Unlearning the Lies: The Dangerous Habit of Victim Blaming
Opinion
"Why didn’t she leave?"
It’s a question that sits on the tip of the tongue like concern
but make no mistake — it’s an accusation dressed in curiosity. It’s the
starting point of an all-too-familiar interrogation that turns a survivor into
a suspect in their own trauma.
Victim blaming isn’t just a toxic cultural reflex — it’s a
systemic rot embedded in our institutions, courtrooms, and conversations. And its
long past time we unlearned the lies we’ve been fed about what it means to
survive abuse.
The Cost of Blame
In the UK, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will
experience domestic abuse in their lifetime (Office for National Statistics,
2023). Every year, over 2.4 million adults are subjected to it — yet
only a fraction will report it. Why? Because the minute they do, the spotlight
shifts from the perpetrator to their own perceived failings.
It’s not an abstract fear. The 2021 report from HM
Inspectorate of Constabulary concluded that victims of domestic abuse often
face “a culture of skepticism” when reporting to police, especially if
they have reported multiple times — as if repeated pleas for help are signs of
exaggeration rather than escalation.
One chilling statistic from SafeLives reveals that a
victim will endure an average of 50 incidents before getting effective
support. That’s not survival — that’s endurance in a system that asks them to
prove their pain while hoping someone believes it.
The Legal Landscape: Progress, but Still Patchy
The introduction of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was a
landmark moment, finally recognising coercive control as a serious criminal
offence. Yet, implementation is lagging. A 2022 review by Women’s Aid
found that many survivors still weren’t being believed by frontline police
officers, and coercive control cases often got dropped due to “insufficient
evidence” — often a euphemism for disbelief.
In court, the trauma continues. Cross-examinations in family
court have been described as “legalised abuse.” Despite legal reforms, survivors
are still being directly questioned by their abusers in some cases, something
which the Ministry of Justice claims to be addressing — but the roll-out
of independent advocates and legal protections has been painfully slow.
Media and the Misplaced Gaze
It’s not just the courts. The media still frames survivors
through a lens of suspicion. When Zara Aleena was murdered while walking
home in 2022, the coverage quickly spiraled into a conversation about women
walking alone at night — not about the man who attacked her or the justice
system that released him early despite red flags.
Meanwhile, in the case of Clare Wood, who was
murdered by a former partner in 2009, it emerged that her killer had a known
history of violence against women. The public outcry led to Clare’s Law
— a disclosure scheme giving people the right to ask the police if their
partner has a violent past. But here's the kicker: having the right to know
doesn’t guarantee protection. Refusals and delays in disclosure still occur,
and the burden of safety falls once again on the potential victim.
The Workplace and the “Not Our Problem” Mindset
Victim blaming doesn’t stop at the police station. In
workplaces, it often wears a corporate smile. According to the TUC (Trades
Union Congress), 75% of women who experienced domestic abuse said it
negatively impacted their career, and nearly half said no support was
offered by their employer.
Survivors are often expected to carry on as if nothing
happened — or worse, continue working alongside their abuser if the violence
happened outside work hours (and in worse cases, in the workplace). This
compartmentalisation isn’t professionalism. It’s institutional negligence.
In one case, an employer was made aware of a workplace
assault and chose to do nothing, stating: “I can’t do anything.” But if
a crime happens on their premises and they ignore it, that’s not a neutral
stance. That’s complicity.
The Real Question
Survivors don’t stay because they’re naïve. They stay
because they are calculating safety. Because they have children. Because
they’re being watched. Because their phone is tracked. Because every attempt to
leave is met with more danger. Victims are at the highest risk of being
killed when they try to leave. This isn’t a hypothesis — it’s a
statistical fact. In 80% of intimate partner femicides, the woman had
left or was trying to leave (Femicide Census, 2021).
And yet, despite all this, the narrative still loops back: Why
didn’t she leave?
Maybe the better question is: Why are we still asking
that?
Unlearning the Lies
Unlearning victim blaming means rewriting the script at
every level.
It means journalists stop leading with survivor behaviour instead of perpetrator accountability. It means schools teach about consent and
coercion, not just stranger danger. It means judges and juries receive
trauma-informed training. It means employers have clear domestic abuse policies
that protect, not punish.
Above all, it means believing survivors — not when it’s
easy, not when it’s trending, but every single time. Because they have spent
enough time explaining themselves to a world that never really listened.
It’s time to stop asking survivors why they didn’t run. It’s
time we asked what we did to stop them.
If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, you
can contact the National Domestic Abuse Helpline (UK) on 0808 2000
247 — free, 24/7, and confidential.
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