There are some lurking here at the moment, talking about false sexual abuse claims and the “sexual abuse industry”, and using these ideas to suggest ACC should be introducing hoops for sexual abuse survivors to jump through in order to get access to counselling.

The usual methods that some use to discredit and minimise sexual violence.  No surprises these comments have popped up in defence of Dr Felicity Goodyear-Smith, whose work and ideological stance on sexual violence I posted on a while back.

Some are also claiming their views of the sexual abuse “industry” are shared by organisations with expertise in the area.

To quote one of the posters with my notes in bold:

It’s true that never-ending counselling is not the best treatment for injuries caused by childhood sexual abuse……(later qualified slightly by inserting the words “probably” before the word “true” and “always” before the words “the best treatment”)…….

I think that the MHF (Mental Health Foundation) supports the new clinical pathways because the MHF supports better access to mental health treatment and management.

This turns out to be misleading.  To quote the Mental Health Foundation directly, in a public letter they wrote to Minister Nick Smith about the changes to ACC: 

We believe the current proposal to be a significant tightening of the support available to victims.  The suffering of sexual abuse victims if not healed remains as part of the community, with a range of negative connotations for generations.

They specifically raise concerns over the need to diagnose “mental injury” linked to a DSM IV diagnosis; the initial assessment to be done over just two sessions and the limited nature of counselling, to just 16 sessions.

Looks like the Mental Health Foundation, just like counsellors, psychotherapists, sexual violence agencies and survivors, can see this new pathway is unethical and will cause long term harm.

But Nick Smith plans only to review it after six months.

The Sensitive Claims Unit are to be reviewed, according to ACC Minister Nick Smith:

I have requested ACC to do an independent clinical review of their management of the sensitive claims, the new process, the board and ACC have agreed to do that.

Now let’s just see if he thinks the review should happen before the unethical new pathway is introduced, so that a better pathway for everyone – survivors of sexual violence, counsellors, sexual violence agencies and ACC – could be designed.  That would mean halting the implementation – which in theory began today.

He’s got to be annoyed with ACC – beating up on survivors of sexual abuse is a bad, bad look.  Although, according to Stuff, he says the problem is professional tension between different types of therapist.

Or will the “review”, which will take six months, actually just rubber stamp the new process, and put off the huge swell of anger and outrage which this unethical framework continues to provoke?

I look away from the news for a bit while I try and get to grips with work piling up around me, and what happens?

A Nobel Peace Prize has been given to a US President just because in two weeks he hadn’t blown anyone new up.   Or had he?  John Pilger is even more cynical about Obama’s prize than I am.  But even Pilger doesn’t mention that previous Nobel Peace Prize nominees include Adolf Hitler in 1939 and Josef Stalin in 1945 and 1948.

There’s been talk that Obama’s prize is for the good work he will do.  If that’s true, it’s in direct contradiction of the intention of Alfred Nobel, whose will states he has set up:

…. a fund, the interest on which shall be annually awarded as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind………………one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.

Obama could have turned it down.  Like Le Duc Tho, the Vietnamese Communist who turned down the award in 1973, pointing out that Vietnam was far from peaceful.

Then there is the revelation that Barbie’s ankles are in fact, too fat to wear sexy shoes, according to shoe designer Christian Louboutin:

Barbie needs to wear great shoes because every girl needs to wear great shoes. I guess I always had a little ‘girlie side’ who liked Barbie.

You put this thing on then, you sadist, and spend the day stomping around in it.  Why on earth men who make millions out of women’s fashion don’t make the stuff they “always dreamed of” for themselves is a great unanswered question.

Or could it be because high heels cause spinal problems, hammer toes, bunions and nerve problems in women’s feet?  Perhaps fashion boys are happy giving women the opportunity to deform our bodies. 

But anyway, back to Christian’s comments on Barbie’s fat ankles.  He’s helping redesign a new, thinner, Barbie.

According to research, if Barbie was real, she would be unable to menstruate because her fat percentage would be too low.  This is the doll that makes young girls want to be thinner, even when they are a healthy size already.

If Barbie was life-size, this is what she’d look like, according to the BBC, with a real woman thrown in there just for kicks:

To be allowed her real waist size, Libby would have to be 7 foot 6 if she was Barbie-proportioned.  Can’t wait to see what we’ll be trying to look like post-Christian.

