We know that sexual abuse is a very traumatic experience for the victim. It always has a big impact on someone’s life. Although apparently the second rape also exists, in which bystanders from the time further damage the victim. In the talk show Op1, journalist and writer Rinke, who was also a bystander to sexual abuse, talks about this. She did nothing at the time and now wonders: why?
Bystander to sexual abuse
In her youth, journalist Rinke Verkerk discovered the story of classmate Lenneke, who had been abused by her grandfather as a minor. Something that was actually quite crazy, since the grandfather in question previously committed sexual abuse with an office girl. He was even punished for this. And yet it happened again later with Lenneke. When the story went around, the sexual abuse had already taken place. Bystanders could do nothing about this at the time. However, after her grandfather’s sexual abuse, Lenneke did not completely get rid of her traumatic past. As a victim of sexual abuse, Lenneke subsequently became a ‘pariah’: she was excluded from the village. This is also called second rape, or victim blaming, and it can be countered. However, it is not easy for bystanders, as Rinke’s story also shows.
Becoming ‘infected’
Rinke said she did nothing against the second rape because she was afraid of being infected “with whatever she had”. “I didn’t feel like doing that at the age of thirteen, in the adolescent jungle,” Rinke explains at the talk show table at Op1. According to her, this was due to the culture within the village, but also due to the atmosphere at high school and in the social circle. It was special that Lenneke became open about the sexual abuse so quickly. Normally it comes out less quickly in child victims. They are ashamed and afraid of the perpetrator. But fortunately that was not the case now. Lenneke told her about it quite quickly, after which the sexual abuse immediately stopped.
However, this also led to the second rape, in which Lenneke was excluded by the entire village. They called the victim an “attention seeker” and her family “posers.” However, this is a tactic used by bystanders of sexual abuse. They find child abuse in particular “painful and terrifying” and therefore do everything they can not to look like victims.
Blind spot in society
Rinke has now apologized to Lenneke. At the time, Rinke, like other bystanders, was not nice to her classmate at all. No wonder that Lenneke initially wants to throw away the phone. Yet she could not reject contact with Rinke. “She didn’t really have the luxury of not wanting that,” she says. She still suffers from the second rape. She has now processed the sexual abuse itself, but not yet the bystander reaction. “For me to send her a message now to acknowledge that – even though I was a bitch to her too – she couldn’t afford to turn that down.”
Second rape is a major problem in the world. Once perpetrators of sexual abuse have been punished and return to society, people often give them a ‘second chance’. “If you normalize the perpetrator, you reduce the feeling of danger,” says Rinke. Even though sometimes things still go wrong. It always happens unconsciously, but it is not good. “If you don’t look at this problem, which is very big, you create a kind of blind spot in your community where no one is looking,” says Rinke. “And there you can hide secrets.”
