Whether out of fear, embarrassment or trauma, the fact remains that most rape survivors don’t report the crime to police. But one woman is hoping to change that, and she’s harnessing the power of technology to do it.
Jessica Ladd has created a Callisto, a website that allows sexual assault victims to log the details of their attack in a third-party system, then either store them via a time-stamped report or to forward them on to the relevant authorities.
The concept is designed to make it simpler and less traumatic for victims to come forward. But the really revolutionary aspect of the site is that it offers users the option to see if their attacker matches another victim’s.
“Knowing that you weren’t the only one changes everything,” Ladd told news.com.au. “It changes the way you frame your own experience, it changes the way you think about your perpetrator. It means that if you do come forward you’ll have someone else’s back and they’ll have yours.”
According to news.com.au, the 30-year-old was prompted to create the site because she found the experience of reporting her own assault “more traumatising than the assault itself”.