A UK study on pregnancy after rape: Little Ro’s reflections & contributions (part 3)

In my previous blogs, I wrote about why I undertook research into rape-pregnancy and the findings. In this post, I want to gently share the contribution of the Reflective Collaboration Group from Little Ro.

This post is written with survivors in mind. You are invited to read only what feels manageable, and you do not need to take anything from this unless it feels helpful to you.

As a reminder, my name is Hannah and I am a counsellor at SARSAS. As part of my Doctorate, I was required to design and complete an original research project. I chose to focus my research on the experiences of women in the UK who had given birth to, and were raising, a child conceived through rape. In this third post, I share contribution of the Reflective Collaboration Group from Little Ro.

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Why was a Reflective Collaboration Group needed?

It also feels important to be open about my position as a researcher.

My own experience as a SARSAS Counsellor shaped how I listened to and understood what participants shared, and in some ways helped me approach this research with care and sensitivity. At the same time, as a white researcher analysing the experiences of Black women, I was very aware of my limitations. Black women live at the intersection of multiple forms of oppression, including racism and sexism, and this is not something I have lived myself.

I held a real concern about the risk of misunderstanding, overlooking, or unintentionally speaking over aspects of participants’ experiences. It did not feel ethically right for me to analyse these accounts without meaningful input from Black voices. I was clear that I did not want to take ownership of Black women’s stories but instead wanted their experiences and interpretations to remain central.

Following conversations with my supervisory team, I explored ways to work more collaboratively. This led to working with Little Ro to create a Reflective Collaboration Group, allowing space for shared reflection and accountability within the research process.

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What is a Reflective Collaboration Group?

To ensure Black women’s experiences were understood with care and depth, I worked with a Reflective Collaboration Group (self-titled as The Sankofa Listening Project), created in partnership with Little Ro – a survivor‑led organisation that works to amplify the voices of Black survivors, raise awareness of trauma, and challenge harmful responses to abuse.

This group brought together Black women with lived experience of sexual violence, whose reflections helped highlight cultural, relational, and social meanings that might otherwise be missed.

Rather than changing the themes of the research, the group offered insight into how these experiences are lived, carried, and understood by Black women. Their reflections helped deepen the findings and name patterns that felt especially important.

What follows are some of the key insights they shared.

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Insights from the the Sankofa Listening Project

INSIGHT #1: Shame and isolation

The group highlighted how shame often operated as a way to protect family reputation but came at great personal cost to survivors. Shame frequently led to isolation and dependence, making it harder for women to seek help or feel supported. Self‑blame, guilt, and silence were not signs of weakness, but ways of surviving within families and communities that did not always offer safety.

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INSIGHT #2: Motherhood: love, fear, and limited choice

Motherhood was described as both deeply meaningful and deeply complicated. Women spoke about love and joy alongside fear, pressure, and coercion. Some faced resistance when considering abortion or adoption, while others worried constantly about their daughters’ safety and futures. Protectiveness was strong, but many felt unsure how best to shield their children from harm in a world they knew could be unsafe.

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INSIGHT #3: Disconnection and emotional suppression

The group noticed how many women coped by disconnecting. This disconnection manifested emotionally, physically, or both. Moving forward as if nothing had happened, delaying their own healing, or minimising their experiences were ways of functioning in the aftermath of trauma. The group also highlighted the importance of how stories were told, tone, language, and emotional distance, noting that trauma is not always expressed through visible distress.

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INSIGHT #4: Faith and community: support and control

Faith communities were described as both lifelines and constraints. Some women found safety, housing, emotional support, and meaning through their churches. Others experienced pressure to forgive, reconcile, or comply, sometimes at the expense of their own or their child’s safety. Church‑based support could bring comfort but could also limit access to independent therapy and deepen shame or self‑blame.

The Sankofa Listening Project also emphasised that these experiences are not all the same and cannot be understood in a single way. Drawing on their knowledge of Nigerian culture and faith, they highlighted how women’s experiences are shaped by specific regional, cultural, and spiritual contexts.

Their reflections helped to deepen understanding of how faith and community were experienced. The Sankofa team helped me to see that, as well as seeming supportive, these faith-based spaces can also carry expectations around behaviour, forgiveness, and decision‑making, which may feel restrictive or difficult for survivors.