Now we understand why ACC has been pushing a clinical framework for providing counselling to survivors of sexual abuse which counsellors, survivors, and advocates working in the sexual violence sector say is unethical.

Why now? 

The National government admits their plans investigate explicitly the privatisation of ACC.  Despite there being no economic need according to, well, economists.

Minister Nick Smith told us the new clinical pathway was all about the “paramount” needs of the victim, remember.  We were repeatedly told it was not about cost-cutting, and that sexual abuse claims were skyrocketing.

Just as well we have the Official Information Act I say.  This is what’s been happening to sexual abuse claims over the last ten years.

Two blips in 1998 and 2002, apart from which the trend is just steady claims at a little under 6000.*  Much clearer trend when we look at what’s happening to acceptance rates of claims.

More and more claims not meeting the legislative need for funding?  A different kind of sexual abuse?  Or ACC policing who they will fund more and more rigorously?

The new clinical pathway limits access to counselling to those who fit a narrow DSM IV mental health diagnosis.  Unless you have genuine certified mental health condition – which you can prove  in two visits to someone you’ve just met – and it neatly “fits” into the DSM IV categories, then no dice from the Sensitive Claims Unit.

The new re-jigged clinical pathway was released to the continuing-to-be-stunned sexual violence sector this week.  After genuine engagement, meetings with ACC officials, statistics and feedback from survivors that this pathway could prove lethal for some unable to access treatment, well, despite all this ACC have changed buggar all of the original pathway.

We need to get one thing clear here.  ACC funding for survivors of sexual violence was survivor-centred despite where the funding came from.  It has never been a survivor-led stream of support, or consciousness, or world-changing dismantling of systems which support rape and sexual abuse. 

Counselling is important for healing and recovery.  Just not this kind of counselling, as the increasing number of counsellors who are refusing to work under these conditions testify.  ACC are defending how narrow their new pathway is by saying those who do not “fit in” can go to Rape Crisis centres, or into the mental health system.

Well guess what?  One of the main contributors to mental health issues, including people needing inpatient support in hospitals, is sexual abuse.  Up to 70% of women who are sectioned are survivors of sexual abuse, according to US studies.

Yet those working in mental health are not routinely trained in responding appropriately to sexual abuse, for either female or male survivors.  So shunting more survivors there hardly seems likely to have a good outcome for anyone, services or survivors.

And Rape Crisis Centres in Aotearoa New Zealand?  Poorly funded so with patchy cover around the country and services gaps for specific groups of people (ethnic groups, male survivors, people with disabilities, sex workers) according to the latest scan of services.

Yet, what if the ACC clinical funding pathway was to be restricted only for those with clinical diagnoses requiring counselling, and other survivors, whose needs are not so clearly within the “medical model” were able to access adequately funded alternative client centred services?  What if we took what worked within the community sector – crisis responses, advocacy and counselling – and funded it properly?

Legal challenges to the ACC debacle will be ongoing, as the sexual violence sector asks if the new framework meets ACC’s legislative obligations.  There will also, no doubt, be continuing direct action, as last weeks well-attended protests around the country showed the strength of feeling this cost-cutting is provoking.

Protestors march in Christchurch, photo courtesy of IndyMedia

The sexual violence sector should not be wedded to ACC.  What do we usually call a relationship where one party does what they want, no matter what the other thinks?  Where one party holds the purse strings and only lets the other have anything if they’ve been “good”?

It may be time for a divorce.

*These figures, bewilderingly, do not agree with figures on ACC’s own website, on which I have blogged in the past.  It seems I owe Karl du Fresne an apology in this matter at least

Artists are getting together to raise money for those arrested in the October 15th raids around Aotearoa.  Those charged are still waiting their court cases on arms offences, after the police failed to meet the criteria to charge them under the Terrorism Act.

In the meantime, though, those supporting the accused are planning some anniversary events next week to raise awareness of the arrests and their politicisation.  Opening in Wellington with an art exhibition and auction on Tuesday October 13th at 6pm at Thistle Hall on upper Cuba Street.  Some of the art looks fabulous – this piece by Kate Logan gets my vote – you can bid online if making it to Wellie is a problem.

Kiwi men are the 8th best lovers in the world, according to an online poll of 15,000 women.

