Hundreds join global support group for survivors of drug-facilitated rape | Rape and sexual assault
Two women who were drugged unconscious and raped by their partners said hundreds of people – around 80 of them in the UK – had contacted an international support group for victims of crime.
Zoe Watts and Amanda Stanhope, who were both repeatedly attacked by their partners while unconscious, are calling for tougher laws to stop men sharing images and videos of sexual assault and rape online.
On Thursday, the National Crime Agency said they had uncovered a “truly international network” of drug-facilitated organized sexual assault.
He said more than 270 people linked to an online forum he began investigating in October last year had been identified, but many online networks “have yet to be identified by law enforcement.”
Watts has set up a support network for women who are victims of such rapes, and she said hundreds of people from around the world have joined so far; 70 to 80 of these were from England.
“In about 40 days, we reached survivors from 22 different countries,” Watts said. “A lot of these women ask what the signs and symptoms are and say, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been feeling this for years. I didn’t realize this was what was going on with my body until I found the images. I’m not going crazy.’
“As awareness grows, we will see many more women coming forward.”
their campaign, End Eye Checkrefers to the act of a perpetrator retracting the eyelids to indicate unconsciousness before attacking the victim; this is something that is often filmed and specifically searchable online.
Watts’ husband of 16 years told her after attending church one Sunday afternoon that their son had crushed sleeping pills into her tea at night and raped her for more than a decade. He is serving an 11-year prison sentence for various crimes, including rape.
Stanhope was raped repeatedly by her partner while she was unconscious while taking prescription medication, often waking up with new clothes and bruises on her body. His partner was accused of multiple counts of rape and sexual assault but committed suicide before the case reached court.
He said he told him he had taken videos and pictures, but he had no idea whether they were uploaded to the internet. “We need to tackle online content because that’s what fuels it and that’s why it’s growing so quickly and globally,” he said.
Stanhope decided to start campaigning to ensure women received better support from him, saying he had “failed by everyone he was supposed to help”.
“I woke up; that’s how I found out what had happened to me,” he said. “But some of the other women are saying they were victims of this because the police found a video of them. It’s just the most horrific, traumatic experience and there’s no real dedicated support at the moment.”
Both women were inspired to speak publicly after hearing the story of Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman who was drugged and raped by her husband and dozens of other men for almost a decade. He waived his right to anonymity and insisted on a public hearing to raise awareness of the crime.
Watts and Stanhope say the Pelicot case has greatly increased awareness of the crime, but there’s still a long way to go to educate medical professionals about the signs and teach young people about the risks.
“We need to ask the medical community: If there’s a woman who’s struggling with her memory, who’s feeling very, very tired, maybe feeling sick, if something isn’t right, do you think she might have been raped through drugs? Because I really don’t think they were,” Watts said.
He added that a major culture shift is still needed for people to fully understand that this crime is happening close to home.
“Do people look at their friend groups, their families, and think: Are you safe tonight? Of course they’re not. They know Cheryl’s husband, Mark, and they know Rebecca’s husband, Tom,” he said. “And therein lies the problem, because it happens and we don’t question it. In fact, we don’t even ask.”
