Victim Blaming Is Alive And Well.
By Mike Archer. When you read that someone has suffered from abuse, two images generally come to mind – a husband hitting his wife, or, an adult preying upon a child.
When you start to qualify the term with words like mental, spousal, parental, sexual, or physical, it has a way of not only clarifying and, perhaps, explaining the abuse, but also categorizing it and, sometimes, allowing us to feel that there must be a program or support group to help the victims.
We remember ad campaigns, headlines or news stories and are left concerned, but no longer angry, about what we read.
The victim is never so lucky. The victim is left to heal or suffer, hurt or ‘deal with it,’ face it and put it behind them, or try to run away.
The victim can never run away from the abuse. It is always, always there.
This is why it is so important for those charged with helping the abused to understand that minimizing, dismissing or rushing to put the abuse in the past only interferes with any healing process and can cause further damage by, in effect, belittling the victim.
In the case of sexual abuse, police are often the first, and sadly, the last people many women face when they work up the courage to call for help. An Abbotsford woman who reported a case of abuse by her partner has come away from the experience hurt and angry with the way she was treated by the Abbotsford Police Department (APD).
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the woman is infuriated with her treatment at the hands of the police and, when she demanded and received edited copies of the police report on her case, she decided to share her story.
She was asking for it
“I remember saying it was maybe partially my fault for dressing that way … although he didn’t put that in [the report]. Guess he was fine with letting me believe that was true,” she says.
“I particularly enjoyed the ‘no injury’ statement in the report.”
Most police departments, and the APD is no different, have at least one officer who is tasked with dealing with sexual assault cases. The woman in question was made even more angry about her treatment when she was told that the officer who handled her complaint was the APD’s ‘sexual assault go-to guy‘.
During her interview with Abbotsford Today the woman asked if she could make a statement about the whole process and the way she was, in effect, made to go through the abuse all over again when she read the police report.
Dirty. Broken. Used
“When I received the copy of the police report in the mail my heart broke a second time. You see, the person who did this to me wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t some random, angry stranger on a power trip. He was my partner, someone I trusted. Someone who seemed safe. After the attack, I felt violated. Dirty. Broken. Used. Responsible. I felt like it was my fault. I wasn’t sure if it was truly a sexual assault… I mean, I was his, wasn’t I? And if he wasn’t that sort of person, then it must have been me who brought it out in him. How awful was I to bring a man to rape? Maybe I should just learn to shut my mouth.
“He told his parents what he had done and they lawyered him up immediately. They didn’t tell him to take responsibility for what he did. They got him a lawyer who wrote him a letter to email to me explaining that he would not be apologising and any contact in the future would be through his attorney.
“When I went in to file a report, the officer who interviewed me seemed nice. He asked questions and looked generally concerned. I felt heard and supported. He explained to me that this sort of thing is never the victim’s fault.
“And then the report came in the mail and I read those words, “parading around in her underwear.” Parading.
“And my heart broke again.
“I was angry and confused. Women, since birth, are raised to equate self-worth with attractiveness. We’re told to shave our bodies, wear makeup, do our hair. Be attractive. Be sexy.Don’t curse too much. Learn to cook and clean. Be a ‘lady on the street and a freak in the sheets’. Be whatever society, (men), decide you should be. Apparently, though, if we get too good at being attractive men who have not been taught how to control themselves will rape us. And that’ll be our fault, too. And when you go to the police for help, they’ll disempower, victim-blame and discourage us from reporting any similar activities in the future.”
The public needs to know
The Abbotsford woman made efforts to help herself during the long process of healing.
At one point during the process of dealing with what had happened to her, she ran into someone whom she thought could understand what she was going through.
“I had one [officer] who was super nice, used to check on me to make sure [my abuser] wasn’t bothering me. Then I volunteered with an organization which exposes violence against women, and now he won’t return my calls. Won’t say why, but that’s the only thing I’ve done that could be disappointing to him.
“I was talking with family about maybe getting this report out to women’s centres. I think the public needs to know that victim blaming in public service is alive and well. If the cops don’t like it, too bad. Not like they’ve ever done anything for me anyway.”
“Another time I called because [my abuser] was threatening me. The officer came out and asked why I don’t move. I explained that my daughter’s dad wouldn’t let me. I requested the report and saw that, in it, he said that he suspected I was lying to get welfare to pay for my move to Vancouver.
“I wasn’t even on welfare! That time the staff Sgt called me a million times and changed the report. Just to cover their asses I’m sure. I have a copy of the original.”,
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Editor’s note: Abbotsford Today has seen the police report referred to in this story and can verify the statements made by the victim. We were given permission to publish the report but are choosing not to do so in order to protect the woman’s identity.
Cover photo – photographer unknown.
Video: OPPRESSED MAJORITY (Majorité Opprimée English), by Eleonore Pourriat
It struck me while writing and editing this story that many of the homeless men and women the City of Abbotsford and its police force have been harassing, abusing, stealing from and relentlessly chasing from one spot to another around the community are victims of abuse who can’t get away from it.
Being threatened, chased and facing lawsuits by the City or eviction notices forced on them by armed police only makes things worse when you understand these men and women as victims instead deciding they are bad people or victims of bad choices.
To begin their stories with their ‘choice’ to use drugs or alcohol and not take into account the fact that their story actually started much earlier with an abuser is absurd and ill-informed.
By choosing to prosecute, punish, enforce camping bylaws and eviction notices and continue the cycle of abuse as a way of dealing with injured, broken people, is either the height of ignorance or a deliberately mean spirited, ugly and repulsive agenda which has no place in public policy.
Like the ‘Anti-Harm Reduction Bylaw,’ of which the City was forced to rid itself by the legal challenge of the Abbotsford Chapter of the BC/Yukon Drug War Survivors, the City of Abbotsford’s continued mistreatment of the homeless under Mayor Bruce Banman can only end badly.
The City will either be exposed in court for its inhumane treatment of its own citizens and forced to apologize and change its ways, or/and, Abbotsford citizens are going to continue dying on the streets as a result of the mistreatment meted out by the City of Abbotsford and the APD.
The members of the power structure who have either participated in or turned a blind eye towards the ongoing and systematic attempts at eradication of a social problem by force and selective police enforcement of either ultra vires bylaws (Anti-Harm Reduction) or misuse of bylaws (Overnight Camping) which were not intended as social policy, will also bear the brunt of the legal ramifications of the City’s misuse of power and the political and public shaming which will result.
Stan M James Says:
Playing chess with them
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