Leaving aside the rampant heterosexism (much as it pains me), Market Researchers OnePoll have the list of best and worst male heterosexers here, and it’s made the papers:

WORLD’S WORST LOVERS:

1. Germany (too smelly)
2. England (too lazy)
3. Sweden (too quick)
4. Holland (too dominating)
5. America (too rough)
6. Greece (too lovey-dovey)
7. Wales (too selfish)
8. Scotland (too loud)
9. Turkey (too sweaty)
10. Russia (too hairy)

WORLD’S BEST LOVERS:

1. Spain
2. Brazil
3. Italy
4. France
5. Ireland
6. South Africa
7. Australia
8. New Zealand
9. Denmark
10. Canada

I kinda wish the best list had comments too.  I’d like to know if Spanish men ask women what we like, or kiss softly, or know sex doesn’t just mean intercourse, or can’t imagine sexual activity taking place unless both people want it, or are experts in cunnilingus.

Or maybe I’m taking this just a little too seriously

Roman Polanski finally facing trial for the rape of a 13 year old has thrown up some remarkable defences alright, refuted here by Amanda Hess.

The 43 year old Polanski gave a 13 year old drugs and alcohol so he could use her body.  I can’t even be bothered debating the issue – he pled guilty – and this is back in the 1970s, when rape conviction rates were even lower than now.

No, rather than whether Mr Polanksi deserves to face a court for the rape he’s admitted to, I’m more interested in the man whose home he raped in back then, Jack Nicholson.

Oscar winner for a great role in a great film, Jack played McMurphy in the Ken Kesey classic “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.  It’s a film about social control – and the hero, McMurphy, is a man with several assault convictions whose most recent altercation with the justice system is over the statutory rape of a 15 year old.

McMurphy rebels against “the system” when he’s placed into psychiatric care, and though the film and book have rightly been criticised for overwhelming sexism, there are moments of heroism in McMurphy’s challenges to the frighteningly controlling environments that were mental institutions in the 1960s.

But Jack Nicholson in real life, as well as playing host to Polanski’s rape, has a history which includes out-of-court settlements to a woman working in prostitution, Christine Sheehan.  He assaulted her after they had sex and he’d refused to pay.

I mention these two things because they have completely removed the possibility for me, of respecting Jack Nicholson. 

I hate it when men for whom I could hold respect ruin it by choosing to be violent to women. 

When Rita Marley wrote a book in 2004, revealing that husband Bob had raped her, I was devastated.  Bob Marley is one of my musical and anti-racist heroes, preaching a message of inter-racial harmony and peace based on justice.

A woman I worked with in an inner-city Women’s Refuge in London was escaping a man she’d been with for two decades.  A session musician who had played on most reggae albums of interest, she told stories of horrific violence within the reggae scene, from men who sang about peace and love, to their girlfriends, their wives, their more casual sexual partners.  Turns out Rita was telling the truth.

I worked with this woman for a year, too scared to ask her about my favourite reggae artist.  Finally I got up the courage to get over my hypocrisy, and checked out whether Peter Tosh had been violent to women.

“No,” she told me, “he really does mean the words he sings.”

Thank goodness.  I really need some male heroes.  We all do.  And bashing or raping or helping other men bash and rape women counts them out in my book.  Bring back Peter Tosh I say. 

It’s proving pretty difficult to get any information out of ACC before they plan to re-jig their funding pathway for survivors of sexual abuse to access counselling through the Sensitive Claims Unit.

I have an Official Information Act request for how many claims have been made; how many declined; and whether there have been any internal instructions to claims processors to change the way they assess claims this year.

Others have asked for detailed information on the budget of the Sensitive Claims Unit in terms of counselling costs for survivors.

We’re all being told the information needs more time to process.  Past the time when the new clinical pathway will, in fact be revealed.

Luckily, however, ACC did provide these figures to parliament, which informed this Radio NZ piece:

As you can see, in May 2009, something changed dramatically at the Sensitive Claims Unit – all of a sudden, enormous numbers of people were being made to wait on the outcome of their claim.  People who were asking for help because of distressing symptoms they say are due to sexual violence.  People who might be suicidal or self-harming. 

By August 2009, the percentage of claims pending had risen from 2% in January to 92%, while claims accepted had gone down from 45% to 5%.  The decline rate went down from 53% to 3%.

