“How can a woman want to meet the man who raped her? I couldn’t imagine that in a million years. Are you sure you’re not traumatizing her all over again?” These questions were asked by a visiting journalist at the Centre for Victims of Sexual Assault at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, where I was speaking about the Centre’s efforts to establish dialogue between women who have been raped and the men who raped them.

Not that there is anything unusual about the journalist’s horrified reaction. This is exactly the response women get from their friends and boyfriends and from people working in the professional system for that matter, when they express a desire to bring themselves face to face with the man who raped them. Not only are these women contradicting preconceived notions about crime victims’ attitudes; they are also challenging our ideas about how to relate to the people who commit the crimes. We expect distance, loathing and condemnation – the same reactions we experience ourselves whenever we hear of a woman being raped, and indeed this is the way these women react initially. They are furious, desperate at the humiliation and they engage in salacious fantasies of punishment and revenge.

I am now going to pass on the words of three women. One young woman who was raped the first time she met a man she had chatted with online expressed it like this: “He ought to have it cut off! That’d be the end of sex for him. He’s incapable of thinking with the top head when the lower one is talking. He should be punished so it hurts; he ought to feel that he’s done something wrong. I wish he could feel for just one minute how I feel inside all the time.” Another woman, raped by a friend, wished this man to hell, where he could be left to rot alone for all she cared. A third woman, slightly older, who had also been raped by a good friend, said: “I think his punishment should be to know that he’s hurt me. I think that’s the worst form of punishment – knowing how much pain you’ve inflicted on another human being. I feel that would be a punishment to fit the crime.”

So all three women felt the men should be punished and yet, like 70% of the women who come to the Centre, chose not to report the man to the police. Why – one wonders? There is no single reason for this. Every woman has her own personal grounds for declining to file a report, and neither the type nor the severity of the crime is a decisive factor. I can say a little more about these three women; one of them had just been through a long and arduous trial in relation to an accident and she had neither the strength nor the inclination to go through something like that again. For the other two women a central factor was their long-standing relationship with the men. They did not believe that they had much of a case when it came to the police, but they made the decision primarily based on a belief that filing a report would not bring about justice. This they felt they would not achieve unless the men personally acknowledged responsibility for their actions and showed them their regret.

Therefore the decision not to file a report was not the same as deciding to let the crimes pass unreprimanded, and the women accepted the offer of help to contact the men in question. Dialogue is voluntary by nature. The women could urge the men to enter into dialogue but could not force them. Therefore there was a chance that their appeal to the men might either elicit no reaction or, worst case, denial or offense.

This did not discourage these women. They had decided to speak out. They wanted their opinion heard. There was no way to undo the wrong that had been done to them, but these men would not go on living in ignorance or denial. If that were to happen, they would learn nothing from their mistake, but just proceed through life, violating other women. Without being familiar with the concept of restorative justice, a concept I shall go into later, the women followed their own gut feelings and invited restoration.

As I mentioned earlier, the women took the first step. One woman chose to call the man directly, while the others contacted him by writing a letter. It was not an easy thing to do and it took them several attempts. The letters were mailed back and forth between the women and the consultant at the Centre until they finally found the right words. The contents were direct and unambiguous. The women described their sorrow and rage at what had taken place and let the men know how much hurt and suffering they had caused. They asked questions and requested answers – they invited dialogue.

So how did the men receive these appeals? Did they accept the opportunity held out to them to relieve their own consciences? One woman never received an answer to her letter. She was surprised and disappointed – after all they had been friends – but this made no difference to the pride she felt at having done what she needed to do. She said: “I felt a sense of inner tranquility once I sent that letter, and even if he never answers, at least I got something out of it; I acted on it. I can look at myself in the mirror and say that I did something. That alone is a help to me.”

The second woman received a reply and e-mailed back and forth with him a couple of times. He never quite gave her the answer she was looking for, and he refused to meet with her. But she did get an acknowledgement that he did at least realize that what had happened between them had not been quite right. In the end she received an apology.

The third woman met the man face to face. The Centre consultant met with each party beforehand to prepare them to meet and to outline the agenda. During these conversations the man expressed knowledge that he had violated the woman and said that he would happily have lined up for a beating; it would hurt, but retribution would be swift. Having to face the woman he had hurt was a different matter entirely. The meeting took place on neutral ground. The consultant sat at the head of the table to keep the conversation on track. “How could you do it?” was the initial question in this dialogue which was to last over two hours.

