Abstract:

Sexual violence has been defined as all kinds of sexual acts against the will of the victim. It is considered as one of the most traumatic experiences with regards to its physical, psychological and social effect. Although in the legal system, the laws are enforced to penalize the perpetrator, in society, people have a number of stereotypes and myths against the victim. While sexual assault already triggers many mental illnesses on the victim; accusing attitudes towards the victim generates a great risk for repetitive traumatic effect. Thus, it is drastically important to investigate rape myths. Rape myths are biased false beliefs and directly target the victim. They create a large amount of risks to legitimize rapes, to perceive crime and perpetrators relatively positive, to decrease the amount of penalty, and to encourage masculine sexual violence. Accusing the victim restrains the victim from applying to judicial authorities and medical institutions to seek for his/her rights, along with disrupting the healing and rehabilitation process of the victim. A number of studies demonstrated that individuals with high just word belief were more likely to legitimize rapes. Believing that the world is a just place and everybody gets what they deserve leads to look for reasons, that is, rape victims deserve what happened to them. This study aims to review the literature on sexual violence, to focus on the negative consequences of the accusing attitudes towards the victim in terms woman’s right and mental health and to increase the awareness of this issue as an addition to the limited number of studies in Turkey.

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