Why speak out? it only scares people?

A comment which continues to fester in my mind was from sometime ago. "Why speak out...it only scares people...won't it stop victims from coming forward...why not have a more positive approach...". Firstly how ridiculous, what a 'keep in the closet' approach to change. If we don't tell people the horrible parts, the fact that 'Lady Justice' just isn't doing her job, it will make it all better, all go away...for who? Will it give victims faith in the justice system? Restore their faith in society?
Let's not forget not all crimes report to police which go onto trial have negative consequences for victims of sexual assault. There is of course the less than 2% of these cases which do gain convictions, although only a very, very small number of these offenders actually see the inside of a jail cell. Why not hide the truth? the reality about sexual assault crimes? Is it going to make our world a safer place? Will it stop offenders from raping? Will victims be able to safely go out at night, enjoy themselves, (heaven forbid) even walk themselves home? Leave their doors wide open because they are safe in knowing this doesn't happen in thei....r community?
Oh...please....give me a break. Control, it comes down to control. Controlling what the public hears, what they acknowledge, what the government wants people to know. Is it no wonder so many victims fear coming forward when we have this "ssshhh...don't talk about it" attitude. Let's break down these barriers, rip down isolation, hold up the banners loud and clear, "WE WILL NOT TAKE THIS INSANITY ANYMORE". 1 in 3 women, with an estimated 60,000 victims each year in our State, yet nearly 12,000 reports to Police, of these less than 2% conviction rate. A crime on the increase, a conviction rate on the decline and I have people telling me I should be quiet about this.
Victims in the court room, children, being asked 'but you really wanted to sit on his lap didn't you'....women 'why would you wear a dress like that?' 'don't you feel ashamed' 'wearing those boots...those *&^% me boots says you are asking for it'
Where is the evidence in this, any of it....come-on where is the legal significance of these comments. The law states sex without consent is a CRIME. Under the age of 16 years, a child CANNOT consent, whether they do or don't, legally they CANNOT, so who cares how this perp manipulated and groomed this vulernable person who placed their trust and faith, their innocence and childhood with this scum, who selfishly in an act of violence used their power to their own benefit. OF what legal relevance is it what a women wears when she has been raped? What if she was on the beach in a bikini? Hiking in bike shorts and a singlet? Home alone in bed in her P.J's? I cannot see the legal significance of this and how this can be considered as evidence.
Do we not live in a free, democratic society built on the principles of human rights? Dignity? Freedom? Justice? We only need to look at the fear instilled in people by the differences in what people wear for religious purpose, where this is being banned in France, criticised in our country...why, why do we need to be threatened by this?
A police officer I spoke with once said to me "if I wore my knickers and bra into a night club, no-one, absolutely no-one has the right to touch me without my consent".
Now if only we could get this message out to society. If only society could feel empowered enough to share this message with each other and stop trying to keep their skeletons in the closet.

