-trafficking efforts actually involve groups made up of trafficking victims and sex workers, to ensure that the law will truly be used to assist those who are victims and not work to create new ones. And it’s also why, as the report addresses (starting on page 60), the U.S.’s inability to do its job as a member of the international community without imposing moralization and anti-sex mandates on other governments is so problematic:

The US is one of Cambodia’s largest bilateral donors, and a major donor supporting antitrafficking efforts in Cambodia. Under the Bush administration, the US government maintained that in order to combat trafficking, countries should take steps against prostitution. National Security Presidential Directive 22 stated that, “Our policy is based on an abolitionist approach to trafficking…. In this regard, the United Statesgovernment opposes prostitution and any related activities including pimping, pandering, and/or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons.”

Since 2003, US legislation dealing with HIV/AIDS and human trafficking has required recipients of international anti-AIDS funding to have a policy “opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” as a condition of receiving funding. The legislation bars the use of funds, to “promote, support, or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution.” This provision was retained when the law was reauthorized in 2008 and remains in force. In May 2010, the US government issued implementing regulations that largely mirror those imposed by the Bush Administration.

This anti-prostitution stance combined with the impact of the annual US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report seemed to show US support for the Cambodian government’s efforts to criminalize voluntary sex work.

…

While there is no language concerning criminalizing sex work as a means to combat trafficking in the MOU, US policy on sex work under the Bush administration was quite clear. In supporting these efforts in Cambodia, the US failed to consider the context of a police force long known for its problems with corruption and for committing abuses against sex workers with impunity, when it pushed for the 2008 law [that authorized brothel raids and street sweeps].

Nice job, U.S., nice job.

One critique I had about the Amnesty International report was a failure to take a look at experiences by trans* individuals. The HRW report specifically interviewed multiple trans women sex workers. While the information provided about trans experiences is hardly comprehensive, and while it’s highly unfortunate that HRW seems to take pains to separate out trans women sex workers from “female” sex workers and uses other problematic language, some level of inclusion is both positive and illuminating. In the press release, a woman identified as Neary recounts:

“Three police officers beat me up seriously at Wat Phnom commune police station after I was taken from the park. One of the police officers pointed his gun at my head and pulled the trigger, but the bullet did not fire. They kicked my neck, my waist, and hit my head and my body with a broom stick. It lasted about half an hour. I begged them not to beat me. The police officers were cruel and they did not tell me any reason why they did this to me. “

And in the full report (page 33), she also states:

Sometimes the police say, “A-khtoey [a disparaging word for a transgender person] you fuck up the ass. You have HIV/AIDS and you infect other people. You deserve to be shot.”

Unsurprisingly, wherever there is misogynistic violence, there will also be specifically transmisogynistic violence, and it will always be magnified.

At over 70 pages, the report contains a whole lot more than I’ve highlighted in this brief overview, including many more personal testimonies from sex workers who have experienced abuse by police. I strongly urge you to take some time to browse through it, or at the very least read the full press release, and pass it along.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence, poor responses to rape allegations, and discussion of a possible murder, possible suicide.

Last month, Akhona Geveza (above), a young South African woman who was participating as a cadet in the Transnet National Ports Authority’s Maritime Studies Programme, was found dead, floating overboard.

Only a few hours before she died, a report was made to the shipmaster that Geveza had been raped by a senior official.

Her death, which has just today been released to the media, is now being investigated to determine whether it was a murder or a suicide.

Geveza’s stint aboard the Safmarine Kariba ended tragically on June 24. At 10am that day she told Shipmaster Klaudiusz Kolodziejczyk that she had repeatedly been raped by a senior officer aboard the British-registered ship. According to a report by Kolodziejczyk, he immediately confronted the officer and convened a conference with him and Geveza for 11am.

When she failed to arrive for the meeting, a search was conducted. Kolodziejczyk, alerted by some pills and a bottle of thinners found on the forecastle of the ship, sounded the alarm and called sea rescue from the port of Rijeka in Croatia.

Three hours later, Geveza’s body was found floating in the sea.

Her father, John Geveza, said the career of the bright young woman – his only child – had represented hope for her unemployed parents.

“I won’t rest until the person or people responsible for my daughter’s death are in jail,” he said.

…

On the night before she died, Geveza confided in a fellow cadet, Nokulunga Cele. Cele made a statement, a copy of which the Sunday Times has seen. In it she explains how Geveza had told her that the chief officer had forced himself on her several times.

Cele said the Ukrainian officer, whose name is known to the Sunday Times, apparently first tried to kiss her while he was teaching her to swim early in May. The officer later apologised to her and called her to his room where he allegedly raped her.

Cele said Geveza was not willing to report the matter to the shipmaster because she feared that nobody would believe her.

The article details how Geveza’s experience with sexual violence on board the ship was not at all unusual — many other Transnet program cadets, both male and female, report being raped by senior officers, being sent home because they refused to perform sex acts, and/or being forcibly impregnated.

I think there’s a really good chance here that we’re looking at a murder case. Frankly, at first glance, the thought that officials were considering any other possibilities seemed ludicrous and offensive. But after looking at the details, a suicide does indeed seem just as likely as the alternative. Not only because sexual assault itself usually results in horrific, profound trauma, but also because the situation here was handled absolutely abhorrently.

