By Maeve Charles
Shame on me.
You taught me that. You didn’t mean to, but you did.
You don’t even know what I’m to blame for yet. You don’t even know who I am. What happened. What I did or didn’t do. You blamed me for it though. You made me feel ashamed and you don’t even know why. So, who am I?
I’m a sexual abuse victim. No, I’m not an attention seeker. I am a person. I live. I breathe, just like you – except you don’t think I’m like you. But the scary thing is, is that I am.
I live in Ireland, just like you, meaning I could easily have been you.
One in every three people in Ireland will be sexually assaulted in their life.
So, if I’m not your sister, I’m your brother. If I’m not your father, then I’m your mother. If I’m neither of your best friends and none of the above, I am you.
Scared yet?
You hear stories like mine every day on the news, on the radio, in the papers, on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr. It’s everywhere. The shock factor is gone. The word rape doesn’t disgust you anymore, but it should.
You think that when I tell the Gardaí my story that I’m looking for attention. You think I’m making it up, that it is my fault, that I’m ruining his or her life (girls do it too, don’t let their long hair or makeup fool you). You think I regret my drunk actions, that I was ‘asking for it’, that I should just shut up and get over it instead of wasting the Gardaí’s time.
Am I right? Do you think that?
I hope I’m not, but we’ve all thought these things. Even me.
And that’s what victim blaming is. Blaming victims for the actions of their perpetrators.
And it ruins them – tearing their sanity to shreds from the inside out, until eventually they believe that they deserved what happened to them.
But no one deserves this. No one deserves to hate themselves for something that wasn’t their fault. So, why do we do make people think that they do?
The truth is, we are scared. We don’t want to accept it yet. We want to distance ourselves from the victim. Subconsciously hoping that by doing so, the same thing won’t happen to us. But it will, and putting the blame on victims is only going to make it worse for you when it does.
When it does happen, do you want to be scared to tell people because you know they’ll blame you for it? Because you know that they’ll tell women to cover up and tell men to man up. If you really didn’t want it to happen, you wouldn’t have let it.
Maybe you won’t tell anyone. You’ll only go to the Gardaí. You’ll keep it low profile. You don’t want to make a fuss.
But if you do report it, you know it probably won’t be heard don’t you?
You know that 95% of cases reported to the Gardaí fall out of the system before they’re seen before the courts. Only one in a hundred reported rapes end in conviction.
So think of this university. 18,000 students.
One third of them will be raped or sexually assaulted, 6,000 students.
Half of them will be detected. 3000 students.
One in ten will report it, 300 .
95% fall out of the system, so that leaves us with 15 students left.
One of them will get justice. Maybe 2 if we’re lucky. Doesn’t seem fair does it?
That leaves 5998 perpetrators out there walking around doing their everyday business, continuing with their lives as if they did nothing wrong. The number might actually be closer to 5000, due to repeat offenders. If they get away with it once, they’ll think that they can again.
These people, I call them perpetrators. Newspapers call them monsters. You call them Mam. Dad. Neighbour. Friend. Family. You know them and they know you.
85% of people who commit sexual assaults are known to their victims.
So if you think you’re safe because you don’t go out on Friday nights or you don’t party in foreign countries – you’re not. Because it’ll probably happen in your home. And if it doesn’t it will happen in theirs.
You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this. Was it just to scare you?
Partially it was. But I wanted to let you know that if it has happened to you that you are not alone and you should not be scared to speak out.
Rape is Ireland’s second most serious crime, after murder.
It’s time we start treating it like that.