Comment: Lowering age of consent to 13 is absurd
By Katie Russell
Barbara Hewson's ill-informed and damaging online article regarding Operation Yewtree was shocking on many levels, not least because it came from an apparently 'top' barrister.
By opening with the assertion that ongoing legal investigations pose 'a far graver threat to society than anything Jimmy Savile ever did', she invites us to accept that she believes a public figure's abuse of his power and privilege to rape and sexually assault women and children with impunity across decades, is no big deal compared to 'the persecution of old men', or put another way, the lawful investigation of sexual offences.
If we take that at face value, we must believe that Hewson has a contempt for criminal justice that is quite terrifying in someone practising law. To anyone who has ever experienced sexual violence, worked with sexual violence survivors, or campaigned for survivors' rights as part of a movement such as Rape Crisis, however, it seems more like a transparently cynical attempt to self-publicise by generating controversy for its own sake. And that impression is reinforced by all the comments that follow in her article.
One year on from Rochdale, the child sex abuse ring, and in the shadow of the child sexual exploitation case in Oxfordshire, which has since ended in seven convictions, a call to lower the age of consent to 13 is counter-intuitive and borders on the absurd. Surely the disturbing details of these cases and the experiences of the young women involved tell us loudly that the criminal justice system and other statutory agencies still have a long way to go in improving their responses to sexual violence and protecting vulnerable people who are exploited and abused.
But this intentionally headline-grabbing 'recommendation' is arguably not even the most worrying of the points Hewson makes. Particularly unsettling is her attack on and dismissal of the experiences of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. She describes the right of these people to access justice as 'infantilising' and an 'open invitation to all manner of folk to reinterpret their experience of the past as one of victimisation.' This betrays not only a complete lack of empathy but also an ignorance of the long-term impacts of sexual violence that is, again, at best disconcerting and at worst dangerous in a legal professional.
Of the 60,000 women and girls Rape Crisis Centres in England and Wales provide specialist support to each year, over 60% have come to us because of an incident of sexual violence that happened more than three years ago and we know that around a third of those sexually abused as children reach adulthood without having told anyone about it. The women we work with tell us that prominent amongst the many and complex reasons for this, as well as the power and control wielded by their abusers, are shame, self-blame and a fear of not being believed, all of which factors are perpetuated and reinforced by the kinds of views Hewson so aggressively presents in her article.
In this context, it is also incomprehensible that anyone, let alone someone with even the remotest understanding of criminal justice, would call for the removal of sexual violence victims' right to lifelong anonymity. When we know that only around 15% of the estimated 85,000 women who are raped and over 400,000 who are sexually assaulted in England and Wales every year ever report to the police, it is nonsensical to suggest that adding to the stress and trauma of the experience for victims by forcing them to be publicly identified can do anything to improve levels of justice. All this 'recommendation' achieves is further reinforcement of the widespread myth that women who report rape and other sexual offences are more often than not lying. A report from director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer in March, in fact found that so-called false rape allegations make up as little as less than one per cent of all reports. Sending out messages to victims that they will be disbelieved from the outset will do nothing to improve the environment in which it is already so difficult for them to come forward to seek the justice and support they want and deserve.
The response to Hewson's desire to make a name for herself by being provocative at the expense of sexual violence survivors, including her own law firm's statement to distance itself from her comments, has been heartening. What remains of concern is the possibility that this stunt signals the beginning of a wider backlash against the long-overdue efforts now being made to properly investigate and prosecute sexual offences. A large proportion of the public has understandably been shocked and overwhelmed by the numbers of sexual violence survivors coming forward; understandably not because the scale of sexual violence has not always been so huge (those of us working within the Rape Crisis movement can testify that it has), but because it has been a taboo for so long that its belated acknowledgement is a revelation for many.
What is crucial now is that we do not develop a kind of empathy-fatigue and turn our backs on survivors or refuse to believe them simply because the media coverage has been too much for us. To the contrary, now must be a water-shed moment at which we begin to afford those affected by sexual violence both the criminal and social justice they deserve. And we invite partner agencies, government, professionals and the public to join Rape Crisis in our ongoing efforts to raise awareness and understanding of sexual violence and ultimately to prevent and end it.
We encourage any woman or girl whose life has been affected by sexual violence of any kind at any time to visit our website for details of her nearest Rape Crisis services.
Katie Russell has been involved with the Rape Crisis movement since 2004. She is a founding trustee of Rape Crisis charity Support After Rape & Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL), and she currently does media and communications work for the national umbrella organisation Rape Crisis (England and Wales).
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