First of all, there’s the detail that is included in the above article excerpt: Shipmaster Klaudiusz Kolodziejczyk’s solution to the report of Geveza’s rape was to convene a meeting between her and her alleged rapist (whose name has not been released). To repeat, the alleged rapist was also her superior officer.

What on earth was anyone thinking?

There’s no word in any article I found on whether or not Kolodziejczyk’s actions followed standard protocol. If they did, this is a dangerous, inexcusable system. If there is no standard protocol, that’s even more dangerous and inexcusable. And if there is a different protocol that Kolodziejczyk failed to follow, he needs to be out of a job immediately.

Setting up a meeting between an alleged rapist and alleged rape victim as though the situation constitutes some kind of “personal problem” is rape apologist in the extreme. There are indeed some cases where a victim would like the opportunity to privately confront hir accuser — it certainly doesn’t seem to have been the case here, though, and that decision should never be made for the victim. It should never be a default option. A “meeting” between two officers, the superior officer having been accused of rape, is not the same as an investigation. It is the same thing as retraumatizing the victim, and expecting hir to “work it out” with hir alleged abuser.

Of additional concern is a fact often left out or only expressed vaguely in most articles I found. It turns out that Geveza never reported the alleged assault at all. The friend she confided in, Nokulunga Cele — who admits above that Geveza was unwilling to report — reported it for her.

Let me repeat that: Akhona Geveza never reported her rape. She never wanted to report it. She expressly said that she did not want to report it.

And yet, it was reported on her behalf, regardless. Against her wishes. Without her consent.

I can’t bring myself to unabashedly beat up somebody who was most likely only trying to help, and who is likely already beating up herself worse than I ever could. But look. This needs to serve as an example, because people need to stop doing it. You can think you’re helping a rape survivor all you want. You can really, truly believe that you’re doing the right thing. But if your version of helping is doing exactly what the rape survivor told you she didn’t want to do, seemingly without consulting her, that is the very last thing from helping. It is putting her physical and emotional safety at extraordinary risk. It most likely won’t end with her death, as it did here. But it will result in damage. Betrayals of trust and violations of personal agency, especially when it comes to matters so incredibly dire, always, always do.

Akhona Geveza is dead. Whether she was murdered because she dared tell anyone what was done to her, or whether she committed suicide because she was raped and then severely revictimized by those who didn’t take her wishes and autonomy into account, we will have to wait to find out. The investigation might be biased to protect those in power; and in any case, it might take a while. But no matter what the outcome of the investigation into Geveza’s death, there is little doubt that, one way or another, rape culture is what killed her.

The ultimate goal here for the future ought to be and has to be to end the Transnet culture of sexual violence. But as much as I wish it weren’t true, that’s going to take a while. So in the  meantime, and as a part of achieving that ultimate goal, non-rapists in the Transnet program need to start acting responsibly, too. Setting up a private meeting between an alleged rapist and their alleged victim — unless specially requested by the victim — is not how you deal with sexual assault claims. When someone tells you as a friend that they’ve been raped, your job isn’t to make decisions for them, it’s to listen and ask them how you can best be supportive. Not bullying, not prying, not taking away their autonomy. And setting Transnet aside for a minute, these are rules that people could frankly stand to learn just about anywhere. They’re lessons we all need to learn, lest we risk putting other people in life-threatening danger.

STRONG TRIGGER WARNING for very graphic, very disturbing descriptions of intimate partner murder. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Making the rounds is a horrifying story about the murder of Eliza Samudio, a Brazilian woman who has been missing for a month. Charged in the case is football goalkeeper Bruno Fernandes Das Dores de Souza. Her association with Souza, and her claim that he is the father of her four-month-old baby, is what made the news of her disappearance such big news to begin with. Now that allegations have been made, and truly gruesome details about her killing have emerged, the news has gotten much, much bigger. Last chance on that trigger warning.

Investigators in the state of Minas Gerais said Bruno Fernandes Das Dores de Souza, who played for Flamengo football club, orchestrated the murder of Eliza Samudio, 25. Her body remains missing a month after her disappearance.

Minas Gerais police investigator Wagner Pinto told reporters Thursday that Souza watched as Samudio was asphyxiated, mutilated and eventually fed to dogs. He said the details surfaced during a confession from Souza’s 17-year-old cousin.

During the alleged confession, the cousin details how he worked with two of Bruno’s friends — Luiz Henrique Ferreira Romao, nicknamed “Spaghetti,” and former policeman Marcos Aparecido dos Santos, known as “Bola.” Both men have been arrested in connection with the investigation.

“They tied her hands, and this other individual strangled her,” Pinto said, referring to Santos. Later they deboned and disemboweled her,” Pinto said.

The woman’s body was taken to an undisclosed location where her remains were fed to several Rottweilers, police said.

The cousin told investigators that he witnessed Souza watching the entire incident, Pinto said.

Of course, Souza denies all of the allegations and suggests that his cousin invented the story. Seeing as how prior to her murder, Samudio went to police with allegations that Souza had beaten her and threatened her with death if she did not have an abortion, this strikes me as unlikely, to say the least.

