Seven years later, an 11-year-old rape victim in the UK is slut shamed all over again

In 2006, it was reported that an 11-year-old girl named Tressa Middleton was raped and impregnated by a 15-year-old boy while she was drunk. The above screenshot of The Daily Mail's coverage of the story which, despite being seven years old, went viral this morning for some reason, demonstrates the worst kind of media slut shaming. And now that it is being spread via social media, it has opened the door for renewed slut shaming.

In 2006, Tressa gave birth and the baby was adopted. And then it was revealed in 2010 that the pregnancy had been the result of repeated rape by her own brother, Jason Middleton, who was 16 at the time. In a demonstration of heart-breaking bravery, Tressa had endured the slut shaming for years before coming forward about the incest, because as she said, "It would be a nightmare for my family if the truth came out."

This all went down years ago. But since it has come to the forefront again, let's look at the slut shaming in the original Daily Mail story. Rather than focusing on the fact that Tressa was raped, they went with the headline, "Girl, 11, will be Britain's youngest mother" and opened with, "The girl smokes 20 cigarettes a day despite being eight months pregnant. She conceived aged 11 when she lost her virginity to a boy of 15 on a drunken night out with friends."

Oh, she "lost her virginity"? And why inform readers about her smoking habits before even getting to the part about how she was raped? It is not until the second paragraph that we learn, "The 15-year-old has since been charged with rape by police, and is due to appear again at Edinburgh sheriff court on July 10." And that's it. That is the one sentence in this entire article mentioning that this pregnancy resulted from a rape. In fact, the Daily Mail refused to refer to what happened as rape, instead erroneously reporting that the girl "had unprotected sex with the teenage boy... while drunk last August."

This morning, Twitter has been abuzz with this seven-year-old "news" as if it were recent, and readers have clearly picked up on the spin the Daily Mail put on the story. Some examples of the slut shaming:

How can her mother be proud of daughter who is 11 and pregnant and is a hoe slut whore sket bag?!

— ADXM (@AdamOsman95) November 24, 2013

if my daughter came home at 11 years old and told me she was pregnant.. it's unexplainable what I'd do. that's fucking dirty

— ams ☯ (@amylivings) November 24, 2013

how are u an 11 year old and ur pregnant u drink and u smoke 20 cigarettes a day like fucking seriously u just left fucking primary school

— 【☆TROUBLEMAKER☆】 (@cockjuseyo) November 24, 2013

Instead of taking the resurfacing of this story as a chance to shame an incest victim all over again, let's use it as an opportunity to examine the power that the media has to shape our perspectives. The Daily Mail's original report was not only incorrect, it was focused on the young girl's supposed character flaws instead of the crime that had taken place. The slut shaming was wrong in any case, but the truth that eventually came out demonstrated clearly just how wrong we can be when we blame young victims.