In accordance with courtroom paperwork, the accidents had been brought on by Árnadóttir’s boyfriend throwing her across the room whereas attempting to wrestle her telephone away from her after she threatened to name the police. For days after the assault, Árnadóttir struggled to breathe. Finally, she ended up within the emergency room, the paperwork say.
Talking quietly in her residence within the suburbs of Reykjavik, she instructed CNN the person had attacked her earlier than, however by no means as viciously as he did on that event in July 2016. “I actually thought I used to be dying. He was pulling me and throwing me round. I believed ‘I’m going to die immediately,'” she stated.
Months later, she says she labored up the braveness to go to the police, submitting images of her accidents, medical notes, a listing of witnesses to the violence and psychological abuse she was subjected to, in addition to textual content messages from her alleged attacker, by then her ex-boyfriend, by which Árnadóttir says he admitted to the assault and threatened to share nude images of her if she spoke up. A courtroom submitting contains all of those paperwork.
In accordance with the courtroom paperwork, the person denied assaulting her, however admitted to sending the menace, though he stated he by no means supposed to observe up on it. CNN has reached out to the person’s lawyer.
However for the police, that proof was not sufficient.
A 12 months and half after she had pressed fees, Árnadóttir says officers instructed her the case was being dropped as a result of it might not result in a conviction.
She later found that was not true. The case had not been dropped. As a substitute, the police didn’t interview the accused and in consequence, the statute of limitation expired of their palms, based on the judicial authorities who later reviewed the case.
The unusual twist within the story? These ladies stay in Iceland, lengthy celebrated because the world’s most gender equal nation.
It has world-leading equal pay and anti-discrimination legal guidelines. Girls maintain 47% of the seats in its Parliament and make up 46% of the boards of Icelandic firms.
Childcare is closely backed and accessible to all. Maternity healthcare is free.
However for Árnadóttir and lots of different ladies struggling to see justice finished, Iceland’s portrayal as a feminist paradise is a far cry from actuality — far sufficient to take the nation to courtroom.
The lawsuit, launched in March, was coordinated by a number of Icelandic NGOs, together with Stígamót, a non-profit that campaigns towards home and sexual violence and supplies counseling for survivors.
Steinunn Guðjónsdóttir, Stígamót’s spokesperson and fundraising supervisor, instructed CNN the group reviewed quite a few latest instances of alleged violence towards ladies that had been dismissed by the police or prosecutors, and located that the victims’ rights had allegedly been violated in a number of of them.
Guðjónsdóttir stated these included examples the place proof had been ignored, statutes of limitation expiring due to lack of motion by the police, sufferer shaming and an entire lack of transparency.
Guðjónsdóttir stated there may be nonetheless a big hole between the regulation and the best way it is being applied.
“The justice system appears at rape as a really, very, very critical crime, when it comes to the punishment, nevertheless it would not get any of the manpower and a spotlight. When there’s a homicide — which occurs very not often in Iceland — the entire police pressure goes to analyze and it is simply an enormous precedence. That is clearly not the case with rape,” she stated.
Transparency can be a difficulty, Guðjónsdóttir stated, declaring that beneath Icelandic regulation, victims would not have the appropriate to view their case information, which suggests they can’t monitor the progress of an investigation.
In an announcement to CNN, the Icelandic Ministry of Justice stated that whereas “it has concluded {that a} sure mistake was made in the course of the investigation [of Árnadóttir’s case], the federal government’s opinion is that the error doesn’t meet the minimal stage of severity” to qualify as a breach of the European Conference on Human Rights.
The Icelandic Police didn’t touch upon the case, referring as a substitute to the Ministry of Justice.
The feminist paradise with a gender-based violence downside
Homicide instances could also be uncommon in Iceland, however rapes aren’t.
Unnur Anna Valdimarsdóttir and Arna Hauksdóttir, two public well being consultants and epidemiologists on the College of Iceland who performed the analysis, reached out to just about all ladies in Iceland. They ended up surveying greater than 30,000 folks — nearly a 3rd of the nation’s whole feminine inhabitants, unfold throughout rural and concrete areas and representing a cross-section of Icelandic society.
They admitted the outcomes of their research got here as a shock. “We had been fairly struck by the very excessive proportion of girls which have skilled both bodily or sexual violence throughout their lifetime,” Hauksdóttir instructed CNN.
“Folks had a tough time believing that these are actual numbers,” Valdimarsdóttir added. “The spontaneous response is principally ‘40%?! No approach!'”
“Even I need to admit that I did not need to consider it myself,” she stated. “After which I began to undergo my mates and we began speaking lots about it, and it sounds proper … whenever you take a look at your girlfriends and you’re taking 20 of them … I’d say possibly eight of them have that have.”
Valdimarsdóttir and Hauksdóttir stated the outcomes had been notably onerous to sq. with Iceland’s sturdy tradition of gender equality.
“Iceland is a good place to be a girl, we’ve got entry to well being care, childcare … schooling and to a number of issues that most people residing on this Earth haven’t got … however we nonetheless have these numbers,” Hauksdóttir stated.
She stated it’s potential that the very advances Iceland has made in gender equality may clarify the comparatively excessive variety of ladies reporting violence.
“In societies which have scored excessive on gender equality, you’ll nonetheless see very, very excessive figures [of violence] and it is paradoxical to see that, however the motive may need to do with ladies being very conscious of after they’re being violated in any approach,” she stated. “Is that the case in different international locations? These numbers could also be nearer to the reality.”