I’m not sure that there is a tactful way to write about this story. When I read headlines that blare Brazil Footballer’s Ex-Lover ‘Was Fed To Dogs’ and see all of the graphic details included above, I want to accuse the responsible outlets of sensationalism, of glorification of violence, of using this outrageous, misogynistic crime as a cheap way to earn page views and shock readers. And when I read a far more subdued version from CNN that buries and omits the most disturbing elements, I have the visceral reaction that they are downplaying the brutality of this act, covering up and abetting in misogynistic violence, and doing a disservice to victims of intimate partner violence everywhere by hiding the ugly truth.

I write often about problematic media framings of gender-based violence. This is a case where I can easily identify what is wrong, but cannot find any way to do things in a way that is right.

I don’t know how to write about this story myself. How to balance fact with my outrage, or tact with despair. I don’t know how to report on it in the least triggering, least sensationalistic way possible while also telling the brutal truth. I don’t know how to keep mind of the fact that a woman is dead, her life cut horrifically short, and to honor that fact — to remember that this is her story, her life — without also drawing bigger conclusions about misogyny, and women, and violence. I don’t know to sit here and balance the need to write this story in a way that is respectful to the victim with the need to not lose sight of the abject hate and complete, misogynistic dehumanization of dismembering her corpse and feeding it to dogs.

I am angry and mournful over Eliza Samudio’s murder. And I am so angry, so filled with rage, so unspeakably, indescribably furious, that she was given the final disrespect of being killed in such a way that it’s almost impossible for us to do the necessary work of talking about her death without also doing more harm.

Eliza Samudio was murdered. She was a person. A human being. She was murdered because she was a woman, because she was a mother. The repulsive details of how she was killed should not overshadow the loss of her life; downplaying the gruesome way in which she was killed is a disservice and danger to any attempt to remember and address why her life was lost at all. These facts contradict, and yet they exist simultaneously, uncomfortably, perhaps entirely irreconcilably.

I will close with this: Every day in Brazil, about 10 women are killed in acts of domestic violence. Every. Day. Every single day, 10 women’s lives. All taken. Stolen. Most cases don’t contain the horrifying, grisly details of this one. Most don’t involve famous football players. But they were all killed for the same reasons. Their lives, their bodies, their safety, their rights were all devalued in similar ways. Their male partners all decided that they had the right to decide that these women didn’t deserve to live anymore. They are all equally dead, equally murdered. And they all equally matter.

Trigger Warning for discussion/descriptions of sexual violence.

Last week, Amnesty International released a report about how women in some areas of Nairobi, Kenya are afraid to leave their homes at night to use the bathroom, due to the persistent threat of sexual violence. The report, Insecurity and indignity: Women’s experiences in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya (pdf), is 64 pages long, and I haven’t been able to do more than skim it. This shortened version, Risking Rape to Reach a Toilet: The Experiences of Women in Nairobi, Kenya (pdf), is however only 12 pages, highly readable, and includes many direct quotes from Kenyan women themselves.

The shortage of toilets (including latrines) and places to wash in the slums exacerbates women’s insecurity and heightens the risk of gender-based violence.

Most slum residents use shared pit latrines, with as many as 50 to 150 people sharing one pit latrine. It can take 10 minutes to walk from the user’s home to the toilet, a dangerous journey for women, particularly at night. As a result, many are forced to resort to “flying toilets” – disposing of human waste by throwing it into the open in a plastic bag.

There are also some community toilets in slums for public use. However, these usually charge a fee. At about 5 Kenya shillings (US$ 0.064) per visit, the fees are unaffordable for many women, particularly those with children. These toilets are also closed at certain times, especially at night. Many close at 8pm.

Many women have to wash in their oneroom houses, despite the lack of privacy. For some, latrines are the only private place to wash while for others, there might be a small bathroom adjacent to the latrines.

These are shared by tens of households and are often unhygienic. The inaccessibility of toilets and bathrooms seriously compromises women’s right to privacy. Poor sanitary conditions also result in poor health and escalating health care bills for families. Less well-documented is the impact of the lack of toilets and bathrooms on women’s security.

Particularly after dark, the lack of toilets and bathrooms near their homes puts women at great risk of violence, including rape. Most don’t dare leave their homes because of the dangers lurking on the way.

Many women have suffered rape and other forms of violence as a result of attempting to walk to a toilet or latrine some distance from their home.

To avoid these dangers, women sometimes wash or use latrines in groups or ask male family members to accompany them at night. However, this does not alter the fact that facilities are inadequate and inaccessible. And many single women who are heads of households cannot call upon male family members. Using toilet facilities at night is simply not an option for most women interviewed by Amnesty International.

The report then goes on to discuss the necessity of creating sanitation services in these areas, and calls for an increase in police presence. Again, you really should go read the whole thing.

Regarding the framing of the issue, on the one hand I certainly commend Amnesty International’s willingness to get involved in an issue as unglamorous as adequate toilet facilities. It doesn’t have the immediate sense of urgency as governmental violence, the persecution of activists, or the execution of political prisoners. People are rather squeamish when it comes to talking about human waste. It doesn’t seem to be an issue that will attract much excited, dedicated attention at all, but it is one that is vital all the same. Sanitary facilities are necessary both as a matter of public health and as a stopgap method of addressing the violence that women regularly face if they attempt to use the toilet at night.

