PRESS STATEMENT on the media approach to particular cases of rape involving children
Our society continues to show a high level of tolerance for violence. For this reason, every voice that can defend the rights of survivors of violence is valuable. All the more so if this voice is of a respected public person in the community or a person who can influence important decisions for all of us, triggering changes for the better. Journalists and media institutions have played and continue to play a unique role in this matter.
In our work, we have always valued the active and professional involvement of media institutions in reflecting social and anti-violence issues, in particular. At the same time, we try to remain receptive to the demands of journalists, as much as the policies for the protection of our beneficiaries allow us.
What we have seen in the last few weeks about how a rape case, which took place more than a year ago in the south of the country, is reflected in the press, worries us a lot. We understand and resonate with the good intention of journalists to trigger, through a shocking story, a social mechanism that could lead to solving the concrete problem - the inability of the justice system to effectively protect victims of rape in the Republic of Moldova. However, we are alarmed by the price that journalists are willing to pay for this cause. In the avalanche of rape details and evidence from the file - half of them being distorted, although collected "from reliable sources" - the identity of that minor is way to clear, and she remains to live in a small community, where everyone's life is as easily seen as in the palm of one’s hand.
We appeal to the media representatives to show more discernment and responsibility in reflecting rape cases involving minors. We urge you to continue raising the issue and document the scale, the human side, and the faulty social aspects, but never at the cost of a child's mental wellbeing. The fact that you do not give him the exact name and address is not enough to protect the child, as long as this child has access to sources of information and remains to live in the place where, from the very beginning, the child feels under the public eye and opinion, under enormous mental pressure.
On the other hand, the court sets dozens of sentences that are too lenient for rapes committed across the country every year. The only difference is perhaps that in this case, details were leaked into the public space that help identify the victim, which conditions the repeated traumatization of a minor. What is sadder is that the leak was presented to the general public as a gesture made for the supreme good and yet not necessarily in the child's best interests.
An "under the microscope" investigation of rape can trigger changes in a syncopating justice system. It can become moral support, or it can have a therapeutic effect on someone only in the case of adults, who understand and assume the consequences of exposing their history, only with their consent and only in parallel with psychological support services or psychotherapy. In the case of children, especially teenagers, the interest of journalists in the details of rape, unfortunately, produces more harm than good.
In our turn, we remain open to provide relevant data in the fields in which we operate to support the noble approach of the journalist and his desire to outline stories, portraits as accurately as possible through live data, and field arguments.
But please, dear journalists, stay focused on the phenomenon and the factors that led to the triggering or perpetuation of violence, the shortcomings of the legal framework, and ask relevant questions for the cause of the victims of violence, not for trafficking and views.
Ratings constantly fluctuate and can be corrected through editorial policies and marketing strategies. But the consequences of a shocking headline or a statement "from reliable sources" can be irreparable.