It is an embarrassment to admit that we live in a society when we still cannot prevent sexual harassment and abuse. If anything, it is a pervading phenomenon that increasingly provides news material for sensationalist media. More importantly, rape is a serious issue on which the judicial system greatly lags.
In April, an article appeared in the Daily Mail reporting the arrest of three sixteen year old boys being charged for sexually assaulting Audrie Pott, a fifteen year old student. In September 2012, she attended a party where she was raped. Naked pictures of her were taken. Soon these photos were circulating online and everyone in her Saratoga High School came to know about it. The victim’s family attorney Allard said to NBC Bay Area, “They did unimaginable things to her.” And Audrie posted on Facebook: “My life is ruined,” before committing suicide, just eight days after the incident.
Similar occurrence took place in Steubenville, Ohio in August 2012. A young girl was abused by two teenage high school football players named Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond. In March, Davidson Amy reported in The New Yorker, “The unconscious sixteen year old girl was taken from party to party, photographed, assaulted in a car and taken to basement to perform oral sex.” The violence did not stop and the pictures and videos were distributed online.
KnightSec, a branch of the hacking group called Anonymous, criticized the school officials and coaches for muting the matter when they hacked the Big Red Football team’s website. On March 17, CNN reported that Judge Thomas Lipps considered it a heinous crime. Since the victim was under-age, both Mays and Richmond were convicted for raping and distributing child pornography, and they were sentenced with sex offender status. Mays has to register every six months for twenty years for his sentence as a sex offender; however, their names won’t be included in publicly accessible websites.
Although the Steubenville case demonstrates a certain judicial response, the majority of sexual abuse cases never see sufficient judicial action. A failing judiciary is evident yet again with the case of seventeen year old Rehtaeh Parsons, a student of Cole Harbor District High School, who was also sexually assaulted at a party in November 2011. On April 9, 2013, CBC News reported that Rehtaeh was verbally harassed and called a ‘slut’ by young boys. When she reported the incident to her family, they filed a complaint on the four accusers. But neither the police nor the investigation team RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) pressed charges, despite a year-long investigation, their reason being insufficient proof against the offenders.
Rehtaeh later joined a hospital temporarily for psychiatric help, but things became unbearable for the young girl. She was continuously harassed, bullied, isolated and forced to change schools many times. On April 4, 2013, she attempted suicide by hanging and fell into a coma. Three days later was taken off life support. Rehtaeh’s mother, Leah Parson, said to Metro News on 17th April 2013 said her daughter’s harassment never stopped. She wrote on Rehtaeh’s Facebook memorial: “The justice system failed her.”
Rehtaeh could have been rescued from her endless exploitation. However, the police, RCMP, and the judiciary abandoned her. As reported in Metro News in April, Rehtaeh father, Glen Canning, complained to the justice minister of Nova Scotia saying, “My daughter wasn’t bullied to death, she was disappointed to death.” The hacker group Anonymous found evidence that would help identify the accusers, proving the efforts of the RCMP and the Nova Scotia police incompetent. On April 12 2013, CBC News reported, “Anonymous won’t publicize the name of accuser since Leah Parsons wants the case to be handled legally not vigilantly.”
These three incidents of date rape are stark examples of how the justice system plays a deficient role in resolving and preventing sexual assault. Research claims that in most cases victims are treated as scapegoats while the accusers walk freely. To compensate for this judicial gap, civil society and other NGO campaigns attempt to raise awareness on the proliferating rape culture and incidences. The hope is that the discourse on rape will take a more empowering turn: then, rape victims will no longer be considered “victims” but “survivors” striving for retribution of injustice and abuse.