They also helped me better understand the meaning behind certain words and expressions, showing how cultural language can hold deeper meanings that are not always immediately visible. This process highlighted the importance of listening closely and remaining open to perspectives beyond my own.

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INSIGHT #5: When systems repeat harm

The group reflected on how formal systems, families, services, institutions, often failed to protect survivors, or repeated the harm they had already experienced. Some women were silenced within their families to preserve reputation. Others expected not to be believed by professionals or felt unable to fully share their experiences with white therapists, leading to self‑censorship. These experiences reflected deeper patterns of systemic betrayal for Black women.

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INSIGHT #6: Survival reframed as “strength”

The group drew attention to how hardship, lack of choice, and sacrifice are often reframed as “strength” or resilience in Black women. Financial dependence, disrupted education, and constrained choices were sometimes celebrated as proof of coping, rather than recognised as signs of injustice. This connects to long‑standing ideas about the “strong Black woman” or “strong Black mother,” which can mask suffering and discourage care.

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INSIGHT #7: Youth, silence, and the adultification of Black girls

One of the strongest insights was the importance of age. Many of the women were still teenagers when they were raped and became pregnant. The group emphasised that they often lacked the language, space, or support to understand what had happened to them. Trauma was frequently unnamed or buried.

This was part of a wider pattern: Black girls are often denied innocence and protection, expected to carry responsibility and resilience far too early. What emerged was not just delayed healing, but the adultification of Black girlhood where they were being blamed for abuse, navigating broken systems alone, and becoming mothers while still growing themselves.

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Why these insights matter

The reflections from the Sankofa Listening Project largely echoed the themes that I identified, but they also sharpened and deepened them. Most importantly, they highlighted how race, age, gender, faith, and power intersect in shaping Black women’s experiences of rape‑pregnancy.

Their voices underscored that these experiences cannot be understood through individual coping alone. They are shaped by history, culture, and systems; and healing must be supported with that full context in mind.

Working with the Sankofa Listening Project changed how I thought about this research. It highlighted how easy it is to miss important meanings when experiences are viewed from just one perspective. Their involvement reinforced how essential it is to centre Black voices when exploring experiences of sexual violence, particularly where race is also a factor. This kind of collaboration should not be an afterthought, but a core part of how research like this is approached from the very beginning.

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A note from Little Ro

“We agreed to collaborate on this research because the subject matter is of deep importance. We wish to state clearly that white-led spaces and research are not automatically safe for Black survivors. Black survivors’ nervous systems are primed for heightened vigilance as a direct consequence of historical and ongoing racial exclusion and its traumatic impact. Our position is grounded in the lived experience of Black women, including members of the Sankofa Listening Project. We encourage Black survivors to seek out Black-led resources and spaces alongside any other forms of support.”.

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Accessing support

If you are reading this and recognise aspects of your own experience, please know that you are not alone we are here to listen, believe and support you.

The SARSAS helpline services offer confidential and anonymous support across Avon and Somerset for anyone who has experienced any kind of sexual violence or abuse at any time in their life. You can talk to us about anything and won’t be judged for your experiences and reactions.

I am mindful of the Little Ro’s encouragement for Black survivors to seek out Black-led spaces for support, and I wanted to include a few places where this support can be found:

• Nilaari – a black-led charity providing mental health assistance, to adults (18+) from racialised Communities (Bristol, North Somerset and South Glos.)
• Southall Black Sisters – a not-for-profit providing information, advice, advocacy, counselling and support to Black and minoritised women and children.
• Hersana – providing Black femme survivors with support, access to justice and holistic therapies around all forms of gender-based violence (England and Wales)
• Sistah Space – a specialist charity that supports African and Caribbean heritage women affected by domestic and sexual abuse (UK wide)
  
  

The full write up of my thesis is available on the UWE repository. However, I should warn you, it is quite long (60k words) and is also written in an academic style and for an academic audience, so care should be taken to protect your own wellbeing when reading.

For a more condensed version of my research findings, please listen to this podcast, Support needs of women having babies as a result of rape (recorded in March 2025).

This research was conducted with the support and input of Dr Jane Meyrick and Dr Zoe Thomas, both from University of the West of England, who were my academic supervisors.

You can read the other blogs in Hannah’s three-part series here:

• A UK study on rape pregnancy: shaping the research idea (part 1)
• A UK study on rape pregnancy: themes, insights & limitations (part 2)