Yet the number of claims in total have not increased dramatically, according to these figures. 

So had ACC already decided, in May 2009, 4 months before they told those working in the sexual violence sector about the new “clinical pathway”, to just sit on claims, regardless of how many came in?  It’s hard to see otherwise. 

And until they release the data they are having trouble finding, their claims that this is in response to a jump in claims cannot be challenged.

The agency is struggling with a 41 per cent increase in sexual abuse claims in the past few months, with new abuse claims running at 550 a month.

On these figures, that’s just not true.

There is finally some real evidence about attrition in the criminal justice system for allegations of sexual violence in New Zealand.

The research, commissioned by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, looked at all 1,955 police files of sexual violation offences between 1 July 2005 and 31 December 2007.  This misses the 9 out of 10 experiences of sexual violence which are never reported, but still is an impressive enough body of data to provide real value.

Burning Question 1:  So of the 1,955 reported cases, how many were successfully convicted? 

Answer: 254 or 13%

That means if we accept the police only hear about 10% of sexual violence crimes, adults have a 1.3% chance of seeing their rapist convicted in New Zealand.

Just one in three complaints made resulted in charges being laid.  Of these, 42% were successfully convicted, and 27% resulted in an acquittal.

This attrition is shocking.  Can you imagine the uproar if just 13% of reported burglaries resulted in punishment for those responsible?  Thankfully, for those of us who value property more highly than the sanctity of the human body, our conviction rates for property crimes hovered between 50% and 60% last year.

95% of the victims reporting sexual violence to the police were women.  99% of the alleged offenders were men, in fact just 11 women were accused of sexual violence over the 2 and a half years the study covered.

It seems sexual violence continues to be overwhelmingly a crime of male violence against women.

Trainee journalists are told false complaints are often made regarding sexual offences, and cautioned to report carefully.  Many in the public also tell this story, and the blogosphere is full of those concerned about false rape claims. 

Burning Question 2:  How many of these complaints were false?

Answer: 156 or 8%

The researchers describe complaints as “false” when the Police had noted that, usually when the complainant claimed they had made a false complaint, or when the Police said evidence did not support the complaint.  Given historical and ongoing scandals around Police behaviour with allegations of sexual violence, this figure may therefore be a little inflated.

The researchers note one third of ”false” complaints were made by people with intellectual disability or psychiatric conditions, and young women alleging sexual violence by a stranger were also more likely to be coded as “false”.

Hardly the overwhelming data you’d think, given our typical media response to rape and sexual violence.

Which reminds me, this ground-breaking research, hot news, providing the opportunity for debate, discussion, conflict, about crime, and just begging a response from media darlings the Sensitive Sentencing Trust – where did our media put it?

The Dominion Post, down the road from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs who commissioned the research, buried a tiny article, nicked from the Press, knee deep in the middle of the paper.  Other media sources no better.

I wonder if the research would have graced the front page if it proved 87% of rape allegations were false?  Hazard a guess anyone?

Instead we are left with knowing most people – who are overwhelmingly men – accused of sexual violence walk free.  In our communities. 

It’s time to consider how we might change this frightening fact.

*Regular readers may remember I promised to eat the Intro to journalism book if this research proved women routinely lied about rape. 

Of course, it continues to sit on my shelf, unharmed.

If you are not happy with the proposed changes in funding for therapy for survivors of sexual abuse and rape, you can sign a petition here, which will be presented to ACC Minister Nick Smith before the changes are due to come into force, on October 12th.

The petition says:

All professionals involved in the treatment of these clients in New Zealand agree: that these proposed changes are clinically unsound, and contrary to ACC’s statutory requirement to provide treatment that conforms “to best clinical practice.”

Under the changes ACC want to make it harder to get funding by making a diagnosis of mental illness a requirement. Furthermore they propose limiting funding to only sixteen sessions.

They also expect clients to disclose the assault(s) and then wait, with no counselling to happen until ACC has approved the claim. This process of approval currently takes weeks, sometimes months.

It’s asking for delay in the changes, already delayed once due to public opposition.  Again, you can sign it here. 

Please do – sexual abuse counselling is an important part of recovery for many people who are raped – and these changes will stop people getting the help they need.