Within the West, we are sometimes instructed horrible tales about girls within the International South international locations being subjected to male violence after which punished afresh by “group leaders” and the courts.
Most feminists in Europe and the US, for instance, would know that premarital intercourse is criminalised in Saudi Arabia and that hospitals and well being centres are compelled to report the pregnancies of single girls to police – together with these ensuing from rape. They might additionally learn about “honour killings” of girls and women in international locations like Albania and Kurdistan for breaking patriarchal guidelines, akin to having sexual relationships exterior of marriage.
Some who decry such abuses and atrocities within the International South, nevertheless, seem to not bear in mind that the sort of sexist sufferer blaming shouldn’t be confined to the International South; it additionally occurs within the International North. So-called “honour killings” additionally occur within the UK, for instance, inside each conservative non secular communities and secular ones.
I’ve lengthy been working to lift consciousness on this challenge and forestall it occurring to girls in my house nation, the UK. In 1990, I co-founded Justice for Ladies in response to the tough therapy meted out to girls who defended themselves towards rape or sexual violence – by the prison justice system, the media, and wider society. I had seen a number of instances of males killing their wives for spurious causes, and strolling free from courtroom. Excuses akin to “She nagged me”, or “I discovered her in mattress with one other man” had been accepted by judges and jurors as cheap grounds for males to “snap” and kill girls. In the meantime, girls who had been pushed to kill or maim their male companions after years of violence, usually in concern for his or her lives or these of their kids, had been handled as cold-blooded murderers and punished as such by British courts, focused by the media, and shunned by society.
We’ve got undoubtedly made some progress in shedding gentle on the problem prior to now three a long time, however the criminalisation of survivors of male violence within the UK, by the courts in addition to society at giant, is way from over.
At this time, not less than 57 p.c of girls in jail within the UK are survivors of home abuse, and for a lot of of them, this abuse is instantly linked to the explanation for his or her incarceration (whereas, usually, their abusers stay free). The true quantity is probably going considerably larger as a result of many select to not disclose their sufferer standing, even when it may assist clarify the motivations behind the crimes they’re accused of. Regardless of this, prison justice companies not often acknowledge {that a} girl has been a sufferer of male violence, and deal with this as a mitigating issue, when prosecuting her for a associated offence (together with defending herself towards the perpetrator).
Examples of such re-victimisation and criminalisation of survivors of male violence by British courts are throughout us.
A movie by the UK-based Centre for Ladies’s Justice (CWJ), titled Cease Criminalising Survivors, launched earlier this month tells the tales of 5 such girls, convicted of offences starting from perverting the course of justice to homicide, all because of the abuse they endured by the hands of a male associate. CWJ hopes the movie will assist educate prison justice companies and girls’s assist providers on the explanations feminine victims of male violence find yourself in jail.
One of many girls featured within the CWJ movie is Farieissia Martin who, aged 22 and with two babies, killed her extraordinarily violent associate, Kyle Farrell. Farrell had raped her repeatedly, and she or he had undergone a number of abortions because of this. Household and mates had commonly seen her face coated in bruises. The evening she killed him, he had given her one other beating, convincing Farieissia that if she didn’t do one thing, she was going to die at his arms. Gaining access to all this data, and figuring out nicely that she acted in self-defence, the courts nonetheless convicted her of homicide. Farieissia served seven years in jail earlier than efficiently interesting her conviction. The one purpose she was in a position to overturn her conviction was that she was represented at attraction by feminist attorneys outfitted with an in-depth understanding of the results of home violence.
Lately feminists are routinely blamed for exaggerating male violence, making girls “terrified of males”, and inflicting them to restrict their lives by taking precautions. In the meantime, girls are blamed for being raped (“she was consuming/flirting/sporting revealing clothes”) or struggling home abuse (“she wound him up/loved the drama”). Ladies are blamed, and shamed, for being abused into prostitution. This sufferer blaming, nonetheless prevalent in most societies, reaches its final type when girls are punished and despatched to jail for being victimised or defending themselves towards their abusers.
After we are blamed for what males do to us, we get a double dose of punishment – whereas our male abusers are handed free rein. This occurs routinely within the International South, but it surely occurs within the North too.
Lesbians in South Africa expertise horrors like “punishment rape” for daring to reject males, however so do girls within the UK. It’s true that girls are killed in Iran for supposed missteps like chatting with a person exterior the household, however so do girls within the UK – one girl is killed by a person identified to her each three days in England and Wales.
Males’s violence in the direction of girls and women is international, and wherever it happens, the blame is commonly diverted onto the victims. It’s essential that we converse of the rapist greater than we do of the raped, and of the batterer slightly than the battered. Let’s place the blame firmly on the responsible, and guarantee we by no means, ever, look to the actions of the victims in an try to justify such atrocities towards girls. Ladies ought to by no means be criminalised and punished, anyplace, for being subjected to male violence or defending themselves towards it.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
