Written by: Nihal Abu Al-Saud Thursday, September 21, 2023 12:31 PM
A survey conducted in Britain and published by The Guardian newspaper highlighted the trauma experienced by rape survivors as a direct result of their interactions with the police for the first time in an official study funded by the UK Home Office.
Three-quarters of respondents to the largest ever survey of rape and sexual assault survivors in England and Wales said their mental health had been harmed as a direct result of the police handling of their case.
The survey, funded by the Home Office, uncovers multiple failures in policing serious sexual crimes, and reveals that countless respondents said their rapist continued to sexually assault again against them and/or others because the police did not take their report seriously.
Women described feeling more traumatized by their experience with the police than by the original rape, with one woman writing: “I am more afraid of the police than of being raped again.”
Only 14% of participants said they felt safer as a result of what the police did, while 39% said they felt less safe.
Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said the survey showed the criminal justice system was “often a site of harm” for rape survivors, and she said this was a fundamental human rights issue.
The survey revealed that 190 survivors of assaults decided not to report to the police, and the most common reason was that they felt ashamed and embarrassed, followed by not believing what happened to them. 31% of them said that they did not feel safe with the officers, while half of them said that the officers were “nice” to them.
2023-09-21 09:31:00
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