25 February 2020
Recently a survey conducted by the Crime Survey For England & Wales (CSEW) found that 1 in 5 adults aged 18-74 had experienced some form of abuse before the age of 16, with 1 in 13 reporting sexual abuse before the age of 16. This amounts to 8.5 million adults having experienced childhood abuse, 3.1 million of whom were victims of childhood sexual abuse. (The Guardian, 14/01/2020.)
The harrowing reality this shows is that abuse is not rare. The grooming scandals in Rochdale and Rotherham have been covered extensively and there is more to come to light about historic offences in Oldham. Scandals at the BBC and various football clubs are now public knowledge. Questions need to be asked about why people are being failed, not just within specific organisations, but across such a broad spectrum of society. Tackling these questions requires a societal shift in attitudes about how we view individuality and how we appropriate blame.
Victim blaming is the process by which perpetrators pass responsibility for their actions on to others. An extreme example is the rapist who believes she is asking for it. Or the thug angered by 'a funny look.' However, victim blaming exists in far more insidious forms. It is the insurance company that says your property should have been alarmed. It is the parent who says the smacked child is naughty. Tabloid attitudes towards benefit claimants and refugees are examples of victim blaming, as was coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. The self-help sections of bookshops are full of self-serving tomes that encourage victim blaming as if it were an essential part of personal development.
At the root of this is a psychological need people have to take credit for their own successes, which leads to the erroneous conclusion that those who are not successful must be at fault. It is a reductive form of individualism that has done much to harm inter-personal relations.
How do we go about creating a society where people can feel safe and loved?
Firstly, one inference that needs to be tackled head on is this: If 8.5 million adults have experienced childhood abuse, that means 8.5 million perpetrators of abuse. Or to put it another way, if 1 in 5 adults has experienced abuse, then the proportion of abusers in society could also be as high as 1 in 5. This is not to scaremonger but to recognise that these issues may run deeper than many may be prepared to accept. However, this unwillingness to accept statistical likelihood is also a form of victim blaming as it represents a refusal to confront abusers.
Secondly, we need a systematic study of victim blaming attitudes within social services, police and parole services, councils, hospitals, schools, and ultimately, within families. This sounds daunting and will undoubtedly uncover hidden truths, but we can take heart from the fact that it can be inferred that 4 in 5 adults are not abusers. This is about confronting attitudes openly, not pointing fingers.
Thirdly, we must allow people to own their own experiences and allow them to heal in their own time. Attitudes like "you'll get over it" reinforce the idea that a person's continuing pain is their own fault. Similarly, the attitude "your life is ruined" can have a disastrous effect on the healing process. Indeed, the word 'victim' itself may have a negative effect and perhaps the word 'survivor' is more appropriate.
What about the abusers?
We are then left with the abusers themselves, many of whom may also be victims. A restorative justice system needs to take account of the experiences of survivors while also allowing for the possible rehabilitation of reformed abusers. The above proposed study of victim blaming attitudes could be used as a guideline to track the changing attitudes of abusers over time and assess the risk they pose to the wider public.
Related link: The Green Party policy on child abuse can be found at https//policy.greenparty.org.uk/sw.html Social Welfare Policies – Children & Families paragraphs SW314 onwards
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