And this will hopefully change. By 2023, three new Care Centres after Sexual Violence (ZSG) will be established in Belgium. The second part of a package of reforms in the context of sexual violence will thus have its conclusion. These centres appear to be much needed and offer a helping hand to victims for taking possible (subsequent) legal action.
(Dark) Numbers don't lie
Sexual criminal justice reform became a political priority in recent years after a series of shockwaves swept the country with the #MeToo scandals and the murder of Julie Van Espen.
Rightly so, because the figures on sexual violence in Belgium are not tender (certainly compared to other EU countries) and show indisputably that the scale of the problem is enormous.
In Belgium, for example, 6,500 to 7,500 reports of rape and sexual assault are made every year. However, research shows that the actual number of rapes and sexual assaults each year is is well above 80,000 (!).
Thus, more than 90% of victims do not report to police and justice.
Political priority
A sadly high "dark number" which can hopefully be contained by some recent reforms in the context of sexual violence.
The current federal coalition agreement shows two ambitions in this regard: 1) the (legistative) reform of sexual criminal law, and 2) the structural embedding of "Care Centres after Sexual Violence".
Last year, on 1 June, the new sexual offence law came into force in order to clarify the "legal" interpretation of sexual violence. In the process, the concept of consent was more sharply delineated (cf. blog by Mr Riemslagh on 3 June 2022). Thus, it is now legally established that consent can never be inferred from a lack of defence/resistance and consent is lacking anyway when the victim is asleep or unconscious; a lack of consent is presumed when the victim is under the influence of alcohol or drugs and his or her free will was impaired as a result.
The first part of the intended reforms is complete with these legislative amendments.
One-stop shop for victims
In 2023, the second part of the federal coalition agreement will also be sealed with a Care Centre after Sexual Violence in every province of our country.
Currently, Care Centres are already active in Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, Roeselare, Brussels, Liège and Charleroi. Three more Care Centres will therefore follow in 2023, namely in Namur, Genk and Arlon.
The Care centres are always embedded in a hospital and provide three-part care to victims of sexual violence (with a focus on hands-on violence, i.e. sexual violence involving physical contact between perpetrator and victim):
- Psychological care (counselling by specialised psychologists, nurses, etc.)
- Medical care (provision of urgent contraceptives, taking STD tests, care of injuries, etc.)
- Forensic care (taking DNA samples, calling in specialised vice inspectors at the care centre for questioning, etc.)
The existing Care Centres are proving (sadly) to be a success: since their inception in 2017, together they would already be more than 6,000 victims have caught on.
The primary message of the Care Centres is that care for the victim is central, using a multidisciplinary and least burdensome approach for the victim. This care offered is independent of whether or not a complaint is lodged with the police or judiciary.
After all, the huge discrepancy between the (annual) number of cases of serious sexual transgression and the (annual) number of reports (not counting the number of effective prosecutions and convictions) shows that victims are still too often put off by the legal process and therefore miss out on the required care (because they then decide not to report the facts at all, not even to a medical authority).
Let that appropriate care (ideally administered as soon as possible after the fact) be precisely a crucial first step in paving the challenging legal path, should the victim's wish to raise the facts judicially at a later stage anyway would arise.
In this sense, the Care Centres are a hopeful buffer that can lower the barriers to a (subsequent) legal course. The first evaluation report of Care Centres confirms this loud and clear: about 70% of the victims accommodated at the centres also file complaints afterwards - a stunning figure compared to the less than 10% of victims outside the walls of the Care Centres.
So a little more solace for victims of sexual violence in 2023.