The analysis revealed one other worrying factor — the proportion of girls who’ve skilled violence was very comparable throughout all sections of Icelandic society. “Completely different backgrounds, totally different ranges of schooling, totally different ranges of revenue … so it is not class associated,” Valdimarsdóttir stated. “Then you definitely begin to assume: ‘Is that this some sort of regulation of nature? Is that this a vital a part of human habits?'”
‘The generational curse’
One group that was not shocked by the outcomes of the trauma research was Öfgar, a feminist collective that goals to teach the general public about violence and rape tradition.
In actual fact, the group thinks the actual numbers is perhaps even increased.
“I haven’t got a single girlfriend that has not been sexually abused, harassed, molested or in a poisonous relationship,” Helga Ben, one of many activists, instructed CNN throughout an interview with the group in a restaurant in central Reykjavik.
One after the other, the 5 ladies described their experiences with date rape, pressured consent, sexual abuse and harassment. They spoke in regards to the disgrace they skilled time and again.
They name it the “generational curse.”
“The concept that Iceland is a feminist paradise has been shoved down our throats since we had been little children: ‘Why are you so offended? Do you see these ladies within the third world international locations? … You have got it so good,'” stated Ólöf Tara, one of many ladies concerned within the group.
“However the violence that ladies have been going through all through the years, we by no means had the ability to boost our voice about it. Violence thrives in silence, as a result of when you converse out, someone connects together with your story and realizes that is their story too after which they might go and begin looking for assist and break the sample, as a result of it’s a generational sample. I received it from my mother and my mother received it from her mother, like my grandmother from her mother, and I am gonna carry it to my children if we do not converse and speak about it,” Hulda Hrund Sigmundsdóttir added.
Öfgar has made it its mission to have interaction with youthful folks, attempting to unfold consciousness by humorous however onerous hitting social media movies about points like sexual consent and date rape.
In addition they supply assist and help to victims and have performed an instrumental function within the second wave of the #MeToo motion in Iceland.
The group stated they realized they wanted to “do one thing” after they stored receiving accusations of sexual violence and harassment about one specific man, an area superstar in Iceland.
“We had survivors coming to us, speaking about what he did and it was a 10-year-long span of violence towards ladies, towards younger women and we thought this may’t go on, he cannot preserve occurring and doing what he is doing,” stated Tanja Ísfjörð, who was becoming a member of the assembly remotely, talking to the remainder of the group from a laptop computer display propped up on a low espresso desk.
With out naming the person, Öfgar revealed testimonials from greater than 20 ladies who stated that they had been abused and harassed by him, sparking an enormous outcry throughout the nation. Extra victims got here ahead, however the group additionally confronted a big backlash, together with private threats.
“We had been accused of creating up tales and attempting to cancel [the man], but the one ones who’ve been canceled are the survivors,” Tanja Ísfjörð stated.
The person was dropped from the line-up of a significant cultural occasion in Iceland and alleges he suffered skilled penalties following the accusations. He has denied wrongdoing and threatened to sue the group for damages. He has not been charged with any crime. CNN has repeatedly reached out to him for remark, however didn’t hear again.
The ‘appropriate approach’ will not be working
The backlash towards Iceland’s #MeToo motion was one of many issues that sparked the lawsuit towards the federal government.
“With #MeToo, ladies at the moment are popping out and naming the boys who raped them, even when they have not pressed fees towards them, and many individuals are like: ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can not do it like this, it’s important to do it the appropriate approach,'” Guðjónsdóttir instructed CNN.
“There’s a number of stress on survivors to do the ‘appropriate factor’ and press fees and attempt to have the perpetrator convicted, however the ‘proper approach’ is not working, the overwhelming majority of instances, they do not even make it to the choose. So they do not get any judgment on whether or not the perpetrator is responsible or not. It is only a mess,” she stated.
It’s going to seemingly take a number of years for the European Courtroom of Human Rights to succeed in a choice on the lawsuit. In the meantime, Árnadóttir’s wrestle goes on.
She says she has been identified with put up traumatic stress dysfunction (PTSD), needed to take day off from work, and nonetheless generally finds it troublesome to cope with on a regular basis duties. She blames her psychological well being issues on the judicial system, which she says has failed her.
“The Icelandic authorities acknowledges errors within the investigation of the case, leading to its dismissal, because of the statute of limitation,” Fjalar Sigurðarson, the data officer at Icelandic Ministry of Justice, instructed CNN in an announcement.
He stated the rationale for the delay within the investigation was “uncertainty” about which fees to convey and added that “having instances lapse within the care of the police could be very unusual in prison procedures in Iceland.”
“This goes to indicate that the case was taken severely throughout the judicial system,” Sigurðarson stated.
Árnadóttir has poured all her vitality into changing into an activist, talking up about her expertise and getting the eye of a few of Iceland’s high officers. As a regulation skilled herself, she has spoken about her case to the Minister of Justice, pushing for reforms.
There’s a momentum increase for reform — and for Árnadóttir, that is what issues probably the most. “I’ve a daughter, I’ve mates, I do not need anyone to should undergo what I did,” she stated. “We have to change the system.”
Correction: This story has been up to date to make clear the findings of an Icelandic survey which discovered that 40% of girls within the nation had been subjected to bodily or sexual violence, whatever the perpetrator’s id.
