The horrific crimes committed by Mohamed Al Fayed, the former Harrods owner, are back in the news again. We are now learning that one of his victims could have been as young as 13 and the number of women he could have raped could be in the hundreds.
The scale of this abuse is staggering but not shocking. Men like Al Fayed have been and are still getting away with. They are getting away with it because we are now in a situation where the sexual abuse of women and girls has become the norm. Convictions for rape are negligible and some might say non-existent. Reporting rape or sexual assault in some places is also non-existent because women have lost faith in the system.
It is grim to say but my friends and I have asked ourselves if we would report it if we were raped. Many of us say no. But we also know that in the rooms in which we have these conversations, one of us has been raped and not reported it because she saw how horrifically another was treated and is still not over the secondary trauma the rape trial subjected her to. And because of the trauma which so many of us have, when news like that about Mohammed Fayed breaks our group chats light up with message which we hope will in a way acknowledge the way these things are triggering. And triggered is what many women and girls in this country are — daily.
We are triggered in conference rooms when we might smell the aftershave of a man who hurt us. We are triggered when male friends who you love and respect talk more about so called “false” rape allegations rather than the fact their mate is a creep — or worse. So as historical as the crimes Al Fayed committed might be, the reality is that the consequences are very current.
Al Fayed was a monster but his actions were only possible because others helped
Al Fayed might be dead but many of those who enabled him are not. They and the tactics they used to keep victims quiet are still alive and well. As I write this today women are facing legal challenges or threats for calling out those who have abused them or others. The people who helped men like Al Fayed are today chipping away at what little dignity and mental health women who have been raped have. There is an army of lawyers, PR agents, family members and friends creating public images of great men for those whom, in private, they know to be nothing of the sort.
Harrods have distanced themselves from him, saying: “We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Fayed...the Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Fayed between 1985 and 2010.”
Al Fayed was a monster but his actions were only possible because others helped. We as a society helped. We have allowed men like him to think of themselves as above the law. We have allowed ourselves to believe that powerful men don’t do anything wrong and that it is always a witch hunt when they are accused of something. That has to change. As we rightly rage against the stories that are coming out about Al Fayed, let’s also rage against the system and society we are living in. And as we rage to create a safer world for women, let’s please do it together and for each other.
What I mean by that is that men and women are not enemies. I don’t believe that all men should be feared or will harm women, but some of you have harmed us for too long. So in your allyship in the movement to end sexual violence please give us grace when we might sometimes angry. We are and will be angry for years to come because we processing trauma.
But don’t give up on changing the world with us and please start that change today by believing every woman in your life, believe her when she tells you who hurt her no matter who he is to you and how she wants to handle it. Believe other women who come forward because ending sexual violence does start with men trusting women when they speak their truth. The other, greater changes we need to make will become easier when we start with a foundation of trust.
Nimco Ali is a London Standard columnist
