Hennessy said the changes were brought in because survivors previously didn’t have a clear way to navigate court bans designed to protect their identities.
This is a weaselly cop-out of some magnitude, IMO. Other nations manage easily enough. It's called waiving your right to anonymity, which is an option open to anyone who has been the victim of a sexual violation. The situation in Victoria is another matter entirely: this is a wholesale silencing of those voices to protect the men responsible. What other motivation could there be?
When people do this - whether on a sinister state-sanctioned level or on Twitter, where victims are often told to be silent, that they're lying, or that they're jumping on 'The Bandwagon' - the only question raised is what these people have to gain from keeping the situation entirely as it is. It reveals a great deal about them, and it adds insult to fucking injury for the victims.
It's a disgrace that InvisibleDragon can't speak openly about her position. I've spoken openly of my situation on Twitter, under my real identity, in the hope of helping others in a similar situation. But I can't name my rapists (there were more than one and it occurred as one incident), for the simple reason that like many other rapists they were never convicted. It would have been two people's word against one, and they humiliated me to the point that I was afraid others would find out about it, rather than them (as it should have been) feeling afraid to be held responsible.
I was told by my own father that because I never reported them, if they did this to someone else it would be my fault. The victim blaming here and elsewhere - starting from within my own household - is another reason why so many women speak out.
It does not make us any the less victims of rape, and it doesn't make the scumbags who attacked me any the less rapists. And if we're silenced, it doesn't hold out much hope that this situation will ever change for the victims of the future.