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Peterellis.org.nz
Home / Moral Panics / Drug
Rape urban myth Drug-rapes
- Taranaki Hysteria December 2006 |
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A ninth woman has approached Rape
Crisis in Taranaki saying she has been drug-raped, but only two of the nine
have gone to police. Last week Rape Crisis said eight
women had approached them in Taranaki after incidents at pubs in Stratford,
New Plymouth and Hawera the previous weekend. Detective Senior Sergeant Grant
Coward of New Plymouth today told NZPA a complaint was being investigated in
Hawera. Safer Centre Taranaki counsellor
Lorraine Jans said a woman had approached police in Stratford too. Ms Jans told NZPA a ninth woman
had also contacted Safer Centre, saying she had been the victim of a drug
rape. "We've had lots of rings from
around the country as well. "The thing that's concerning
us the most is the number of people, not necessarily in our area, that have
come forward that it's happened to them and they've not done anything. "They've not told anybody,
they've not been to the police, they might not even have been to places like
us." Ms Jans believed one of the main
reasons might be that the women were confused or could not remember much
"but they know they've been raped and it's very difficult to go to the
police and talk about it when you actually don't remember anything about
it". Rape counselling organisations
encouraged women to go to the police, despite the majority opting not to go. "But there's general mistrust
around the way they'll be treated when they go to the police," she said. "I guess the whole thing is
they give the appearance of having got really drunk." But Ms Jans said drug rape was
nothing to do with getting drunk "but the problem is the effect can be
the same". She could not say if it appeared
any of the nine rapes might be linked. "The information the women
can give is so confused and not clear so we just don't know." Mr Coward told NZPA if the women
did not go to the police, there was nothing they could do. "We haven't got any factual
information so there's nothing we can do -- we were hoping that the Safer
Centre or Rape Crisis people who were dealing with these women would
encourage them to come forward. "We put a media release
hoping that they would come forward. No one has and we're not sure if the
problem's there or not." He could understand women not
coming forward or being embarrassed but hoped they would come to police as
any information was valuable. "We will in fact have
something to go on. If they let us know, we can do an investigation." |
