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The Dominion Post
April 24, 2003
Rape Crisis responds
by Georgina Thompson
Coordinator,
Wellington
Independent Rape Crisis
I am outraged at the enormous bias that exists around the reporting of rape
and sexual abuse. I refer particularly to your article outlining Tone Fiso's
experience of being wrongly accused of sexual violation (April 14).
Fiso receives considerable coverage, full details of his distress and a large
emotive photo. His story is told as an outrageous, inconceivable event.
The reporting of rape however, is very different. There is usually a small
article with a few ambiguous details, hidden at the back of the paper. A
survivor of rape is never given the opportunity to express the total and
utter mental, physical and spiritual anguish that rape inflicts upon women.
I do not wish to marginalise Fiso's situation but I would like you to be
responsible and to report proportionately without bias.
In reality, false complaints of rape are extraordinarily rare -- they are a
tiny percentage of cases compared with the real incidence of rape and sexual
abuse.
The prevalence of sexual violation in New Zealand is disturbingly high.
The public has no idea how common it is.
Media reporting of false complaints achieves a considerable imbalance of the
facts. It allows the public to scrutinise all women and to ignore the real
issue, which is that rape and sexual abuse are common and affect every woman.
The media would have people think false complaints are some kind of growing
phenomena. Be assured that this is simply not true.
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