Perhaps you’ve never given it much thought.  You’ve heard the words used throughout the media and seen them written down in professional training courses; perhaps you’ve even used them yourself.

Numerous terms are used to describe children conceived through rape.  ‘Product’ (of rape) tends to be the most common word, then ‘Rapists Child’ or ‘Rape Baby’, are all names that are clumsily used to identify the fact that a child has been conceived and born as a result of sexual violence.  These terms are stigmatising, hurtful and linguistically thoughtless.  NowVisible’s campaign, ‘Language Without Stigma’, calls on institutions and services to stop using harmful and dehumanising language when referring to people born from rape and their mothers.

A child born from rape and an adult who knows they were born from rape should never be further labelled and stigmatised, and so we are asking professional bodies - including media, legal and police services, health and social care - to address the use of this language. To remove lazy terminology from their training tools and to be aware and sensitive in their use of language when they communicate about people born from rape.