[link] Rape suspects ‘should not be named’

Why are we going back to this again? According to McGowan (below) those accused of rape or other sexual offences should not be named until they have been convicted. We all know what this is about: it’s about the filthy little sluts who make it up (and let’s face it, that’s most of them, amirite?), the not really rape cases, and all those different sort of cases that are sort of unseemly but not rape, you know. [/parody]

We need to stop having this debate. Rape as a violent act is clear, it is the enormous clouding of rape that is promoted by the legal system, the justice system, our legislators, our media, and our rape apologists and deniers that brings about this debate time and time again. The clear-up rates for rape (i.e. the proportion of rapes that occur and that eventually result in a conviction) are amongst the lowest in the country at about 5%, we know that as many one in three women will be raped in her lifetime, yet it still all becomes about him (and, it is almost always a him). We need to stop this.

Oh, and by the The Guardian, your headline? They’re not “sex suspects”. They’re accused of violent and destructive offences, not having a quick knee-trembler behind the bike sheds.

From the guardian:

People accused of sex crimes should have their identities protected until they are convicted, a senior lawyer has said. Under current legislation, people who claim they have been the victims of sexual offences automatically receive anonymity, but suspects do not. Maura McGowan, chairwoman of the Bar Council, believes the law should be changed because allegations of a sexual nature “carry such a stigma”.

“Until they they have been proven to have done something as awful as this – I think there is a strong argument in cases of this sort, because they carry such stigma with them, to maintain the defendant’s anonymity, until he is convicted,” she told BBC Radio 5. “But once the defendant is convicted then of course everything should be open to scrutiny and to the public.

[Read the rest: guardian]