Several events in the last year have brought rape to the forefront of our nation’s mind. Here , much of the abortion debate’s rhetoric centres on rape-induced pregnancies. Moreover, the fact that the reported incidences of rape have increased has also been in the news recently. Perhaps most notably and indeed most tragically, the news about the horrific reality of female life in Delhi has brought rape to the front of international news agencies agenda. There is a world apart in every sense between our rape rates and Delhi’s, yet still there is more than a shimmer of glass houses when the Irish criticise another nation’s response to rape.
Our conviction rates are unknown, our conversation for the most part is non-existent and our attitudes are archaic. Our figures are based on the small number of victims brave enough to come forward to the police or agencies, mainly the Rape Crisis Centre (RCNI). Across the world, rape is a crisis issue, destroying lives and forcing people to live in fear. It is time for a national conversation to ensue to on how we can reduce the actual rate of rape and take a more constructive approach to the tragic phenomenon.
One side of that coin is of course judicial. RCNI’s statistics indicate that less than a third of the victims who come forward to them actually report the crimes they have suffered to the Gardai. This means that on the judicial side we must convince women, men and children that they have a good shot of prosecuting their attackers, that their attackers will be punished appropriately and that the general public are open enough to discuss the issue and not stigmatise them. The first two are government policy objectives, the last one requires a much deeper change in our culture and I would argue, a complete rethink about how we confront rape and rapists.
In many countries, including Ireland, populist conversations about rapists often revolve around biblical torture methods. Maybe we burn them, nail them to a pole and flail them alive, maybe castration? We dress rapists as characters of nightmares so we don’t have to face reality. However, what is rarely mentioned is that we are all basically capable of many heinous acts, different forms of sexual assault among them. The reality is that 90% of offenders are known to their victims (RCNI) and a third of all rapists are current or ex partners of the victim(RCNI). WIth this in mind, it is not unthinkable that the classical violent rhetoric might lead some victims feeling the need to protect their assaulters if the sentences and social attitudes are draconian and sadist. This reality does nothing reduce the rate as we want.
However, there might just be another way. There is one crime that has more than halved in recent years, namely, road deaths. This has been due to a mixture of two things: Targeted policing and intense thought-provoking advertising. Previously, more people were taking reckless risks on the roads because they did not believe that they could commit the heinous and stupid acts of dangerous driving. The RSA knew advertising can convince the public of basically anything, especially when it’s the indisputable truth, so they invested their time into creating graphic, forceful and compelling adverts to positively influence behaviour.
The important first step to change minds about rape is to replicate the road safety adverts. They didn’t call the drivers gargoyles, they portrayed them as ordinary people making a horrific and stupid choice. By convincing the person in front of the TV that they could be in that same situation someday, those adverts focused on relating the viewer to the perpetrator and not the victim.
That is the immediate approach we have to take to reduce rape. There have been fantastically powerful ads in England detailing a normal teenager raping a girl, it’s not overtly-violent but it is most unmistakingly rape. It’s a calm, horrific story told from the rapists viewpoint. Some people may doubt you can advertise “the rapist” out of an average, nondescript person. Not in one go perhaps, but it will absolutely change our knowledge to the reality of it and slowly change minds. Just as our road adverts slowly but surely, changed cultural attitudes to drink driving.
All the talk about castration and capital punishment nourishes our sadistic side and turns the rapists into supernatural gargoyles. This prevents people from addressing the fact that they themselves might at some point be susceptible to committing domestic violence, sexual assault or rape. But they need to consider this. Men and women both need to be able to see themselves in the position where they might commit sexual assault. We can’t treat the darkness in society if we pretend it isn’t there. The recently launched “Don’t be that guy” campaign in Trinity, focused on the perpetrator and not the victim, is most definitely a step in the next direction. To see this style campaign expanded to a wider audience can only be desired.
The huge prevalence and effectiveness of road safety adverts is without question, and they cost at maximum €10 million a year depending on who you ask. You could raise most of the money for an adverts campaign like that from private funds if the drive was put behind it.
In a hundred and one cases we have seen the powerful changing nature of large scale advertising. Big business knows about how cost-effective it is and the government has proven it on road safety. There’s no way of knowing whether this will work in changing the rate hugely, but what we do know is that other avenues have been exhausted in the battle to reduce instances of rape. And even if it didn’t change one actual incidence of sexual assault, the act of bringing rape to the fore of public consciousness and sensitivity might foster an environment where more victims come forward faster and in greater confidence of an open public committed to fighting the darkest parts of our society.