But addressing rape by preventing the specific circumstances in which it occurs is exactly just that — a band-aid, not a solution. It is absolutely important to talk about the violence that women face in these particular circumstances, and to not ignore it as a part of the conversation. But when talking about gender-based violence, it’s always important to address the roots, no matter what the specific context. Men are not raping women because women don’t have a safe and private place to use the bathroom — they’re raping women because they’re rapists, and this lack of security and privacy provides ample opportunity to attack a vulnerability.

As I similarity addressed previously with regards to Haiti, this isn’t an issue of what Kenyan men do when they lack proper toilet access — it’s an issue of what rapists do when they are presented with vulnerable women. Rapists always attack vulnerability, wherever they see it. Creating vulnerability where it need not be does indeed assist rapists, but humanely and properly removing obvious vulnerabilities doesn’t stop rape on its own. Some rapists will undoubtedly decide that it’s not worth the risk to rape, but others will just find a new vulnerability.

And as I addressed recently with regards to the Congo, this is not a case of “Kenyan culture” creating an ideal setting for rape. Irrefutably, Kenya does have a rape culture. But while certainly possessing its own intricacies as any rape culture does, the presence of a rape culture is not unique or specific either to Kenya as a place or the people who live there. Rape culture is virtually everywhere. In some places it just seems more severe, because overwhelming oppressive forces have allowed it to thrive.

So, rapists exploit vulnerability to commit their crimes. Indeed, here, rapists are also engaging in a form of terrorism. Women aren’t just faced with an ever-present threat of rape — terrorizing in its own right — they have been given so much reason to be afraid that they literally cannot leave their homes at night. And when women are terrorized to the point that they cannot even use the bathroom, they are necessarily subjected even further to risk of disease through being forced to engage in unsanitary practice.

But vulnerability here is created through a variety of means, including poverty, a lack of stability, a failure to provide adequate sanitation, entrenched misogyny, and so on. This is important to keep in mind, because proper sanitation — again, while absolutely necessary — is not going to stop sexual violence alone. As already stated, rapists will just find different opportunities for rape. Indeed, the report itself notes, while as far as I can tell failing to connect the two, that most violence women face in Kenya is within the home, usually from husbands, though also from fathers, brothers, etc. Regardless of whether safe, clean toilets are available, that violence is going to continue unless other further steps are taken.

I also really dislike Amnesty International’s insistence on placing the obligation to find solutions entirely at the feet of the Kenyan government. Certainly, a government has an obligation to its people, especially those who are most vulnerable, and the claims against the government in this case are really disturbing. But in countries that have this level of poverty and areas with such a lack of infrastructure, there’s usually a lot more going on than lazy bureaucrats. I know next to nothing about Kenyan history. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, and I strongly encourage anyone who does know what they’re talking about to get involved in the comments. But even a quick skim of Wikipedia tells me that Kenya is a country that was brutally colonized. One can only assume that a mere 50 years after colonization officially ended, the country is severely impacted by the ongoing effects of that colonization, and this poverty is a part of that legacy. I doubt that the Kenyan government is the only one with the responsibility here, because from what I know about colonization in general, I’m entirely sure that they’re not the ones who created the problem.

Of course, that said, I also don’t have a comprehensive solution myself, nor do I think it’s the job of those who colonized Kenya to engage in the “benign” colonization of storming in, taking over, and attempting to “solve” all of the problems there as though Kenyans do not know what is best for themselves. I do know that access to safe, clean toilets is a necessary part of the solution, but only a part. I also know that local women need support for the work that they’re already doing, however they would like it. And I know that the best solutions come from within communities, from people who best know how to address their own needs, and through carefully listening to those needs and asking how they can be best met. I say that a lot more of that and a lot less “bootstrapping” type language would be a good place to start.

Trigger Warning for rape apologism.

A few months back, I wrote an article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free about a U.K. study, which showed a significant number of respondents thought that some rape victims were at least partially to blame for their attacks. The various reasons that respondents blamed women were the unsurprising — if she had been drinking, if she had worn something revealing, if she had engaged in some other kind of sexual contact with the rapist, etc. — but no less disturbing than they’ve always been.

Well, it seems like someone in the Scottish government decided to do something about it. Rape Crisis Scotland has launched the “Not Ever” campaign — the title referring to when, exactly, a rape victim is actually to blame for a rape.

The television ad, which has just been released, focuses on the rape myth that women who dress a certain way are “asking” to be raped. (And thank you, BBC, for putting the word “myth” in scare quotes, as well as “prejudice.” What ever would we have done without that oh-so-subtle dismissal?) The ad can be seen on the Not Ever website or below:

Transcript:

A scene of a party. A pale blond woman in her 20s stands talking to two men, one pale and one with darker skin. She wears a black top and sparkly blue skirt, and all parties hold drinks in their hands and appear to be having a good time.

Woman: (laughing playfully) You’re terrible! (laughs) You’re so bad! Shut up!

Cut to two presumably white men across the room.

