Trigger warning: this post contains content about sexual assault that may be triggering
by Ben Ubiñas
A young woman is just beginning her career as a designer in Dubai. She is raped in a hotel room by a coworker, a brutal act in and of itself. She has the courage to report this rape to the police. What happens? She’s arrested. She’s accused of a sex crime — sex outside of marriage. She’s sentenced to over a year in jail. Her humiliation is compounded when she is told by her lawyer that she should recant in order to lessen her sentence. She does. Instead of dropping charges, the “authorities” add to her penalty by charging her with filing a false statement.
Are we supposed to feel better because the president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, “pardoned” Marte Deborah Dalelv, a Norwegian citizen, a female victim of rape, a human victim of an abusive system? Are we supposed to feel better because she won’t spend any (more) time in jail? Are we supposed to feel better even though her attacker is still not being charged with rape?
It took an international firestorm to just restore her freedom. As a sixteen-year-old boy in America, I’m left asking how can we, in this millennium, have this happen? If it’s happening to an educated Norwegian citizen–someone with enough privilege to speak up about it–how many other innocent women is this happening to? How many voices have been silenced?
All of this means more than just what it means for Marte Dalelv. What does it mean for the sixteen-year-old girls I know and see every day that a young, professional woman, not much older than they are, can be raped, and that when she tries to raise her voice and ask for justice, she is met with nothing but accusation, imprisonment, and conviction (in that order).
Am I really supposed to feel better?