“The rapist is the one who is guilty.” The Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women held an informative event with this title in the park near Republic Square and the Avetik Isahakyan statue.
“I invited my girlfriend for coffee and raped her, despite the fact that she said she didn’t want it,” “I threatened to fail my student if she didn’t have sex with me,” “I raped and beat my wife, threatening that I would wake up our children and do it in front of them.” The organizers of this event displayed these stories on men’s clothes, and informed passersby that the one who is at fault for rape is not the victim. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign is held every year from November 25th to December 10th. This year, the campaign is based on sexual assault and rape.
“The individual who was a victim of the assault is the one who often gets blamed. People say, ‘You were outside too late, what were you wearing?’ and other such things. They blame the victim,” Project Coordinator Zaruhi Hovhannisyan told Aravot Daily. According to her, the coalition is trying to make changes in society through these events.
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Hovhannisyan presented data provided by law enforcement. She said that there were 74 cases of sexual assault against women between January 1st and September 1st of this year, of which 40 were against minors. Hovhannisyan said that these numbers are worrisome, despite the fact that the numbers provided by law enforcement do not reflect the reality. She said that our society is sometimes indifferent towards violence, sometimes people justify violence, but, unfortunately, they do not deny it.
“Sexual assault has deep psychological and physical effects on a person. Women and minors who are victims deal with a lot of psychological pressure from society, and they are often blamed for what happened. ‘Maybe the woman wasn’t behaving correctly,’ ‘her dress was too short,’ ‘her perfume was captivating,’ but they justify the behavior of the abuser this way and place the responsibility of what happened on the victim instead of the abuser. Society needs to change its view on abusers,” the coalition informed.
Narek Sargsyan, whom the police were attempting to bring to order, attempted to stop the coalition’s event. According to Sargsyan, this event was propaganda in favor of the LGBT community. However, nothing was mentioned about any representatives of the LGBT community during this event.
In the beginning, the police told representatives of the coalition that their event has not been authorized, but Zaruhi Hovhannisyan said that they informed the Yerevan Municipality that it would take place. However, the coalition did not receive a positive response. “They called us and said that the municipality does not want this event to take place because it is not pleasant for the municipality for such an event to be held. We demanded that they present their reasoning in writing. It’s surprising that they gave such a response.”
Nelly Babayan