Man One: (looks at woman, sucks in air between his teeth) Check out the skirt! She’s asking for it.
Man Two: (laughs)

Cut to scene of the same woman in a department store. She pulls two skirts off the rack, one the sparkly blue skirt she wears at the party, and takes turns holding up each one to her hips. A sales assistant, a pale middle-aged woman, walks up to her.

Sales Assistant: Can I help?
Woman: Yeah, thanks. I’m going out tonight and I want to get raped. (smiles) I need a skirt that will encourage a guy to have sex with me against my will. (holds up each skirt again)
Sales Assistant: (smiles eagerly and folds arms across chest) The blue one. Definitely the blue.
Woman: (nods and smiles)

Woman turns and directly faces camera, with a sarcastic look on her face.

Woman: As if.

Male Voiceover: Nobody asks to be raped. Ever.

Here is what I love about this ad: it treats rape apologist attitudes as a problem, regardless of whether or not they refer to a specific rape. There is no indication in the commercial that the woman has actually been raped. There is no indication that she will be raped. There is no indication that the man who makes the “she’s asking for it” comment is actually planning on raping her, or anyone else, for that matter. And still, in spite of all of this, his comments are dangerous, they have a real impact, and they are worthy of our attention. They’re worthy, in fact, of a PSA about how incredibly fucked up they are. All on their own.

And that, I think, is absolutely fabulous.

Here’s what else I love about this ad: while there’s no indication whatsoever that the man is a rapist, there’s no way to tell for sure that he’s not, either. As Thomas has pointed out many times at Yes Means Yes, while not all men who make rape apologist jokes are rapists, rapists do tend to make rape jokes and apologist comments. Leaving the man’s motives up to interpretation thus manages to do two important things: tell guys who aren’t rapists but think that rape is something fun to joke about that it’s not, as well as tells guys that if their friend is making these types of comments, you should probably point out that it’s not cool. As bystander behavior is incredibly important, I have to say that I love this potential dual effect.

A few points are also scored for the casting. While it’s my understanding that beauty standards on UK television are far less rigid than they are in the U.S., I still appreciate that the man making rape apologist jokes is an average looking guy — not “hot,” not purposely and “demonically” ugly — and that the woman, while pretty, looks like someone you might see walking down the street. Of course, we can also talk about how, yet again, the woman in the ad who is portrayed as most definitely not to blame is presumably white, middle-class, abled, straight, and cis, when women who are not these things are likely to face even worse blame. That’s a disappointment, though on the race front at least it’s worth noting that my research says Scotland is about 98% white — not meaning that erasure is therefore acceptable and harmless, as I’m sure many non-white Scots will tell you, but simply that we’re dealing with a different climate than the ones I usually write about (and therefore can’t effectively speak to).

Sadly, for a campaign which I unusually happen to have very few other complaints about, it all starts to break down on the website.

Most of the material on the site is great. In addition to the section about “dress” that goes with the ad, there are also short but smart sections about rape myths involving “drinking” and “intimacy” — and when I saw that the latter actually used the phrase “sexual autonomy,” I damn near swooned.

The problem is with the “Have Your Say” section of the site. The section can’t be avoided by browsers — excerpts appear right on the front page. As I write this, the five comments scrolling across the front page are as follows, three anti-rape, two rape apologist:

“Rape seems to be the only crime where it’s seen as ok to put the victim on trial.” Natasha, Female from Glasgow

“Every woman has the right to wear the clothes she likes, have fun with her friends and has the right to say no at any point, without the fear of rape.” Jo, Female

“Women need to understand men don’t think logically when they are aroused, and its the way they dress and act that arouses men.” James, Male

“It’s about time there was a campaign about something other than women having to curtail their actions to prevent rape.” Mooji, Female

“Obviously its ridiculous to think that anyone ever “wants or deserves” to be raped but to ignore that how someone behaves affects the possibility of their being raped is foolish and to start a campaign to deny it is irresponsible.” Mark, Male

The comments from James and Mark are the exact opposite of what this campaign is trying to get across — they fully represent the attitudes it wants combat. I could understand taking these comment and addressing them on a serious level as an educational tool. But placing them on the front page of the site uncritically just about undoes the job the campaign seemingly intends to do.

Users are also invited to share their views on the forum (trigger warning). I opted to not delve too far into it, but from what I did see, the many thoughtful users who are posting have not prevented it from nonetheless quickly turning into a space where rape apologist views can be freely aired, often unchallenged. This is especially sad, as I think the user oriented parts of the site have transformative potential — if moderators and educators were watching and engaging with topics, it could serve as a great 101 learning space. Some users are in fact asking questions, and those questions deserve to be answered. Unchecked, rape apologist, victim-blaming tirades, on the other hand, don’t serve to educate anyone of anything.

Website moderation matters. As I’m sure most people here would agree, if you’re going to allow comments, it’s part of the job of running a website. I know better than anyone that moderation can be difficult — it can be overwhelming, it can be triggering, and sometimes it can feel outright impossible. But here, I can’t even see the faintest illusion of trying.

