The failure of the criminal justice system in England and Wales to survivors of rape is nothing new – for at least five years women’s groups, lawyers, charities and victims have said with increasing urgency that the system is broken. The number of rape victims dropping out of investigations has increased over the past five years from 25% to 43% in 2020. With outrage growing, the government announced it would carry out a root and branch review of the treatment of rape and sexual violence in the criminal justice system. “No little individual measures are going to affect the change that is needed here,” said Katie Russell, of Rape Crisis England and Wales. For the hundreds of thousands of victims who will survive rape in years to come, it is imperative that it does.

Source: The Guardian May 23, 2021 16:52 UTC