Rape victims' pursuit of justice fraught with fear
Victims reluctant to report offenders because of the traumatic criminal process, and proposed law reforms won't make it much easier for them
Daisy looks and sounds no different to hundreds of thousands of other housewives across Hong Kong.
But buried deep in the soul of this woman in her 60s is the recollection of the dread she spent sleeping next to a husband who frequently raped her.
"He forced me into sex with him, regardless of how I felt," she says, her voice shaking as tears well in her eyes. "Sometimes, he even waved two kitchen knives at me when he wanted it."
Despite describing herself as a "prisoner" for each of the first five years she spent with her husband after coming to Hong Kong from the mainland, Daisy (not her real name) dared not call the police.
"He threatened me," she says. "He said he could simply kill me without anyone knowing."
While she has been able to escape her personal hell with the help of a women's group, she never reported her husband to police, and has never seen justice done. In that, she's far from alone. The majority of sex-crime victims never tell the police. Only about half of such reports result in a case going to court. And, in all but one of the past 12 years, the majority of rape cases that have been tried by courts resulted in acquittal.
Help was supposed to arrive by way of a long-delayed review of sex offences legislation by the Law Reform Commission, now subject to a public consultation exercise ending on Thursday.