I’d really, really love to see Not Ever get the website situation under control — either moderating out rape apologist comments and discussion topics, or directly challenging them and using them as learning tools when they do appear — because I otherwise think the campaign is pretty great. Great enough, in fact, that I’m really curious as to whether or not they’ll do future ads about rape myths surrounding drinking and intimacy, and look forward to seeing them if they do. I also noticed that they’re doing some polls on the site, with some of the results coming out disturbing — I’d love to see them use the information they gather as a resource for effectively extending the campaign.

What are your thoughts on “Not Ever”?

Thanks to Pamela for the heads up.

UPDATE: Video added, some text updated to reflect that it is embedded in the post. Rape Crisis Scotland has also responded to the critiques of the website in comments!

Strong Trigger Warning for discussions and descriptions of sexual violence, rape apologism, war, murder, and racism.

This morning, an incredible op-ed by Lisa Shannon was published in the New York Times, entitled “No, Sexual Violence is Not ‘Cultural.’” Of course, those of us here know that rape culture is very, very real. But the context of the word “culture” in this piece is very different. Culture does not refer to a set oppressive of social systems reinforced through every day actions, but to the way that a group of “othered,” presumably “inferior” people live their lives.

A month into my first trip to eastern Congo, site of the deadliest conflict since World War II, I had heard plenty of horror stories — from forced cannibalism to the burning alive of the inhabitants of entire villages. I was no longer easily shocked. But one exchange with an aid worker stopped me cold.

I arrived in Baraka, a town on Lake Tanganyika that was overrun with Congolese soldiers and international aid workers, in February 2007. I asked a disheveled European woman working with the United Nations about security. She enthusiastically described her pet video project, to convince refugees in neighboring Tanzania that it was safe to return home.

“Foreign militias are gone,” she said. “Just rapes and looting for the moment. No attacks.”

Stunned, I asked, “You don’t consider rape a security threat?”

“Rape here is so common,” she said. “It’s cultural.”

That was the first of many times I would hear mass rape in Congo dismissed as “cultural.”

Shannon points out the offensive nature of this line of thinking, and though she doesn’t use the word racism and I wish she had, it seems clear to me that she’s exposing the racist roots to this type of thinking nonetheless, as well as the grave insult it presents to Congolese men.

Any Congolese will tell you rape is not “traditional.” It did occur in Congo before the war, as it does everywhere. But the proliferation of sexual violence came with the war. Militias and Congolese soldiers alike now use sexual violence as a weapon. Left unchecked, sexual violence has festered in Congo’s war-ravaged east. This does not make rape cultural. It makes it easy to commit. There is a difference.

Analysts often use the phrase “culture of impunity” to describe Congo. John Prendergast, who has worked in African conflict zones for 25 years, explains: “The rule of law breaks down and perpetrators commit crimes without fear of conviction or punishment. Over time, this leads to further breakdown of societal codes and the very social fabric of a community.”

The media, aid workers and activists alike have consistently failed to tell the stories of Congolese men who were killed by fighters because they refused to commit rape. In interviews with hundreds of women, I heard countless stories of men who chose to take a bullet in the head, literally, rather than violate their child, sister or mother. In Baraka, one survivor recalled: “They tried to make my older brother rape me. He refused and was killed. So they raped me.”

At first I just wanted to share this piece with you, because it is excellent, and thought that I myself had nothing to add. But after several hours it stuck with me, and I decided to read it again. And I realized that I did have something, after all.

I think that Shannon had a good reason to focus on men in her piece — indeed, those who work against rape culture regularly argue that we need to spend more time looking at the perpetrators of violence and preventing rape, rather than only assisting victims as though rape is inevitable. And the dishonor done to those many men who gave their own lives rather than commit rape on behalf of other men matters. It matters deeply — it deserves to be known, and those doing the dishonoring deserve to be shamed.

But I want to expand on what this type of thinking Shannon rebuts says about and does to Congolese women. Of them, Shannon writes:

The European aid worker who dismissed the violence as “cultural” implied that Congolese women should expect to be raped. In so doing, she dismissed her responsibility to so much as warn returning refuges about the extreme security threat.

Later that day in 2007, I met 20 Congolese women who had returned from refugee camps in the last six months. In that time, half had been raped.

“Cultural relativism legitimizes the violence and discredits the victims, because when you accept rape as cultural, you make rape inevitable,” Ms. Wallstrom explained in a recent opinion essay co-authored with the Norwegian foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Store. “This shields the perpetrators and allows world leaders to shrug off sexual violence as an immutable — if regrettable — truth.”

And I think that we can take that just a little bit further. In saying “it’s cultural,” the woman did even more than dismiss her responsibility to the women she was trying to get to return home — and it should go without saying that dismissing her responsibility was beyond forgivable already. She didn’t just dismiss her responsibility, she more or less said that if these women are raped, it does not matter.

A European woman readily, easily dismissed the idea of rape against African women as a genuine security threat. Never mind that Congolese women are routinely killed by rape, or permanently disabled by rape (usually without access to medical care, no less). Never mind that Congolese women are routinely impregnated by rape, and having no access to abortion are forced to carry their rapist’s child. Never mind that even if these things were not true, even if rapes in the Congo were not notoriously violent, that rape, any rape, is more than bad enough. Never mind that rape should not be committed against anyone, and yet it is admittedly being systematically committed against Congolese women.

