A company in the UK offering rape testing kits faces widespread criticism – but shouldn’t we ask why it exists at all?

A poster outside James Allen’s girls’ school, in response to reports of rape culture being prevalent at nearby Dulwich College, London, 23 March 2021. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Two years ago, Katie White set up Enough, which distributes self-swabbing rape kits. These are DIY kits that people who believe they have been raped or sexually assaulted can use at home by collecting DNA and posting it to a private laboratory for analysis.

White was responding to a few stark facts about sexual violence in England and Wales: of more than 70,000 rapes reported to police in 2021-22, only 2,223 resulted in charges. The number of reports was only a fraction of rapes anyway: 83% of survivors choose not to go to the police.