08 January 2024 , 17:33
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Calls have been made for a disgusting t-shirt bearing the slogan 'Eat, Sleep, Rape, Repeat' to be removed from a clothing site.
The vile shirt was spotted on the site Viral Style sparking revulsion amongst campaigners. Despite fury back in 2015 about the shirt after it was spotted worn by a reveller at Coachella Festival, it remains for sale on several similar US-based sites.
An image posted on X, formerly Twitter, by a woman in the Republic of Ireland last month meanwhile shows a man wearing the shirt in an airport, prompting widespread shock and disgust. Brit campaigner Caroline Voaden has now been petitioning for the shirt to be removed from one of the websites, accusing the firm of "shameful" profiting off rape culture.
The Florida-based site, meanwhile, has since confirmed it was removing the design, which they said had been uploaded by a third party user.
The T-shirt has been fiercely criticisedMs Voaden, who was formerly a CEO of charity Devon Rape Crisis, wrote on Change.org "We are calling on ViralStyle.com to immediately withdraw from sale all versions of the T-shirt which says ‘Eat, Sleep, Rape, Repeat’. This slogan is offensive, misogynistic and dangerous.
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"One in four women in the UK will be a victim of rape or sexual assault. One in six children are victims of sexual assault (Rape Crisis England & Wales). These crimes have a lifelong impact on the victims. To see people walking around in a T-shirt that implies it is an everyday occurrence of no importance is obscene.
"To market, promote and make profit out of the sale of this ‘design’ is shameful." "Whoever came up with this 'design' should be utterly ashamed," the campaigner added.
The shirt was being sold on the site for £18.16, with the company also offering customers hoodies, vests and sweatshirts bearing the sick slogan which appears to pun off the Fatboy Slim song, Eat Sleep Rave Repeat. A spokesperson for the site has since confirmed: "We are immediately taking it down and banning the user that created it."
More than 68,000 rapes were reported to police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2023, data shows, a small drop from the year prior when reports hit a record high. However, prosecution rates for the crime remain startlingly low while Ministry of Justice data obtained by The Guardian last year shows the backlog of rape cases currently going through the court system has more than tripled in four years to record levels. Victims in more than 2,000 cases are currently waiting for their cases to be dealt with.
- Anyone who has been a victim of rape or sexual violence can contact Rape Crisis England & Wales on 0808 500 2222.