Shame On Who is a campaign started by a Lebanese NGO in which they try to tackle victim blaming of rape survivors. A video of real life reaction of the public towards a rape survivor was shared on the web that gives an insight into the issue.
Victim blaming is a major concern when it comes to the treatment of rape survivors in society. For every little thing ranging from clothes, hairstyle, and makeup to ambitions, choices and freedom, society tries to point out the most absurd things in the survivor to blame it all on them instead of the real culprit. This is a problem that prevails in many countries and one of them in Lebanon. Recently, to tackle victim-blaming, a Lebanese NGO started a campaign called Shame On Who that captured the reaction of the public to rape survivors.
Tackling Victim Blaming In Rape Cases With 'Shame On Who' Campaign
The campaign was started by Abaad, an NGO in Lebanon. The campaign was initiated through a series of messages that were sent out to a large number of people. The mysterious text messages reportedly read, "Shame on who". Then comes a 1 minute and 58 seconds long video that was contained real reaction of the public towards a rape survivor. In the video, we can see a female actor posing as a rape survivor walking scared on a street at night. The girl is crying and seems confused and scared as the passersby try to ask her if she was okay and what happened.
They try to calm her down but she moves around frantically and tells them she was raped. The people ask her if she was drunk or on drugs and one of them also offers her a jacket. However, soon they start putting all the blame on her. They call her slut, whore and say that she was asking for it based on the clothes she wore. A few women try to back her up and tell the guys what if she was their sister but they excuse themselves by saying their sisters would never wear such clothes. The ladies tell her to be quite and don't tell anyone as it only made her look bad. Soon there are discussions among the crowd that blame the survivor for being shameless.
The video was enough to present the attitude of the people towards rape survivors. They do not say a word against the atrocious act of the culprit who exploited her without her consent but blame her just because she was wearing short clothes. How long are we going to justify lecherous mentality with 'asking for it' excuses?
No matter what she wears, where she goes, what company she has, what habits she has, nothing can be taken as a license to ignore consent. It is her body and her life and she can do whatever she wants. She is wearing it for herself not for some narrow minded, self obsessed guy who thinks that the world revolves around him.
It is time to tell men that they should respect women irrespective of their background, profession, clothing and appearance. It is important to teach them that they cannot get physical with any girl they want unless she gives her. They should be taught to acknowledge the rights of a woman and accept a 'no'. They should be taught that if it is not women's body that we need to cover but it is the dirty eyes and mentality of the society that needs to change.
It is really important to understand that a woman's dress and habits don't define her character. It is not that those who wear full clothes do not get raped. It is the man who needs to expel the stupid and dirty thoughts from his mind and accept the fact that consent is the most important thing. Blaming the woman is just the society's excuse to cover up for the culprit's grave mistake, toxic and criminal upbringing and the patriarchal aspect of the society that considers women as the cause of a man's 'desires' to overflow.
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