We're incredibly disappointed to see the images which accompany Essex Police's new 'safety campaign' as they reinforce victim blaming myths. The campaign is meant to be advice on staying safe aimed at college and university students during 'Freshers Week'.

The advice on the campaign's website is gender-neutral. It is ostensibly about personal property. However, 3 of the 4 the images which accompany the campaign are directed at women and reference sexual violence. They replicate the images of numerous police campaigns which focus on the victim rather than the perpetrator. 

85 000 women a year are raped in England & Wales. 1 in 4 women experience sexual violence in their lifetime and this does not include sexual harassment in public spaces. 1 in 3 women in Europe experience violence from a current or former partner. This is the reality that women live with every day.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence are endemic on college and university campuses and we need to support organisations like EVAW and Rape Crisis in order to challenge the rape culture on campuses, but women are not laptops.

Conflating advice to prevent acquisitive crime (like locking up your laptop) is entirely different to telling women what they can and can not do in public spaces. We don't blame the victim of a mugging for being in public spaces, yet we blame rape victims for being in public, wearing short skirts, drinking beer, and walking home from work. 

Posters which focus on victims help support rape culture as they erase the perpetrator's agency and choices. We need more police campaigns targeted at perpetrators telling them a lack of consent is rape, that spiking a drink is a criminal offence

We would like to see Essex Police remove the images from their campaign and replace them with a campaign targeted at perpetrators which do not conflate sexual violence and burglary.