The aftermath

Wouldn't you have screamed? Wouldn't you have used every effort of power and strength to fight off your attacker? What about going to the Police, surely you would have run, yes run literally to the nearest Police Station. Who cares what time of night or early hours of a morning it is. What you say your daughter was in the other room...Well why didn't you call our to her, who cares if she is only a 5 years old, surely she could have saved you? Right?
Sounds unbelievable doesn't it. No its true, this is taken from a scenario of a trial involving the sexual assault of a mother. The male Defence lawyer was described on record as attacking the "witness" (victim) in the worst possible way, oh yes...there was more. Then why wouldn't he, look what the offender had to look forward to three accounts of sexual assault, each carrying a maximum penalty of seven years of jail. Just think, in the absence of physical hard evidence, the jury must rely on the verbal evidence, statements and accounts of these events by witnesses in a court of law. Naturally the perpetrator and their team of....well I'm yet to find a word to describe the type of persons who would defend rapists....would use their own analogy of the events placing the victim in the worst possible situation. Doubt.....doubt is all they need to raise...doubt, an essence of doubt is all they need....
In the aftermath to follow a sexual assault, immediately following pulling yourself together, trying to make sense of the confusion in your brain, the disorientation, the fear, the trembling, the need to want to scrub every inch of your body as rigorously as possible, to cry, oh yes to cry, to be near someone who makes you feel safe, who will make it all stop, make the crying stop, wipe this from your brain, oh its still there all of it, the pictures keep re-appearing, interrupting your walking, your thinking, dressing. Everything you do, every cognitive, linguistic, physical action you attempt is interrupted by your brain in overload from an abnormal event which it is trying to rationalise. It can't.... there is no rational way of creating sense or meaning from this event. Trust "I will never trust again" you tell yourself, "I will never let anyone near me again", but what about....what will you tell your husband? boyfriend? girlfriend? brother? sister? friends? family? How will you tell them? What will people think? Believe?
In between the random thoughts, the fear, the loss of control, you can't eat, thinking, how can you think? You need to tell someone, share this pain, say it out loud. The words are jumbled, incoherrent, he doesn't understand you, you keep trying to explain, the tears just keep falling, he knows, there are reactions to some events which need no explanation. He lets you take your time, he is scared, he is frightened. Another set of random thoughts, two brains disconnected by tremendous emotion, terrifying. He wonders why he wasn't there for you, to protect you, make you feel safe, how something like this could happen to someone he loves, he is angry, oh so angry, so amazingly angry, like an anger no words or actions could describe.
You lay in your own bed, you don't sleep, there is no sleep, you shower, constantly, over and over again, but you feel the same. Nothing seems to work. He reminds you of how many more women could go through this unless this person its stopped, he wants to stop this offender who calls himself a human being, you know what you must do, it is just so hard, so damn hard, to re-tell these events, you never want to relive, you've given so much time to keeping as far from reality as possible. How could you re-tell this, the most intimate and personal of details about your body, to someone you don't know? You go to the Police.
Trauma...what is trauma? Is it the feeling of shock, that you would go more than a day without speaking more than two words at a time? Would it be uncontrollable crying, shaking, fear? Refusing to leave the house, refusing to answer the phone, unable to return to work even a year later. How about relationships? Withholding intimacy from your partner, the shock of brushing up against a person in the supermarket sending you into such a spin, you leave the fully loaded basket in the isle and go home? Is it the trembling you feel from the smell of stale burbon on a person, how you freeze physically, emotionally, mentally when something as simple as a person who looks similar crosses the street? Your though patterns are constantly interrupted, you have developed neuro-associations to many events which previously told you life was fun, exciting, worth living. Is this trauma?

If you search trauma on the web, it is there. Even for rape victims. Why does the justice system disregard trauma for victims of sexual assault? Expert witnesses are regularly used in trials of a different nature. Why not in sexual assault trials? Are the feelings of victims unjustified? unworthy of acknowledgement? What is this ignorance of society to believe victims should just "get over it"? That life will go on the day after, a week after, even years after this event. The reality of extraordinary events, life threatening events, is they are forever inbedded in your thoughts. Unless we can produced a small pen which we hold up to a persons face to erase such thoughts as things we shouldn't have witnessed or traumatic events with the blink of a flash, those horrific events will remain on the hard drive of our bodies.

When we experience a traumatic event, we can and will react in a number of ways. We may fight, we may run or we may freeze. There is never, ever an assurance that one person will act one way over another. It is what makes our species so unique, our individuality. You yourself might believe if such an event ever took place you know exactly how you would react. You may and I mean may be right.

In the aftermath of a sexual assault, there are so many expectations placed on victims from the legal system and society, we must remember as victims, not to place unreal expectations on ourselves. Victims of sexual assault have a right to heal, a right to their pain, to their trauma, their time to recover and right to acknowledgement...which has for too long been disregarded by the legal profession, the justice system and society. It is time to make a difference, to give victims of sexual assault the right to heal.