This European woman did not reflect on the sides of privilege and oppression that she and the African women whose security she rejected each fell as both mere accidents of birth and upheld systems of subjugation. She did not stop and consider that as bad as rape culture is in her home country, no one would dare actually speak those words about her own body. And yet somehow, she still knew these things about her own position of privilege. I see no other way that the words could have left her mouth so easily, if somewhere she did not also realize that she was not at risk of falling victim to them herself.

It’s true that something more horrifying than what most people have ever experienced can occur for other people so frequently that they “get used to it,” that it can in fact become normal. Marginalized people have for centuries gotten “used to” all kinds of atrocious, horrific, and oppressive behavior. For example, untold women have “gotten used to” being beaten every night. They have gotten used to it because they had to. Because they had no choice. Because it’s what they needed to do to survive.

I don’t know whether, as the European woman seems to think, many or most Congolese women have gotten “used to” rape, whether or not it has become such a part of their lives that they see it as “normal,” and I’m not going to pretend to know. But what I do know is that if they have, if they have gotten used to it, if they do see it as normal, that what any woman has to do in order to survive violence doesn’t change a goddamn fucking thing about whether or not the violence matters. No matter how used to abuse a person gets, no matter how tragically normal violence may be as a part of a person’s life, it is never okay. It is never less of a threat to them. It always matters. It always fucking matters.

By saying that rape in the Congo is “cultural,” just “the way things are,” and “what those people are like,” we’re engaging in racism and colonialist tropes about a brutal “savage” black male that is sexually insatiable, immoral, and violent. We’re engaging in tropes that have been used to kill countless black men throughout history, and which continue to justify Western capitalist colonization and imperialism today.

And we’re also saying that some women just don’t fucking matter. That some women’s bodies just deserve to be raped. And those women’s bodies just so happen to be the bodies of poor black women in a supposedly monolithic, Othered Africa. The same exact women whose rapes by Western, white men have been excused through the same exact means. The same women who myths about what kind of oppressive, violent behavior is so “common” and normal” and deserved have always hurt the most.

Just last week, I was defending the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK for its recommendations regarding age-appropriate sex education. This week, I find myself needing to ask what in the hell they’re thinking.

NICE has recommended that all pregnant women should be given carbon monoxide tests in order to determine whether or not they’re smoking, so that they can be given advice on quitting. Instead of, you know, asking them.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said carbon monoxide tests should be carried out on every expectant mother.

If implemented, every woman would have the breath test at her first ante-natal appointment.

Midwives criticised the test, saying it could make the women feel “guilty”.

NICE said the guidelines were not aimed at penalising smokers but were designed to help women and their families give up smoking during and after pregnancy.

“During pregnancy, smoking puts the health of the women and her unborn baby at great risk both in the short and long-term, and small children who are exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to suffer from respiratory problems,” Professor Mike Kelly, Nice director of the centre of public health excellence, said.

“One of our recommendations is for midwives to encourage all pregnant women to have their carbon monoxide levels tested and discuss the results with them.

“This isn’t to penalise them if they have been smoking, but instead will be a useful way to show women that both smoking and passive smoking can lead to having high levels of carbon monoxide in their systems.”

The guidelines were welcomed by the Royal College of Midwives, but it urged “non-judgemental” support for women smokers.

Right. Except that the way to be “non-judgmental” isn’t by telling women up front that they can’t be trusted. And by telling them that they can’t be trusted specifically once they’ve become pregnant — thus indicating that their bodies are no longer their own. Paternalism, misogyny, and policing of women’s bodies don’t have great track records.

Look, absolutely no one is saying that smoking while you’re pregnant is a good idea. While it’s hardly the automatic death sentence for fetuses that a lot of people make it out to be, evidence suggests that it’s not a great idea for either the woman or future baby. And lots of women do smoke during pregnancy. But it’s rarely because they don’t know the risks (at least in most Western countries), or because they’re careless, stupid women who hate their babies and want bad things to happen.

Women smoke during pregnancy usually because they’re unable to stop. There’s currently a culture in a lot of places that suggests one can drop smoking whenever she wants — that it’s a question of personal choice. We have a tendency to not treat nicotine addiction as a real, serious addiction just like any other. And that’s saying an awful lot, as addictions to other substances are also frequently treated like issues of willpower rather than of physiological and psychological dependency.

It’s also true that a lack of support also tends to factor into why many smokers, pregnant or not, are unable to quit. Clearly, more support is needed. But the way to provide more support isn’t through coerced tests and humiliation. Right now, many pregnant women don’t tell their doctors if they smoke or use other substances. Again, the reason is rarely malicious or negligent, but concern over being judged, guilted, shamed, and/or even punished. The issue is that many women can’t trust their health care providers to react with compassion and care rather than blame and disapproval. And trust is not built by a person in a position of authority expressing a lack of trust in the person in a subordinate position. One would imagine that empathy would go a lot farther than a carbon monoxide test, any day.

While the guidelines don’t seem to make the test mandatory, it’s unlikely to be easy to opt out. Any woman who refuses to take the test, regardless of whether she does so based on principle or any other reason, is likely to be highly suspected of “hiding” something, and lectured by precisely the kind of judgmental health provider that is causing the problem to begin with.

