©Copyright Legal Women Limited 2026
Ciara Bergman, CEO of Rape Crisis, England and Wales, Talks to Legal Women about Violence Against Women and Girls
Three Rape Crisis Centres Closed in my First Two Years.
Imagine if you can, a world without rape or sexual abuse, in which all women and girls could live their lives safely, freely and with dignity. In which they could stay out late, not worry about how to get home, and were free to pursue the professions, degrees, hobbies, passions and relationships they chose, unfettered by the threat or reality of its impact.
This is the world that the Rape Crisis movement was established to realise. Starting with groups of volunteers coming together to support women within local communities, it now comprises Rape Crisis England & Wales – the national campaigns and membership body, and its network of thirty-six specialist Rape Crisis Centres, providing free, quality-assured and specialist counselling, advocacy and peer support to survivors of all forms of sexual violence and abuse, as well as training and outreach within local communities.
Over fifty years, we’ve worked together to ensure that each individual woman’s rape crisis is understood as part of a broader, national rape crisis – and when you consider that over seventy one thousand rapes were recorded by police in the UK in 2024, but charges were brought in less than three percent of those (let alone convictions), or that up to ninety percent of young women in the UK report having experienced some form of street-based sexual harassment, we think it’s one that is no less relevant now than it was fifty years ago.
Sexual violence, abuse, harassment and exploitation are devastating experiences for survivors and their wider communities, and they outstrip domestic violence in terms of prevalence by quite some margin. They’re disproportionately – although not exclusively perpetrated by males against females - and the fear and possibility of them happening to any of us damages our collective comfort in – and access to – both public and private life. It also costs the public purse some £400 billion across the life course.
They’re never the fault of the survivor, and yet victim blame and shame continue to be the most commonly reported barriers to disclosure (with good reason), and rape myths and stereotypes are still being deployed to discredit survivors within criminal trials. In England and Wales, three-quarters (75 percent) of sexual violence victim-survivors whose cases reach trial are subjected to questions rooted in victim-blaming and rape myths during cross-examination, with 56 percent of survivors stating they would be unlikely to report rape again in the future. Gisele Pelicot’s insistence that “shame must change sides” resonated with millions of survivors and indeed the general public – we’re here to make sure that happens.
Until Rape Crisis England & Wales and our partners launched and succeeded with our campaign to #KeepCounsellingConfidential, survivors’ therapy notes were routinely being requested by police in readying cases (or not) for referral to the CPS, even when they had no substantial probative value. This meant survivors were enduring the dual devastation of having been raped, and not feeling safe enough to access support. Too many of those who did had those notes shared with their rapist(s), read by barristers, and used against them in court. Thankfully the law has now changed, and the recent announcement of the introduction of Independent Legal Advice means survivors will have access to support they can trust through the process, including in relation to police requests for victims’ personal data, and Victims’ Right to Review decisions not to prosecute.
Reforming our criminal justice system and making it (better) fit for purpose, is slow work. It’s also only one small part of the work of our movement.
Anyone who has been to therapy or counselling, or talked to someone in their life who listens to them and believes them, will know the value of trauma-informed, specialist support. For fifty years, Rape Crisis Centres have been doing that for survivors, and picking up the pieces when they’re failed by other agencies, and their cases, wellbeing and confidence collapse.
That support is as varied as the populations our centres serve – it may be a group for women with Learning Disabilities, Neurodiversity and Autism, play therapy with children, or specialist one-to-one counselling for survivors to manage their trauma and prepare for therapy. It could be independent advocacy through the criminal justice process, or specialised support provided by someone from the same cultural community. But what Rape Crisis support always has in common is that it’s trauma-informed, holistic, and provided by centres who understand the gendered dynamics of sexual violence, can support survivors to know that what happened to them isn’t their fault, and can inspire in them the hope and possibility of recovery.
And yet these beacons of hope and sentinels of healing, and we ourselves, contend with maddening under-funding. Three centres closed their doors in my first two years as CEO, and centres are now planning for continued uncertainty of the only ring-fenced government funding for specialist sexual violence services post 2028 – the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund.
As one young survivor put it, as a result of the support she received through a Rape Crisis Centre: “I stand taller, I think deeper, and I breathe easier”. I still cannot write those words without feeling deeply moved by them – nor does a week go by in my role, in which someone doesn’t contact me to tell me privately what a difference our advocacy, campaigns or frontline support have made to them.
Perhaps you’re one of them, perhaps your close friend or family member or clients are. Indeed, approximately 38 percent of female lawyers and legal professionals in the UK report experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace, according to the International Bar Association, and in her review into bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the Bar – a quick guide for chambers, Baroness Harman commented:
“The problem is the culture of impunity for those at the top who commit misconduct. Those who are subjected to it feel unable to complain All the jeopardy is on them … The jeopardy must change from the victim to the perpetrator”.
We agree. Rape Crisis England & Wales run the national 247 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, which provides confidential, free support via phone and webchat to any survivor aged 16+ who needs our help, any time of day or night. Each year, the support line connects sixty-eighty thousand calls and webchats, and our centres support the same number again – enough to fill Wembley stadium twice over. Many more are waiting for our help. The most commonly searched information on our website is ‘Was I raped’ and ‘Did it count’.
We want every single survivor to know that that it does. And that whatever happened, we’re here, we’ll pick up the phone, and we’ll believe them.
If you’d like to know more about Rape Crisis England & Wales or the work that we do, you can sign up to our mailing list here. You can also find ways to support us and our work here.
Ciara Bergman, CEO Rape Crisis England & Wales
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciara-bergman-631b9b6a/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rape-crisis-england-wales/
June 2026