Rape, one of the crimes of war, is a heinous act which devastates the victims and victim's loved ones, friends, and neighbours. (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4078677.stm) And war criminals deserve what they get.
In our North American societies, the fear of wrongly charging someone with the crime of rape has, it seems to me, produced centuries of protecting the perpetrators from having to deal with the consequences of their actions. If the accused doesn't look like Ratko Mladic, perhaps there are doubts about the accusations--could the victim be mistaken? Could there be another reason? Could the victim have had a form of "buyer's remorse" and changed his/her mind some time after having had consensual sex?
It is a relatively recent development that LE professionals have come to recognize that the victims of rape are not responsible for the actions of the rapist. However, vestiges of previously accepted "truths" about how a rape victim should look or behave or dress linger on in the minds of the general public as well.
As Sarah Tofte said of investigations of rape, that LE officers ...talk about the victims credibility in a way that they dont talk about the credibility of victims of other crimes. (
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=0)
It's pretty easy for those outside the experience to say that, if raped, the victim should report the crime to protect other people from rape. One inference, IMO, is that if someone really has been raped, they can somehow prove their own innocence by reporting. IMO, another inference of such a stance is that if the rapist rapes again, then the victim is at least partly to blame for the new crime/s. Still another inference, IMO, is that, for the greater good, a victim should be denied comfort, and should continue to suffer the humiliation and pain that will come from the process of producing what is called a "rape kit".
The Rape Treatment Centre (UCLA Medical Centre, Santa Monica) gives a detailed synopsis of what a rape victim who intends to notify police should do after calling a friend or relative for emotional support. (
http://www.911rape.org/getting-help/what-to-do-if-you-are-raped)
Allowing LE into a home where a burglary has happened can be traumatizing--there is a sense that a home is no longer a place of safety and security. It has changed from a home into a crime scene, a place to be viewed and analyzed and measured and described in objective terms. The emotional connections to the objects within that crime scene seem have been severed. How much more traumatizing is it to be changed from being a person into being an object?
Nicholas D. Kristoff (
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=0)
When your body is a crime scene, and, therefore is a more acceptable and reliable source of information than is your memory, it may well seem as though the dehumanizing effects of the rape are just being continued by LE, no matter how supportive the attending officer may be. If, and this is a big if, the case does go to trial, the victim may be required to relive the crime in front of her attacker, talking about very personal things to a roomful of strangers.
(
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...iolate-rape-victims/article14705289/?page=all)
It is not surprising that many rapes go unreported, and that victims choose to be silent. It's more surprising, IMO, that victims choose to involve LE at all.
This is all the more sad given the following statistics about rape.
Kirk Makin (
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...iolate-rape-victims/article14705289/?page=all)