When the UN Women (UN Office for Gender Equality) office in Tirana knocked on the doors of Anabel for cooperation in the 16-day campaign?, we felt this campaign very close to our philosophy. Since its inception, Along with information and entertainment, Anabel has always aimed to make girls and women readers aware of various phenomena affecting their lives.
Over the years, on our Facebook page we have occasionally shared stories from readers who have faced some form of violence in their lives, including rape. What has always bothered us in these discussions has been the general perception of rape. A good portion of young men, boys or girls, justified this gruesome act, and what saddens us most is the fact that in many of the discussions, it was the victim who was to blame and not the rapist.
He was seen as someone who had fallen prey to the girl's provocation, to her provocative outfit, to her downright demeanor. That's not right, we shouldn't think that anymore.
So in the UN Women discussion, we decided to focus first on the perception that people have about rape.
Deamishel and Alberta, two of the protagonists of the series "Hostel by Anabel", took to the streets with a billboard where they posted pictures of girls in different environments / circumstances and clothing and "fabricating" a rape story, asking passersby if they thought they had any of the girls in the photo could have been the victim of rape.
Unfortunately, except for one gentleman who categorically replied "None of them", others (mostly girls and young boys), speculated on girls in certain pictures, judging from the "short end", "the wise and fragile appearance" "," Holding glass of alcohol "etc. Very innocently, respondents found that there is a misconception about the victim of rape, a perception that automatically blames girls for dress, behavior, etc. and justifies the ugly act.
But respondents in Tirana are not isolated in this conjecture. Around the world there are some rape myths that we decided to elaborate on in more detail in Anabel's offices, with the presence of a special guest, a positive image for young people like the moderator of "Pop Culture" on Top Channel , Mom's hell. During the conversation, Anna, Deamishel, Alberta and Dojna dispelled the global myths and finally delivered a message "No woman wants to be raped or raped and there is no excuse for any form of sexual violence."
According to statistics, 8.6% of girls / women are raped every year and only a negligible percentage report them to the police. Which means that the abuser / rapist in this case walks free in the cities, is not punished and risks repeating the same act with other girls / women. This was another staggering statistic and was further strengthened during the two discussions on Anabel's Facebook.
In the first discussion on "Tell us your rape story", the number of letters in the inbox was very large. Dozens of girls and women in anonymity confessed to us that they had been sexually abused mostly by their partners and ex-partners. Some of them had been raped by relatives at an early age. None of them had reported to the police, fearing they might be attacked or tried after denunciation.
Even when their male partners, brothers, or friends learned about the rape, again, even if they admitted it, they did nothing to denounce the act and punish the abuser. So the boys themselves stated about Anabel in the second Facebook discussion "What did you do when you heard your friend / partner / sister was raped?"
Fear of losing family, fear of losing children, distrust of police, were the main reasons many women claimed Anabel even when it came to physical domestic violence, during the latest discussion that included stories about her all forms of violence.
Inspired by the statistics and stories of Albanian girls and women themselves, along with UN Women, we created another video message, this time focusing on the thought process of a girl shortly after the rape. One of the protagonists of "Hostel by Anabel", Viola Gjoleka, cleverly interprets the role of a girl who decides to shut her mouth and not denounce the abuser, assuming her parents would be disappointed and lose faith and people would judge.
At the end of the clip, the protagonist decides to erase any evidence and keep the pain to myself. The video sucked the lives of many, and this was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of views and shares on our Instagram and Facebook social networks.
Thanks to UN Women 's awareness campaign and Anabel' s great interactivity with her followers, we learned a lot in this campaign. Most importantly: Rape is not an isolated phenomenon belonging to a particular age group, social class, typology or appearance; rape does not select circumstances or places; rapists are not only strangers, but they can also be the people with whom you legally divide the bed.
What we have tried to prove and wish people understood is that sex is a personal choice and if a girl or woman in adulthood has not conscientiously accepted the act of sex, then for no reason at all may entitle herself to abuse her body.
No is No and Yes is Yes and as long as there is no Yes then any attempted crime is a crime. Understanding this, we as a society learn to eliminate excuses, protect the victim in all cases and automatically condemn the abuser. And the more aware we are that rape is a crime, the more hope we give victims to seek help and express themselves without fear of prejudice.
