Michael de Laine

Giving no resistance is a normal reflex for rape victims, says victim support association

By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, 26 February 2009

Offering no resistance because of a form of paralysis is a normal reflex action for rape victims, says the Swedish Association for Victim Support (BOJ).

A state of paralysis in which a person can offer no resistance is a normal survival reflex called ‘frozen fright’, BOJ said, citing Monika Hartig, a psychologist and psychotherapist at a Stockholm hospital casualty department where 600-700 raped women seek treatment every year.

The condition is characterised by reduced pulse, lower blood pressure, weakened ability of the heart to pump and incontinence. The potential rape victim can neither move nor call for help.

“We think that we can remain active in such a situation, but even the best-trained people end up in this passive condition, where the system starts to close down,” says Hartig. “It’s an automatic reaction and you have no choice.”

Many of the victims do not understand why they cannot call for help. Hartig says the right side of the brain is the most active in this situation – while the verbal centre is usually in the left side of the brain.

“That makes it very difficult to call out, to talk,” she says. “You have the experience that you are caught in your own body.”

Åsa Witowski of the Uppsala-based National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women - which is visited every year by about 1,500 women who have suffered violence and other crimes – says that it has not yet been shown that ‘frozen fright’ is the most normal reaction during rape.

“But what I can say supports the theory that we see very few injuries,” she says. “We believe that women should give a lot of resistance and give injuries that can be documented. In that way we know there’s been a ‘real rape’. But it is very rare that we find injuries apart from small cuts and rifts. That indicates that the women do not resist as expected.”

Current practice says that the woman rape victim must resist actively and show that she has not given her consent if the crime is to be defined as rape, says Madeleine Leijonhufvud, who submitted a white paper on consent and sexual integrity to the government last autumn.

BOJ chairman Hans Klette has long demanded that Sweden bring its sex crimes legislation into harmony with the European convention, so a lack of consent is in itself a sexual crime.

Klette wants Sweden to follow Britain and Ireland and introduce a liability to punishment for sexual negligence.

He says this would mean that the man can be found guilty of and punished for a sexual crime if he has ignored a woman’s lack of consent. This is necessary for the sake of equality, he adds.

Klette points out that figures for 2007 released by the Swedish crime prevention council show that only 13% of the population report the sexual crimes that have been committed against them. Only about 10% of these actually lead to charges, while courts acquit 15-20% of those charged.

“One can hardly say that fighting sexual crimes is effective or that the public’s confidence in the legal system’s work with sexual crimes can be very high,” Klette says.

He adds that the evidence is often very difficult to appraise in sexual crimes, where it is generally one person’s word against another’s, the report to the police does not follow the crime immediately, there is a lack of medical and legal substantiation, the police investigation starts later and is also a long process, as is the public prosecutor’s work with the indictment and the court proceedings.

“As time goes, the evidence becomes weaker,” Klette says.

BOJ says that the number of reported rapes has doubled over the past 15 years to about 3,500 in 2007. The organisation adds it is contacted by about 600 women and 30 men every year following a rape, while a further 600 women and 60 men ask for help after attempted rapes or other sexual crimes.

Click here to go to the Swedish Association for Victim Support’s website.