Half of young UK adults aged from 18-24 believe that rape can only be a crime if the victim resists, a recent survey conducted by the UK-based Crown Prosecution Service showed.
“Only half recognized that it can still be rape if a victim doesn’t resist or fight back (53% got this right),” the statement released on Friday read.
Less than half of young people aged from 18-24 recognized that rape victims may not immediately report to the police, and only 42 percent expressed the belief that marriage does not mean that consent to sex can be assumed, according to the statement.
Young people were far less likely to understand that a victim may not be free to consent to sex even if no physical force is involved (40 percent compared to 74 percent of people over 65), according to the statement. Only 46 percent of young adults recognized that a man who is drunk is still responsible for raping someone, the statement said.
“This survey, the largest of its kind for many years, shows that while public understanding of rape has grown over the last 20 years, there is still more to do as a society to dispel prevalent false beliefs about this offending,” CPS Director of Strategy and Policy Baljit Ubhey, who led the research team, was quoted as saying by the CPS.
The poll’s findings will be used to update the training of UK-based prosecutors and advocates, she added.
The poll was conducted among 3,066 respondents over the age of 18.
