WHAT IS “RAPE”? EXAMINING THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF “TRUTH” ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT

Abstract

Social work and law are two major discourses in Singaporean society that stake a claim to truth about sexual assault. Based on interviews with survivors, social workers, police officers, lawyers and judges, this thesis compares the values, methods and truth-claims of social work and law, seeking to understand why they arrive at different conclusions regarding what rape is. Firstly, I argue that social workers value victims’ subjectivity whereas the law values empirical objectivity, and that this leads them to different evidentiary criteria for determining truth. Secondly, I argue that differing value-orientations lead social work and law to define rape differently. This is because social work has higher standards regarding what counts as valid consent, whereas the law has higher criteria for what is considered sufficient evidence to convict. Finally, I argue that bias and ignorance amongst legal professionals results in the invisibilisation and traumatisation of rape survivors, whose voices become excluded from the legal construction of truth about rape. This thesis argues that in order to do justice to rape survivors, current legal discourse can afford to incorporate some of the values and insights of social work, without compromising on evidentiary rigour and due process.