Despite being in 2021, sexual harassment is something that is still normalised in society. While sexual harassment occurs in plain daylight, abuse happens in the shadows where we tend not to look. But abuse happens regularly. And it only takes one time for it to remain with you for the rest of your life.
A recent investigation revealed that less than one in 60 sexual abuse cases recorded by the police in England last year resulted in a suspect being charged. This means that of the 52,210 cases in England and Wales during 2020, only 843 resulted in a form of charge.
The investigation will hopefully be the starting point we need to finally get the government to change how rape is treated within the UK's criminal justice system.
This reveal will cause a huge pivot in the way we treat cases like this. With this number showing how strikingly low the number of people charged is, it might trigger an underground channel of frustration that has been silenced for all this time. Victims may no longer feel that coming forward will come to nothing. And the perpetrators will finally face the consequences that they deserve.
While I'm extremely happy to have seen these figures come out, the rate that was uncovered confirms the concerns that I have had over the last three years, living in London as a young female adult, with my family in a completely separate country. All the nights I walked home alone feeling someone lurking in the side alleys, or the blind dates I went on with men that clearly searched for nothing more than a physical bonus: these instances happen to millions of women across the globe, and even in first-world countries where we have access to networks, quick calls, and a police force — not everyone has been as lucky as I am in avoiding any danger.
What scares me the most is that although many victims come forward, and many survive and go on to live amazing lives, they will never outrun the violence or the feeling of powerlessness. And those who navigate these attacks — well the numbers show that many of them continue their lives with no regrets or consequences for their actions at all.
I think that for a real change to happen, we not only have to shout these numbers from the top of our rooves, but we need to implement them into our children's education. We need to have billboards as big as Apple's iPhone adverts shining a light on the problems in our criminal justice system.
We need to be attacking the statistics from both sides — from one side is education, by showing girls and boys from a young age how to respect each other and avoid these crimes from going up, and from the other side is our police force and courts, where we don't stop until someone is identified as a culprit.