Women Against Rape

In a damning report the Independent Police Complaints Commission has found that there were “significant errors” made during the inquiry by the much-vaunted Sapphire unit in Southwark.

Times Online, Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent, 18 March 2009

Although someone was charged in connection with the serious sexual assault, he was acquitted after a trial. The report says that during the court case “it became clear that a number of errors had been made by the police”.

The criticism comes just days after John Worboys, a London taxi driver, was found guilty of a series of sex attacks on 12 women. The Times revealed that 12 women went to the Metropolitan police to complain about a taxi driver but their allegations were never linked by Sapphire teams.
They also missed an opportunity to stop Worboys in July 2007 when he was arrested and then set free.

Appeal: The police are asking women who may have been raped or sexually assaulted by John Worboys to come forward. We too would like to be in touch with you. Please email: war@womenagainstrape.net or call (020) 7482 2496, and leave a message and your number.

The UN resolution to classify rape as a weapon of war is a victory for the thousands of individual rape survivors and organisations like ours that have campaigned for official recognition of rape as torture and persecution.

Our petition with this demand has been circulating since October 2006 and collected thousands of signatures, including from prominent people like Caroline Moorhead, Gareth Peirce, Juliet Stevenson and Benjamin Zephaniah.

The UN resolution to classify rape as a method of war is a victory for the thousands of individual rape survivors and organisations like ours that have campaigned for official recognition of rape as torture and persecution. 

Our petition (attached) with this demand has been circulating since October 2006 and collected thousands of signatures, including from prominent people like Caroline Moorhead, Gareth Peirce, Juliet Stevenson and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Press release on Harry Cohen's sleepwalking Bill

Harry Cohen has shown his commitment to victims of rape over many years, working to improve the response of the legal authorities. We welcome his 10-Minute Rule Bill on 15 October to exclude the defence of sleepwalking from rape cases, on grounds that unlike a defence of insanity it exempts perpetrators from any consequence for what they have done and offers no protection to others they may attack.

The defence of sleep walking is rare, but the ways in which victims of rape and sexual assault are commonly denied justice are many.

Comparable to sleepwalking but much more widespread is the defence of “belief in consent”. Based on the woman’s sexual history with other men, the accused can argue that he believed the woman consented. And this is while he is awake! This sexual history is not relevant to the case and should not be raised in court.

“ Many of you may be familiar with my story but in case you aren’t I tell some of it here. In November 2007, I won the right to stay after four long years of fighting even to get my asylum case heard. My four children were lost in Burundi where I was forced to leave them when I fled for my life after being imprisoned, raped and tortured.

On Saturday 16th February, rape survivors and their supporters packed a London church to charge those who are supposed to protect us -- the police, Crown Prosecution Service, judges, ministers and immigration authorities -- with the “rape of justice”.

By Bridget Symonds and Lisa Longstaff, Women Against Rape. Published in Women's News, Ireland's feminist magazine, May/June 2008
Photos by Crossroads Women's Photo Collective

Nearly 30 rape survivors, several young survivors’ mothers, one husband, and a representative of Iraqi women took the “witness” stand in front of a “prosecutor” and three “judges” from Women Against Rape, Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Legal Action for Women, to give their devastating testimonies. The audience acted as jury.

Times Online
Ruth Hall and Sally Freeman, February 11, 2008

This Saturday, women from across the UK will describe their experiences of sexual and domestic violence in a public trial to be held in London. The event – The Rape of Justice – Who’s Guilty? – coincides with the 30th anniversary of the campaigning group, Women Against Rape (WAR). Over three decades, WAR has campaigned for changes in the law, including the recognition of rape inside marriage as a crime. It won a landmark private prosecution against a serial rapist after the Crown Prosecution Service refused to prosecute in a case brought by two prostitutes: the rapist was sentenced to 11 years. Below, in an open letter to the Solicitor-General, Vera Baird, QC, the group states why it believes that the authorities are to blame for too little being done to prosecute rapists.

Dear Ms Baird,

STOP PRESS: Betty and her children win compensation for unlawful detention and for violence and abuse from Immigration Guards!!!

Some of you may know Betty A, a regular volunteer at the Centre where Women Against Rape (WAR) is based, who has been fighting for asylum for eight years.  Betty is a rape survivor and mother of five.  In July 2006, two months after Betty was illegally deported to Uganda with her five children, she was kidnapped and tortured by security agents.

She escaped from the boot of the car taking her to be killed, and eventually managed to make it back to Britain.  Tragically she had no choice but to leave her children behind.