Today marks the first day of the National Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness week.
Sexual abuse and sexual violence can affect anyone; children and adults; including men and women. Children and young people (both male and female) may be vulnerable to abuse in the home by family or extended family members. They may also be exploited by older ‘boyfriends’, organised criminal networks, or (in particular for girls) used as prey in gang-associated neighbourhoods. Children and young people have become increasingly vulnerable in the age of social media. They can be exposed to sexual offenders posing as young people themselves or coerced by their teenage dating partners into sending sexual images which are subsequently distributed on child abuse platforms, amongst peers, and/or used as revenge porn when intimate teenage relationships break down.
For women, sexual abuse and violence can form part of their every day experiences. This can consist sexual harassment at university or at work; cat calling on the streets; and groped on transport and night’s out. Women are raped when unconscious, asleep, or after having their drinks spiked. Sexual violence and abuse also occurs to women in intimate relationships within the context of domestic abuse. This can take extreme forms such as rape but it can also take shape when women are forced or manipulated by the abuser to perform or engage in sexual acts which they do not want to do but fear repercussions if they refuse. Sex workers are particularly vulnerable to violence; work that many women have taken up for the first time or returned to because of financial hardship pressures during the current pandemic.
While women and girls are disproportionately affected, men can also be victims of rape. The latest Office for National Statistics figures show that men made up 12% of rape cases, year ending March 2017. In 2020, the ‘prolific rapist’ Reynhard Sinaga, was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison for 136 rapes against young men in Manchester; although he is suspected to have sexually abused as many as 195 over a two and a half year period.
Concerningly, the criminal justice system continues to fail rape survivors with only 3% of reported cases resulting in a suspect being charged and has in effect led to what has been termed the ‘decriminalisation of rape’.
For all of these reasons, we @projectclarelaw want to raise awareness about sexual abuse and violence and say that #Itsnotok
