In the Czech Republic, the legal definition of rape requires the threat of violence. Campaigners say it is failing victims
“I felt so lost when I heard the court verdict; as if the fact that he raped me was somehow not enough,” said Jana Novak.
Novak, from Prague, pressed charges against her attacker in 2019 and endured an 18-month-long court case. “I had all the evidence, the creepy messages, the medical notes,” said Novak, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “But none of it was enough.” While the court found that there had been non-consensual sex, the defendant was acquitted on the basis that there was insufficient evidence it constituted rape.
