Not Ever

With "Not Ever, Rape Crisis Scotland has launched Scotlands first ever TV campaign aimed at tackling women-blaming attitudes to rape. The advert was launched on Monday 28 June, and was broadcast for the first time that night during coverage of Brazil's World Cup match. It will continue to be shown over the next 9 weeks on STV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

"Not Ever" addresses women-blaming attitudes towards rape such as claims that dressing provocatively, being drunk or flirting with men are contributory factors. Its hard-hitting approach is intended to make people stop in their tracks, and to shake out and challenge ingrained prejudices many people have towards women who have been raped.

Recent research reveals that almost one in five Scots believe a woman is partially to blame for being raped if she is wearing revealing clothing - a survey of 1,040 Scots carried out by Cello MRUK in February 2010 for the Scottish Government found that:
• 23 per cent think a woman can be at least partly responsible if she is drunk at the time of the attack
• 17 per cent thought that a woman bore some responsibility if she wore revealing clothing
• 15 per cent say there should be some burden of responsibility for rape if the women is flirting
• 8 per cent think rape can be the woman's fault if she is known to have had many sexual partners

These attitudes can make it difficult for women to speak out about being raped, because of fear of being blamed for what has happened. There are also significant concerns about the impact these attitudes might have on rape survivors' ability to access justice, in terms of attitudes which jury members might hold.

Although many people genuinely believe they wouldn't judge a rape victim by what they wear, how drunk they were, or if they had been flirting all night, they often actually do; particularly when sitting as a juror in court. Not Ever wants to prompt people to keep their judgments in check and to remember that there's only one person who is responsible for rape and it's not the victim. It doesn't matter what you wear, how many sexual partners you've had, or if you're out getting drunk with friends - no one deserves to be raped - ever.

A new campaign website has been set up to allow people to share their thoughts and seek support at www.notever.co.uk , and people can also show support for Not Ever on the campaign's Facebook page at http://bit.ly/blMIu2 .
There is also a Not Ever Twitter stream: @Not_Ever to keep people updated with the progress of the campaign.

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  Nonprofits & Activism