How can we believe the women?

“How can we believe the women?”

“Pissed off and uppeldad gesturing I extra large and bushy when I tell bordssällskapet about a rape that I just heard about. There are few things that make me so uppeldad that particular subject. Gestures have grown in pace with the bizarre details have been added then I allow myself to show emotion because I am sure that the society will confirm what I feel, to say that it is awful, that the jurors need to be educated about sexual crime – or that it is time that the judgment dismissed. Soon someone exclaim that demonstrations need to be controlled up, rise up with arms flapping in the heat of the moment and say that they absolutely will chain fixed himself outside the parliament until the matter received the attention it deserves. Something of the sort, I expect. But I only get an extremely o-flaxigt response from a woman: How do you know it? Perhaps she is lying?”

“Her reaction makes me completely flabbergasted, and the topic of conversation changed to smooth over the strange mood that occurs in the space between her questions and my silence. Later, as I have collected of me, I have a thousand questions I want to ask, but it is too late.”

“How do we know that something which we have narrated for us is true? Is there anything we can (or must) rely on that we ourselves have not experienced? It seems in spite of everything, the vast majority think it, we can know something about something that we ourselves experienced.”

“But why are these challenges so common and strict precisely about sexual abuse? In part, I agree with her, of course. But we’re talking with different starting points. In the Swedish legal tradition is the presumption of innocence, the legal principle to treat a suspect as innocent until the opposite has been proven.”

“I think the principle is basic in the rule of law, not only because I got its weight inbankad in the head during the law, but because it is the best uppbådliga. We must not compromise on the rule. At the same time, I would assume that women do not lie about sexual abuse. That rape victims are telling the truth. Whether the case of someone who has become tafsad on a dance floor, harassed on the internet or exposed to kvinnofridskränkning of her husband. Is it possible?”

“The usual way to determine whether something is true has been described with korrespondensteorin. It goes out that something is true if there is a correspondence between a belief and the empirical outside world. Thus, my belief is true if there is a discrepancy between what I think and what I observe. Then what happens to other people’s experiences, as I myself can observe? We must take the distance from the to express an opinion on them? Of course not. Neither the people or the rule of law to remain silent. We agree that we with the help of integrated assessment and statistics can say something about the empirical outside world. We can move in the same world, and like things, not just be isolated islands that can only express an opinion if it is we experience.”

“In this case, we must therefore distinguish between a legal principle and a theory of what truth is.”

“it seems To me both strange and unethical to assume that women are lying. It must be more reasonable to believe on the statistics on how many rapes are committed in Sweden, which far exceeds the number that are reported. It is, moreover, significantly fewer women who openly talk about that they have been raped than what the statistics say about the number who actually have been raped. There are no statistics showing that it is common that women lie about rape.”

“When we are faced with a woman who says that she has been raped, we can believe her, not believing her, or the cold note that we can not say anything at all. I think that there are overwhelming good reasons to believe in the woman. The woman in front of me, or you article, Facebookstatusen or the movie.”

“If we do not trust women, women will not tell you. One of the biggest reasons that the sexual abuse never comes to the surface is the fear to be disbelieved. To rely on a woman and take her story seriously do not mean to judge anyone else.”

“It is precisely the existing sexual offences discussion about whether or not a victim is lying explode, or even exist, and it is important to reflect on why. For there are many crimes that take place where only two people are present. No one saw ficktjuven, yet we are not at all as quick to question. I didn’t hear: ”You just say that someone stole your watch to get attention” and ”because it was just you guys there, I can’t believe it”.”

“No one says: ”You surely wanted to lend the clock, but now you have changed your mind and call it theft.””

“Or: ”You surely wanted that someone would take the clock, otherwise, had you not had an expensive watch on your arm, blame yourself for your stupid little klockvisare”.”

“But there is something with sexual offences. An eternal debate about the lying victims and the wrongly convicted men. And you ask why victims don’t tell? When the only thing that feels worse than not to tell anyone, is to tell but not to be believed.”

“Inskränkandet of women’s right to her own body and the story makes me so pissed and out of it grows a conviction of the importance to choose to believe on the testimony. It is right to assume that women do not lie about sexual abuse. We need to do. That the man is not convicted does not mean that the woman is not telling the truth. For why should I believe in statistics but not on her? But in a rule of law is the starting point that a person is innocent until the opposite is proven. The basic principle. “

“Despite an apparent contradiction, both need to operate in parallel. And we shall, therefore, keep two thoughts in your head at the same time. It seems both impossible and necessary. Of options are no options.”

“I want us to assume that he is innocent until otherwise is proven, and at the same time, assuming she is not lying. And I think that we can. I mean we have to.”