Trigger warning: this article contains mentions of the different types of sexual abuse one might endure
In 2015, 85% of victims of sexual assault in Malta did not report the crime to the authorities. This statistic is shocking, but it did not surprise me. As a young woman in Malta, I personally know of quite a few victims of sexual assault, and yet none of these cases have ever been legally pursued.
What are the reasons behind unreported sexual assault? There are a multitude of factors that play into this; guilt and self-blame, not considering the crime as serious enough to report, concerns regarding the criminal justice system, and most notably the relationship between the offender and the victim. Formosa Pace et al., (2015) informs us that the reason why 85.7% of Maltese victims in their study did not report their assault could be due to the fact that the victims know their offenders – mainly husbands, partners, exes, or close friends. This sheds light on a common and dangerous misconception which is that rape or sexual assault mainly occurs between strangers. In reality, in most cases, the assault takes place between people who already know each other, and this includes romantic partners.
Another common and dangerous misconception is that rape or sexual assault only refers to an act that is performed by physical force. This could not be further from the truth. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) defines force as any emotional, physical or psychological coercion, manipulation, threat or intimidation which an offender employs to encourage the victim into participating in sexual activities. Thus, begging and guilt-tripping fall under the umbrella of what constitutes as force. It is also recognised by most legislations that consent could be withdrawn at any time, thus if someone participating in a sexual act asks their partner to stop and they don’t, this is considered an act of sexual assault.
In my personal experience of seeing what happens when someone gets accused of any type of sexual assault, I think the biggest cultural problem we have in allowing this abuse to continue is the phenomenon of the enabler.
Consider this scenario. Your best friend, a young man, is accused of sexual assault. You’ve known this guy for years and he’s so kind and thoughtful, he would never do such a thing. There are two sides to every story, right? The girl must be lying. Or maybe he didn’t do it on purpose. It was a long time ago, so it’s no use getting angry about it now. And so you defend him, or you sweep it under the rug. The average person might agree that rape or sexual assault is disgusting behaviour, but the second that the abuser is their friend, that’s what the excuses start rolling out.
If you do this – you’re an enabler.
I understand it to some extent. It’s difficult to accept the fact that someone you trusted could be an abuser. We all have a mental image in our head of what a rapist or an abuser looks like, and our best friend is not this image. Neither is our brother, our partner, our teacher, or our aunt (women can be abusers too!). But one must consider that oftentimes, an abuser is manipulative. They will act friendly and charming, but this is just a façade. If their victim does come forward, they will twist the story to wash their hands of any wrongdoing, or even worse, make themselves out to be the victim.
“But what about false accusations?”
Fair enough. False accusations can occur, regardless of how small the chances of this happening may be. But before you make the choice to side with the alleged abuser, ask yourself the following: Do I believe that the accusation is false for a valid reason, or do I believe that the accusation is false because the person being accused is my friend?
The issue of sexual abuse is a very touchy and sensitive subject, and I’m aware that the problem is a lot deeper than what I have described in this article. For example, the impunity of abusers is an institutional problem as much as it is a cultural one, with police reports not being taken seriously and individuals having to wait a very long time for court cases to see the light of day.
In spite of this, I think it’s important to be aware of how our behaviour affects victims and contributes to this culture of impunity. It takes a lot of courage to call out your friends for their misogynistic and predatory behaviour, but I believe that we all have it within ourselves to be the change.
This article was written by an independent writer whose views are not associated with The Third Eye. The Third Eye strives to be the student’s voice, and that entails giving them a platform to voice their opinions.