No abstract

We introduce the term symbolic protest to identify and analyze a key motivator for the reporting decisions of victims of sexual violence. We contend that reporting sexual assault crime to police is an important expression of "symbolic protest" at a criminal justice system that does not generally serve women's interests. Women show great courage and self-sacrifice in reporting sexual assault crime, and we identify three major factors that motivate them to do so, namely, (a) the need to have sexual assault recognized as a crime, (b) a desire to raise community awareness of sexual assault, and (c) a desire to protect other women and girls.

This article is based on data drawn from 90 Victoria Police operational files covering the period 2004-2008. Several thematic responses by sexual assault survivors are described as forming a master narrative of "identity shock." It is argued that the "minor/serious" sexual assault legal distinction is meaningless to survivors and conceals a shared felt experience. It is also argued that sexual assault is fundamentally a "public issue" of betrayal of citizen trust--not just a collection of "private troubles"--and that effective resolutions require more than individualized therapeutic and criminal justice measures.

In this article, we observe that barriers to the disclosure and reporting of sexual assault reside within families. We draw on qualitative survey data, as well as interviews with adult victims of childhood sexual assault, to show how women are impeded by family members when attempting to disclose or report sexual assault. Taylor and Putt (2007) identified three ‘family constraints on [sexual violence] reporting’ for women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Australia. These were: 1) Family denial that sexual violence exists, 2) Reluctance to report a partner perpetrator, and 3) Fear of being ostracised for bringing shame upon the family (p. 4). We examine whether similar barriers to reporting exist for adult female survivors of childhood sexual assault who are from non-CALD backgrounds. On the basis of our findings, we urge greater police and public recognition of, and sensitivity to barriers extant within non-CALD families that contribute to the under-reporting of sexual assault by women in Australia

KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGES• The effect of pet loss for survivors of child sexual abuse is under-explored.• Perpetrators may threaten pets to silence their victims.• The loss of a companion animal may affect the healing process of child sexual abuse survivors.• There is a need for more research to inform interventions to assist the recovery of survivors and education to enhance mental health professionals' understanding of the ongoing effects of pet loss in relation to recovery. There is limited peer-reviewed, published evidence on how the loss of a companion animal affects the healing identity and healing process of survivors of child abuse and neglect. This is despite the high global incidence of pet ownership (Batson, 2008) and the considerable international prevalence of child abuse and neglect (Brown et al., 1998;Dunne et al., 2003;May-Chahal and Cawson, 2005;Pereda et al., 2009). Given that a large minority of people have experienced childhoods involving trauma, abuse, or neglect, the scope of this potential problem is large yet remains appreciably unexamined. In this paper, we review bodies of literature relating to the psychosocial bonds that humans share with their animals. We then present and discuss data from several Australian studies in which the threatened and real loss of pets experienced by child and adult survivors, and its effect in terms of non-disclosure of abuse, was raised across various forms of data collection. These studies exposed a hitherto unchartered terrain of trauma impact and recovery -pet loss for survivors of child sexual abuse -that is neither wellunderstood nor articulated in current literature. Finally, we conclude with implications of these data for research and practice.