Reality

We all have two choices, it comes down to yes or no, whether to act or not to act, to go or not to go, to be great or horrible, bad or just good. Life really is THAT simple. We have choices and well....there are consequences, you would hope, pray, hold onto what little faith you have, there WILL be consequences.

The Law says if we just say "no" that will be enough. The government spends thousands in advertising campaigns supporting the Law....as if saying "no" is the answer. Well the numbers of victims are growing as I type, the thought of which is difficult to fathom, so many people let down, so many innocent victims, so much injustice. Where do they go? The police? The court system? From the time sexual assault victims straighten their clothes and wipe away their tears, fight off their fear and anger, society has stacked the odds against them. Each brick built upon myths, lies and stereotypes. Even to go as far as to claim certain types ....you know "those types" of people "deserve" to be assaulted. Have we evolved so far only to shift humanity into reverse gear? The blindness ...or is blindness too gentle a word? Ignorance? Pathetic ignorance?of society to shake their heads in disgust at reading another report of a child sexually assaulted, a woman gang raped, yet hold their head up, place the paper in the garbage and believe this doesn't happen to them or too communities like they live in.

In the court room victims are told its due to their appearance, their character, behaviour or choice of career, even sexual orientation. Even...can you believe it in a world as modern as ours....even told that because they wore a particular tye of boot they were "asking for it". This is what our justice system calls "evidence". A black dress (of which the jury never actually views, they just hear in "evidence" the defence interpretation of its appearance) described as "of gothic appearance" "witch like". Would this be then suggesting the Law believes people who choose to wear black deserve to be raped? are "asking for it?"
A female victim is told because she wore long black boots (oh yes..by the way the boots were hidden under a ground length dress!!) she should have known these boots are known by society to be sending a hidden (telegraphic? electronic? sensory? teleportic?) message to others they are "asking for it". These evidentary suggestions describe the accused as holding not only x-ray vision, but highly developed sensory perceptory skills, that they can pick up messages, even the victims cannot identify, requires further investigation, why use rats in such a ground breaking scientific discovery, surely with offenders having so little will power why not use the real thing.

So you, society, our communities, the law, the government, insists if victims just come forward, if they just report their crimes to police, all will be better, there WILL be consequences. Oh please. Research claims children attempt to report their assaults up to 30 times before an person actually listens. Is it no wonder adult victims have so much difficulty making their needs known, when our most vulnerable of all victims, children for goodness sake, cannot have their voices heard. Any change in law is so overwhelmed by the heated attack of civil libertarians about offenders rights, the changes have so little impact. Take protecting children. Protecting children....mmmm...let me see...oh yes, the civil libertarians were more concerned with the privacy of pedophiles after they are released from prison, they attacked suggestions of a 'megan's law' in Australia, with total disregard for the safety and welbeing of our children.

Oh yes by the way has Australia even signed the 'convention for the rights of the child'? Maybe the paperwork is buried under taxes, superannuation increases for politicians, funding cuts and oh yes HUMAN RIGHTS. Who are these people? Maybe they are still evolving? Cognitively so to speak. They walk and talk like human beings, yet there is something missing, biological differences from the original mould, compassion, understanding, empathy and truth.

There is a inbalance, a sense of instability in society for victims of violence. For too long our needs, our voices have been silenced by being referred to as "just a witness" in a crime of which they are the victim. For too long we have been doing just what society has asked of us, enjoying life, walking home with the view we lived in a free nation, where we had choices. We have been going to bed at night and turning out the light, believing with our windows locked we were safe to fall asleep, as children we have placed our trust in those we look up to, those who have brought us gifts, taken us special places and held our hands, we have thought we were safe. We have shared in celebration with trusted friends, colleagues we have shared our lives with and when they offer to walk us home, we felt more safe that we were with a trusted friend. We said "I do" and listened to the words of the minister/priest tattooed on our heart, we believed in the love you sold us, the safety of marriage build on respect. We have done what you have asked of us society, but you have misled us, we were not safe and now you tell us we are too blame.
IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!