As you’re no doubt aware, Mumsnet launched their rape awareness campaign yesterday – We Believe You
I’ll be blogging more on the campaign later, but I just wanted to highlight one of the Twitter hashtags that has already come out as a result of the Mumsnet launch -#ididnotreport.
This hashtag came about because so many of those who responded to the Mumsnet survey on rape and sexual assault revealed that they did not report the crimes perpetrated against them. In fact I think the percentage of those who didn’t report pretty much tallies with what we already know about the reporting of rape and sexual violence – something like 40% of adult women who are raped never tell anyone about it, and 31% of children who are abused reach adulthood without having disclosed their abuse.
Anyway, Mark Malone (@soundmigration) has now archived the tweets so they can all be read in one place – #ididnotreport archive.
There are hundreds of tweets there, because yesterday afternoon and last night hundreds of people decided it was finally time to speak out about their experiences of rape and sexual violence. Many thanks to all those who took part, and much love to all those who wanted to but still couldn’t.
And obviously please be aware if you’re going to read through the tweets that the thread can be triggering.
The Rape Crisis National Freephone Helpline is open from 12-2.30pm & 7-9.30pm every day of the year: you can call them on 0808 802 9999
Too Much To Say For Myself 
was a really powerful moment of twitter coming together to support and share. although hard work, it’s so important when we are able to tell the truth about the things that happen.
It’s truly amazing the power these two campaigns have had. Thanks for posting about them. It was heartbreaking to read the #ididnotreport tweets but not surprising. Hard to know which was worse.
We believe you – they are such simple words. I was raped quite a while ago. Technically gang raped because there was more than one involved. I did report it to a doctor the next day. Unfortunately I was raped in my marriage also. I have met and known alot of rape/molestation survivors women and men. Recently I was asked to write down what happened to me in the gang rape. It took me a couple days to put on paper what I remember. Then I was told no give us more details. I wrote some more. Although I’ve shown that to No one. All I did was go out for an ice cream. That’s how the evening began. A couple of girls stopped by and said let’s go out for an ice cream. When we were done they took me somewhere else then said it was too far to drive me home. Some guys said no problem they’d give me a ride. They took me for a ride to a wooded area I’m still not sure where and they raped me. It began in the car. When I fought back I remember one of them saying I hurt him. I stopped hurting him, things got worse for me. We ended up in these woods. I don’t really remember how I hit the ground. There was a blow to the back of my head. I do remember it seems instantanious they were on top of me. One had my mouth and upper body as another entered my vagina. There were tree branches under my body and they dug into my body from their weight and movement. They said they would kill me if I ever told. I never got my clothes back. They did everything to me. Then put me back in the car and took me home.I asked for my clothes, nobody knew what happened to them. I did beg for a shirt – one finally relented begrudgingly and said as long as he got it right back. So I ran in my home and ran back out with his shirt tossed it out the door. And headed straight for the shower. How do you wash them out? They were down my throat and up the other orifices in my body against my will. I was lucky my doctor believed me. This is a hyphenated version. This is enough. We all have our reasons why we didn’t report. That night I was so disoriented I was just glad to get home and get clean. It was only the next day I thought I need to tell somebody so I called my doctor and he helped me the best he could. Thank you for trying in some way to give voice to this issue.