New feature: Challenging rape myths in the mainstream

eg.jpgAbout 4.8 million people watched the last episode of Law and Order: UK for which there are stats. It’s on ITV, it has a broad, mainstream audience.

This Friday’s episode is about gang rape – and, particularly, the rape myths that make it so hard for women and girls to report rape and go through the criminal justice system.

Siân Norris has interviewed Emilia di Girolamo, Law and Order: UK’s lead writer, and the creator of this episode. Di Girolamo wrote this episode, she explains to Siân, because when she was a teenager she was group raped.

It’s crucially important to talk about how the criminal justice system deals with (or fails to deal with) rape, and it’s great that a really mainstream show is getting to grips with this.

Di Girolamo explains:

I wanted to take this story of group rape to Daily Mail readers. To take it to people who probably believe the rape myths, who believe a 12-year-old girl can be responsible for being raped. So it was about writing something that challenged those myths and taking it to an audience where many of them would really be learning about this for the first time.

Tune in on Friday to watch it, and you can read the whole of the interview here.