Why don’t women report rape? Because most get no justice when they do
This is so deeply depressing. Because society, not to say the criminal justice system, treats rape victims so badly, there is no incentive whatsoever to report rape or a sexual assault. So the rapists walk away, and are free to rape again, and again.
Decades after the Criminal Code was changed to better protect rape survivors and punish their assailants, fewer than one in five victims of sexual assault say they reported their violation to authorities.
An Ipsos poll for Global News found that while 30 per cent of those surveyed said they’d experienced sexual assault in their lifetimes, fewer than one in five (about 18 per cent) of those had told police.
Some felt young and powerless, or ashamed, or they blamed themselves or just wanted to move on. Many felt reporting would do little good.
And in that last respect the evidence bears them out, at least when it comes to conviction.