Here’s the thing. People smoke. Some of them do it during pregnancy, and of them, few actually want to. The problem isn’t a lack of “detection,” it’s a culture that shames women as bad mothers and bad people for smoking, and treats addiction as a crime that needs to be “detected” and stamped out by society for the greater good, in the first place.

As much as it generally pains me to say these words, the Daily Telegraph has it right. Rosie Murray-West writes:

Even the Royal College of Midwives seems a little dubious about the plans, worrying that women will feel judged and as if they aren’t being believed. “Use of the monitor has the potential to make women feel guilty and not engaged,” says Royal College education manager Sue MacDonald.  “It is crucial that health practitioners, including midwives, focus on being supportive rather than making women feeling guilty.”

I’m looking forward to the supplementary barrage of tests that NICE will be bringing out later. Perhaps the sniff test to check we haven’t been eating unpasteurised cheeses, or the credit card statement test to check for illegal indulgence in sushi?  Or they could just focus on supporting people who are trying to get through one of the most testing periods in their lives – without unnecessary testing.

Women are people. Even when they’re pregnant. Let’s start treating them that way, hmm?

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.

In the U.K., a traffic police officer was just sentenced to time in jail for repeatedly contacting women he had pulled over for traffic offenses and harassing and coercing them into sexual activities in exchange for not pursuing their infringements. In total, the trial encompassed the victimization of eight different women:

Jamie Slater, 33, of Port Talbot, was sentenced to three and a half years at Cardiff Crown Court for misconduct while in public office.

He contacted the women after stopping them and offered to let them off if they had sex with him.

Slater was dismissed from South Wales Police in December.

The court heard how the South Wales Police officer used the police national computer to access personal data on his victims.

The married father-of-two stopped six women for minor motoring offences and requested their mobile phone numbers.

He later sent the women drivers text messages asking them to meet him for sex. The court heard Slater harassed women who refused to meet him.

Peter Davies, prosecuting, said all Slater’s victims had felt powerless to complain because he was a police officer in uniform.

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: this was rape. A police officer offering to exchange a dismissal of offenses for “sex” is engaging in harassment, manipulation, coercion, and duress. When harassment, manipulation, coercion, and/or duress are present, consent is not. That the women technically could have said no is not relevant — the power differential and necessarily threatening nature of an “offer” such as the ones presented by Slater ensures that any “yes” is not equal to meaningful consent, but to compliance. And compliance and consent are two very, very different things. The women’s technical ability to say no also means exceedingly little when Slater was not above even more directly bullying the women into sexual contact when they refused his demands. This officer is, in fact, guilty not just of “misconduct” but of multiple rapes and multiple attempted rapes.

Sexual violence committed by police officers is also sadly not anything new. Which is why the framing of Slater’s crimes by the department really grates on me:

Tom Davies, Independent Police Complaints Commissioner for Wales, reassured the public this was a rare case.

He said: “Slater was a disgrace to all who work for the police service and abused the position of trust a serving police officer is given.”

He added: “Slater was a rotten apple and acted alone.”

I imagine it’s probably true that Slater did not commit his crimes as a part of a ring of rapist officers all working in conjunction with one another. He most likely acted without direct assistance from other officers. But to portray this as a situation involving a “rotten apple” is all the same incredibly misleading, and distorting the problem to a point that borders pretty strongly on outright lying.

The truth is, police sexual violence against women is commonplace. It is supported in both deeds and in words. It is denied and excused. Women of color are particularly at risk for police violence. Trans women are particularly at risk for police violence. And that’s mostly only covering violence that is sexually based — a fraction of all actual police violence. It’s also to not mention other police abuses of power that don’t employ explicit violence.

So this is a case of a rotten apple? I don’t think so.

Granted, all but one of those linked cases was from the U.S. And I would be very genuinely surprised to learn that the problem of police violence is not worse — and significantly worse — in the U.S. than it is in the U.K. It’s also encouraging that Slater has been tried and convicted for his crime. But I still remain unconvinced that there is not a culture of misogyny in the British police force — indeed, past cases of UK police officers being accused and/or convicted of sexual violence are not exactly hard to find. I also believe that Slater was able to get away with his crimes for so long because of a culture that involves fear of police authority and the expectation that cops will protect other cops before protecting the public.

Why is it so regularly assumed that we’ll feel better being coddled with reassurances about bad apples, rather than knowing that the real problem is being recognized and addressed? I can only assume the answer is that no one cares about how we feel, especially those of us who care about things like social justice and injustice, but rather about how to maintain a system that benefits the oppressor and doesn’t require the difficult work of change.

But it remains that presenting systemic problems as isolated, individuals ones is one of the most dangerous things we can do. Accepting the oppressor’s version of the story, that a systemic problem is really an isolated event, is one of the most dangerous things we can do. And it’s also one of the most powerful things we can do to ensure that oppressive systems stay in place and intact.

Jamie Slater may have acted alone to commit his rapes, but his crimes are not isolated. They’re a part of a larger system of police misogyny, rape apologism, violence, and unchecked, fearsome authority. Slater was not just a police officer who committed crimes, he was an a man whose job as an officer allowed him to commit crimes. And the more we remember that and point it out — repeatedly — every single time one of these cases comes up, the better.