challenging institutional disbelief around domestic & sexual violence and abuse
Child Sexual Exploitation is in the news again – the media are over-run with commentators who are wringing their hands, apologising, claiming that they’re not sure how they didn’t know, telling us that work is in progress to ‘remove this vile scourge’ from our communities. But what are we actually doing? We’ve looked over a […]
This is a major headline today with a number of media outlets covering the story. We are not surprised to learn that an employee of the children’s charity Barnardos wrote a letter in 1993 to survivor of child sexual exploitation, abuse and rape hold them responsible for the abuse. Victim blaming culture is endemic – […]
In The Times today a report by Andrew Norfolk and and Billy Kember states that Shaun Wright knew for years that local girls were being “groomed and ruthlessly abused by men” in Rotherham.The majority of the people who have looked at this case since the Alexis Jay report have shaken their heads sadly at the […]
We were extremely concerned when we read David Aaronovitch’s column “Let’s See Some Evidence. Then We Can Panic” published in the Times on July 10th. As a general rule of thumb, anyone who refers to public inquiries and investigative journalism into organised child sexual abuse rings as “paedogeddon” is already starting from a position of […]
This is the reason given by Italy’s top appeals court to annul a 5 year sentence for child sexual abuse. Apparently, the 11 year old girl and a 60 year old were in a “romantic relationship” and the 11 year old is ” in love” with a 60 year old man. Details on the case […]
UK’s malestream media has avidly sensationalised the trial of Amanda Hutton who has just been convicted of manslaughter by gross neglect whereby she deliberately starved her 4 year old son to death. Malestream media printed graphic details of Amanda Hutton’s supposedly ‘sordid lifestyle’ because not only is she addicted to drugs and alcohol but she […]
A domestic violence review comes after a number of high profile cases where protection for victims fell below expected standards. Why has it taken Home Secretary, Theresa May so long to commission Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) to carry out an inspection into how police forces are responding to domestic violence? Domestic violence is not a […]
This piece was first published here in November 2012. Unfortuately it is still very relevant – thanks to author for permission to cross post. The Guardian this weekend reports on one person’s reaction to the disclosures from victims of Jimmy Savile. In referring to children at a residential, the interviewee states, “They didn’t tell me about […]
This post was first published here – thanks to author for permission to cross post. There have been some terrible things in the media lately in relation to a British case where a teacher raped and abducted one of his students, from saying teacher and student are ‘lovers’ who ‘ran away together’ to calling 15-year-old […]
This post is a collective piece, thanks to all who have contributed. It is going to focus on men who abuse women and children. We acknowledge that there are female offenders, but this post will not be discussing them. It comes with a content note for Domestic & Sexual Violence and Abuse. What do we […]