Rebecca O’Connor, the Vice-President of Public Policy on the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), says that whereas the mistrial verdict is definitely disappointing for survivors and their advocates, it has had one shocking upside. “In the wake of this case, and headlines about high-profile cases like Bill Cosby and Jerry Sandusky, we’ve seen a surge on the National Sexual Assault Hotline of individuals who are raising their voices and reaching out for support,” she tells WomensHealthMagazine.com.
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While she acknowledges that public setbacks like this one can have a “chilling effect,” on survivors coming ahead, “The more we take this crime out of the shadows and the ‘it doesn’t happen here’ mentality, the more survivors see themselves in those headlines and in those stories, and recognize that they have resources available to them.”
O’Connor additionally hopes that the Cosby accusations will spotlight the “uncomfortable truth,” that anybody can commit sexual violence. “Unfortunately, even Cliff Huxtable can be, at the end of the day, a rapist,” she says. “This is a matter of individuals who may be upstanding members of society by all accounts, who have a different side to them and who perpetrate these crimes against others in their lives.”
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This line of considering performed a big position in conversations across the Bill Cosby accusations. His Cosby Show costar Phylicia Rashad advised Showbiz 411 in 2015 that she by no means noticed in her pal any of the conduct that his accusers say they skilled. “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy,” she mentioned of the accusations. Singer and actress Jill Scott echoed this sentiment on Twitter in 2014. “U know Bill Cosby?” she tweeted concerning a Temple University petition to finish the varsity’s relationship with the comic per CBS News. “I do child and this is insane. Proof. Period.”
Even after the transcript of Bill’s deposition from 2005 and 2006 was launched in 2015, and first reported on by the New York Times—the place he admitted beneath oath to offering girls with quaaludes with a purpose to have intercourse with them—many individuals nonetheless discovered it difficult to reconcile the concept the trailblazing comic and philanthropist may very well be a predator.
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“I used to work in domestic violence and it was very similar,” O’Connor says about this mindset—the place individuals say that the particular person they knew could not presumably commit such a criminal offense. That’s why as painful and troublesome it might be to acknowledge that individuals we might know personally, or who we idolize, will be responsible of sexual violence, O’Connor is adamant that individuals work to shift their excited about who commits rape. “There is no prototypical perpetrator of sexual violence. This is a crime that doesn’t see age or race or any of that,” she says. It’s a criminal offense, she says, that impacts “almost every single family in America,” from suburban houses to varsity campuses to swanky workplace buildings.
Considering that the prosecution is looking for to attempt Bill Cosby once more, O’Connor is eager for a constructive final result for survivors, in a technique or one other. “In the past you may have seen this type of issue swept under the rug or never reach this level of the justice system,” she says. “As much as it can be frustrating to see a mistrial in this case, there’s a little bit of a silver lining in that it’s been held up in the public that no one is immune from prosecution for these crimes.”
Additionally, O’Connor says that RAINN is working to press states to reexamine their statute of limitation legal guidelines, which have grow to be a key a part of the dialog across the accusations in opposition to Bill. (According to TIME, Andrea Constand’s case is most definitely the one one that may lead to a prison trial, for the reason that majority of the allegations in opposition to Cosby are older than Pennsylvania’s 12-year statute of limitations).
O’Connor urges individuals to hearken to and consider survivors of sexual assault, and to proceed to attempt to perceive the character of those crimes. “As a nation, we are adopting more of a zero-tolerance policy,” she says about sexual assault. “That culture shift is one where we can’t afford to lose momentum.”
If you or somebody you realize has been sexually assaulted on this type or one other, search assist by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673). For extra assets on sexual assault, go to RAINN and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
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