Subsequently the man said: “If we had not had that conversation both of us would still have felt terrible. We wouldn’t have moved on. This has been one of the greatest learning experiences I have had and it will stay with me for the rest of my life, every time I’m faced with a choice that might have consequences.” And the woman said: “I knew he was going to admit it, but it was good to hear it. It came quite unsolicited. This was one of the things that meant a lot to me. It somehow tied up the loose ends. It’s no use being angry all the time, not that there isn’t plenty of reason to be. I just think my life’s more important than anger.”

As I have shown, dialogue following sexual assault can be more or less successful. Yet a survey carried out at the Centre for Victims of Sexual Assault has shown that women who seek out dialogue experience redress for the humiliation they have been subjected to. They not only experience this dialogue as fair, they also feel that justice is served, when they have their say.

But don’t women get their say when they file a report on a sexual assault? Couldn’t the same results have been achieved in the penal justice system? Sadly, the answer is no. Roughly 500 rapes a year are reported in Denmark, but only 60 – 70 go to trial. That is less than 15%, and although we can pride ourselves on this figure being higher than it is in comparable countries, it is still alarmingly low. Cases that do not go to court are closed. Sometimes this happens because the perpetrator cannot be found, but in the vast majority of cases the cause is insufficient evidence. The crime of rape rarely has any witnesses and does not always leave traces. What is left is one person’s word against another’s for rape is rarely confessed to, and everyone is innocent until proven otherwise. This is surely a problem, for when the legal system fails to provide desired and necessary justice; we have a "deficit of justice". That term comes from a thesis on conflict resolution written by development consultant Hanne Andersson. She points out that this deficit gives rise to a societal problem when it contributes to women’s decisions not to report sexual assault, creating an individual problem for the women who experience that reporting serves no purpose, and thus underscoring the injustice they were subjected to when they were raped.

But when a case goes to court, do the women not feel vindicated? Yes, some women do feel that justice is served when the man is sentenced and they are awarded compensation. However, we often hear the judicial process itself described as another violation. There has been political attention paid to the legal status of rape victims, and as recently as June 14th, 2005, legal improvements to the status of rape victims were passed. These improvements can only be welcomed, but they do not alter the fact that the whole judicial phase centers on whether or not a man can be convicted or acquitted of breaking the law, not of violating a woman. In court the status of the woman is reduced to that of a witness to the man’s violation of the penal code. Her need for rehabilitation is not in focus, and financial compensation can almost feel like an insult. “As if my pain can be tallied in money!” as one woman expressed it. The woman’s need for rehabilitation of her dignity is and remains her own issue. In this way there is no great difference between women’s situation whether or not their cases go to court, are closed, or they themselves decline to use the legal system.

Paradoxically this system also fails to deal with the man’s situation. He is held accountable in front of people who have nothing to do with the action of which he is accused. The defense pursues his case with an aim to having him acquitted or receiving the lightest sentence possible. He is not supported in gaining an understanding of his actions, much less in learning something about himself.

Attempts have been made to promote a concept of justice called restorative justice. Restorative justice sees crime as something that takes place between people; hence the damage must be restored between the people involved and through their active intervention. Experiments with conflict councils - where in addition to penal proceedings, victims and perpetrators are given the opportunity to meet in dialogue – have been going on for five years in three Danish police districts. Yet today these efforts are ignored and dwindling in spite of documented beneficial results. It was a most regrettable political decision to make this initiative a low priority, not least when we consider that EU countries are obliged to promote conflict resolution in penal cases by March of 2006.

Restorative justice is practiced in many European countries today, and several already have the concept written into their legislation. However Denmark currently has no political or social arena for such a practice. Any debate which could be taking place is homeless.

The Centre for Victims of Sexual Assault challenges this homelessness by providing an institutional framework and professional competencies for women – and men – who desire restorative dialogue. You could say that this is a peculiar measure for an institution dedicated to treating women who have experienced sexual assault, for dialogue is action, not treatment. To tell the truth, however, it was not our own idea. It came to us from those women who were brave enough to show us that there are new paths to tread. Even when the crime is rape.

First appeared in the newspaper Politiken, July 21. 2005


Karin Sten Madsen
July 2006