Dragged by car, horrifically injured, Renee Valentine re-victimized by media |Opinion
Hannah Estabrook has been a clinician in the mental health field for over 17 years and has specialized in providing direct services to survivors of human trafficking. Her work with survivors has included the settings of the criminal justice system as well as the streets through Sanctuary Night, where she currently serves as executive director.
“The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up and bear along with her.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter"
Women involved in prostitution continue to wear the “scarlet letter” of their sins, even after suffering the most horrific victimization.
Recently, a 53-year-old woman was hit by a car on the westside of Columbus, dragged for several blocks by said car, and left for dead.
A subsequent ABC6 News story reminds us how far we have to go when reporting on these tragedies.
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“Court records show the 53-year-old (Renee) Valentine had previously faced charges for soliciting in the same area as the hit-skip,” they said.
The victim of the horrific crime reported on is one of our beloved Sanctuary Night guests. We are glad that this story was told, as it is deeply concerning to us. However, we are also deeply concerned about the way in which the story was told.
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Renee Valentine was clearly a victim of crime, and yet ABC6 News deemed it necessary to display the mug shot of the victim and mention her prior criminal involvement.
Other than make the story a little sexier, what does this have to do with her experience of victimization?
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Unfortunately, this kind of reporting sends subliminal messages that the victim is somehow responsible for what happened to her. It’s classic, tale-as-old-as-time victim-blaming, and it’s unnecessary and unacceptable.
Truthfully, women in prostitution are at a significantly high risk for death by homicide. A study of solved serial murder cases in the United States between 1970 and 2009 indicated that 32% of the serial murder victims were prostituted women.
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For example, all 48 victims of the Green River Killer, Gary Leon Ridgway, were prostituted women. Ridgway explained: “I picked prostitutes as my victims because … I knew they would not be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught."
We should be deeply concerned about the continued normalization of victimization of women, including those involved in the sex trade.
Hannah Estabrook has been a clinician in the mental health field for over 17 years and has specialized in providing direct services to survivors of human trafficking. Her work with survivors has included the settings of the criminal justice system as well as the streets through Sanctuary Night, where she currently serves as executive director.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Opinion: Injured sex worker has right not to be victim-blamed by media
