Failing to protect the public at every turn: how our systems are failing to protect women and children from sexual violence.

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Every day seems to bring a new report of sexual violence, which could have been prevented.

Globally, 15 million adolescent girls worldwide, aged 15–19 years have been raped.

An estimated 736 million women globally—almost 1 in 3—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life.

6.54 million women and 1.34 million men in England and Wales have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16 and yet only 2.4% of reported rapes result in someone being charged.

Around 1 in 5 boys have been subjected to sexual abuse.

While men and boys can be sexually abused/raped, as noted above, this is a highly gendered issue - why? because women and girls are the majority of victims, and the majority of sexual perpetrators are males (98% in England and Wales).

I teach these figures on a daily basis and yet, they stagger me every time I see them.

Today, the media have again reported that murderer Wayne Couzens, was able to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard because he had police powers that he should never have had. The official report revealed police failed to recognise he was a prolific sexual offender, with offences dating back almost 20 years.

This is the latest in a long line of police officers, who are seemingly employed or allowed to stay employed by police forces, despite having histories and/or allegations of domestic abuse, coercive control and sexual abuse of women and children made against them. Earlier this month, Cliff Mitchell, aged 24, was found guilty of ten counts of rape, three counts of rape of a child under 13, kidnap and breach of a non-molestation order. Initially, after no further action was taken for many of these offences, he then went on afterwards to join the metropolitan police, starting his training in 2021, which was also after the murder of Sarah Everard and numerous promises from the police that ‘lessons would be learned’. Mitchell was a serving police officer when he committed many of these offences.

These crimes could have been prevented, because we have decades of research that tells us sexual violence is predictable and preventable. We know that where there is gender inequality, there are higher rates of sexual violence. By reducing gender inequality, changing social norms, teaching about sexual violence and healthy relationships, empowering victims, holding perpetrators accountable for their actions and creating protective environments, we can help prevent and reduce sexual violence. A public health approach to addressing sexual violence focuses squarely on the prevention of these incidents before they occur.

In all honesty, there are not enough hours in the day to write in detail about every area of society in which we see our institutions are failing to protect women and children from sexual violence, so I will briefly list some of them with links below:

1. In UK parliament, at least 56 MPs have been accused of sexual misconduct, bullying or harassment.

2. Rape culture is prevalent across UK schools. 600 rapes in schools were reported to police between 2012 and 2015 – an average of a rape every day of the school year. Elsewhere, 90% of the girls interviewed by Ofsted said they were subjected to sexist name calling and being sent unwanted explicit pictures or videos ‘a lot’ or ‘sometimes’.

3. More than 200 National Health Service (NHS) trusts in England recorded 35,000 incidents of sexual violence and misconduct between 2017 and 2022. 37 police forces recorded almost 12,000 sexual crimes allegedly committed on NHS premises (almost all hospitals) between 2017 and 2022. This includes almost 4,800 sexual assaults and more than 2,800 rapes.

4. There have been over 16,000 sexual abuse complaints in nursing homes between 2000-2017. There were a further 661 statutory notifications received by the Care Quality Commission within a three-month period in 2018.

5. Almost half of all child sexual abuse occurs within the home and again is mostly perpetrated by males.

6. We do not know how often child sexual abuse is reported within the family courts in England and Wales or globally, because this data is not reported. We do know, that mothers and children are disbelieved and that raising child sexual abuse often leads to victims being accused of lying and mother-child separation. We also know in the UK, the government have refused to include protections for family members of convicted child sex offenders in the Criminal Justice Bill, where these families have been urged to seek their own protection from these criminals via the family courts.

7. 1 in 3 children say they’ve seen explicit, hardcore pornography by age 12, which equates to roughly 25 million children in the U.S. alone. Porn sites get more monthly visitors than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined. 44% of males ages 11–16 who saw hardcore porn said it gave them ideas about the type of sex they wanted to try. 88% of porn scenes contain sexual violence against women.

These are just some figures from some settings. We must accept that we know that we live in a society where sexual violence and rape culture is prevalent, but we must not accept or tolerate this any longer. We must also accept that many of these perpetrators are male adults in positions of trust, including police officers, care workers, teachers and others. This creates a bind for children and women. How can they feel safe to report abuse, when so many institutions are failing to protect them already?

These facts and figures are repeated, time after time. We are told with every new report that ‘lessons will be learned’ and yet the figures are increasing year after year. You may ask, isn’t this because more people are reporting it? The answer is no, as we know that due to stigma, sexual violence is still hugely underreported.

Our world leaders and governments must stop failing to protect us all from sexual violence. A societal problem such as sexual violence requires societal solutions, not responses which put the onus on individual victims to protect themselves. We must stop telling women and children how to protect themselves from sexual violence. We must stop using only this reactive approach to these crimes. We must be proactive. The time for repeating and ignoring the recommendations of these inquiries and reports is over.

We must focus our efforts firmly on the prevention of sexual violence.

Don’t tell women and children how to stay safe: Tell the rapists to stop raping.

Don’t tell women and children to leave the abuser: Tell the abusers to stop abusing.

Don’t tell women and children they must seek protective orders from sex offender fathers in the family courts: Tell those abusive fathers they no longer have their parental rights.

Don’t tell us you ‘didn’t know’ or that ‘lessons have been learned’: Tell the man in the mirror to prevent it from happening again.