New research project shall improve conditions for rape victims

The new sexual consent act became effective from 1 January 2021. It has been called a paradigm shift and facilitated a shift in focus away from whether or not victims of rape resisted during the act. According to the new act, the act shall be defined as rape solely if one of the parties does not consent.

The concept of consent will affect all aspects of the victim’s meeting with the legal system – from reporting the act to the police to hearing of witnesses, court proceedings and sentencing. In addition, a series of reforms have brought greater focus to so-called trauma-informed practice. Due to these reforms, the system shall into consideration whether the person reporting the rape has been exposed to a traumatic event.

So the area is seeing great change these years, and we need more knowledge of how the new act protects the rights of the victims and how professionals in the legal system apply the new requirements.

A new collaboration between Bjarke Oxlund, the Crown Princess Mary Center, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights shall contribute such knowledge.

Head of Research with the Danish Institute for Human Rights Pernille Boye Koch, who has focussed on how the new act improves the rights of victims of rape, explains:

“The project may teach us how to translate the intentions of the sexual consent act into practice. For example, it may give us valuable knowledge of what enables or prevents us from taking into account the traumatic event that victims of rape have been exposed to.”

Interdisciplinary collaboration

The project is based at the Crown Princess Mary Center with the Danish Institute for Human Rights as cooperation partner. It is an interdisciplinary project which combines legal and anthropological methods in the study of legislation-practice interaction.

The Danish Institute for Human Rights will be responsible for the legal part of the project. The Institute will study the practical interpretation of the sexual consent act, i.a. through legal analysis.

The Crown Princess Mary Center will be responsible for the anthropological part of the project. The Center will study the effect of the legislation on case processing, i.a. through ethnographic interviews with the police, prosecutors and judges.

Together, the Danish Institute for Human Rights and Crown Princess Mary Center will conduct an interdisciplinary analysis comparing the results of the legal and anthropological studies. Among other things, the interdisciplinary analysis shall identify practices that deserve to be used more extensively as well as further initiatives that might improve victims’ meeting with the system and the protection of their rights.

Postdoc Birgitte Dragsted is responsible for the project at the Crown Princess Mary Center. She hopes the project will support and speed up the changes that are already ongoing in the legal system.

“It is one thing to pass a new law, but another to make sure it leads to the desired changes in practice and processing. This does not happen automatically. Together with stakeholders from the legal system, we will be looking into experiences with the transition so far and where we should focus our attention in the future.”

The project will commence in the beginning of 2023.

 

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