What would you do?
I was reading an article recently that asked the difficult question ‘what you would do if you had been told that your best friend had committed sexual assault’. Would you confront them? stand by them? Cut ties? or decide that it was nothing to do with you and stay out of it altogether?
It set me to thinking about when it is even closer to home, when it is your partner, your parent, your sibling or your child.
So often in our work, we sometimes see partners standing by those accused of abusing their children. Many of the high-profile cases in the media see the partners and families publicly ‘standing by’ her accused, no doubt desperately wanting the accusations not to be true. And certainly, no parent wants to believe that their child is capable of rape, abuse or of harming another person.
Most sexual violence is not reported to the police, but when an allegation becomes known, it can bring up conflicting feelings – you don’t want to believe it could be true, you may want to make excuses for them and most commonly, it is easier to blame the survivor.
Perpetrators themselves often minimise or justify their behaviour: “They led me on.” “They regretted it afterwards.” “We had both been drinking.” “It’s revenge.” “They’ve always been trouble.” We have repeatedly seen how a victim’s behaviour, history or vulnerabilities are used against them – most recently highlighted in the grooming gangs’ scandal whose abuse has been minimised by the perpetrators, community and statutory agencies who should have protected them.
It can be incredibly hard to reconcile the allegation with the person that you think or thought you know well that you love, or you trust. But being a ‘fine upstanding member of the community’ or having reached academic or professional heights or being a good friend doesn’t tell us how someone behaves in private. Most domestic and sexual abuse happen behind closed doors often in intimate or trusted relationships. There may be very few outwards signs. A person can be well known, well liked, generous or successful, appear loving – they may be many things alongside being an abuser.
The 2024 National College of Policing statement for Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG) estimated that at least 1 in 20 adults in England and Wales is a perpetrator of VAWG each year – around 2.3 million perpetrators. And with one in four women and one in 18 men experiencing rape or sexual assault after the age of 16, the chances are that we all know and maybe trust or love someone who is an abuser.
Abusers are rarely strangers in dark alleyways. They are partners, colleagues, friends, relatives and people we know. Deliberate false reports of rape are uncommon and account for less than 4% of cases, it just seems that many of us choose to question the credibility of the victim, look for reasons why we hope the allegation cannot possibly be true or just choose to believe the perpetrator because otherwise we have to question a relationship, friendship, a family or someone we have loved for years..
So, imagine that tomorrow it is someone you love who is accused of sexual violence. What would you do?