Watch your drink – date rape awareness campaign shocks Polish youth

As Poland becomes more and more like its neighbours in western Europe, problems which were only thought to be found in the older EU member states are now making their way to Poland. One such issue is date rape, which is often caused by spiking drinks, causing the victim to fall unconscious and vulnerable to sexual abuse. A new campaign is under way to make Polish youths more conscious of what date rape is and how to avoid becoming its victim.

Poland’s cultural capital also has a darker side. It’s not just all churches and museums: the city’s tens of thousands of students must also have a place to go and let off their steam come the weekend. Yet not everyone gets home safely after partying the night away in any one of Kraków’s multitude of clubs. Date rape is becoming an ever-increasing problem and an unwelcome element in the city’s clubbing scene. The only problem is, however, no-one knows how many people have been drugged, as Magda Petryniak from the Manko Association in Kraków says:

“We actually don’t know the numbers of people being poisoned with this drug, because it’s unofficial. Police in Kraków don’t give any numbers and actually this drug makes people lose their memory, their consciousness, and that’s why the numbers are very difficult to estimate.”

Although continuing efforts by the local police in Kraków have had some effect on bringing down the number of drugs entering the scene, still not everyone knows what the real threats are.

“We believe that this problem is not known by young people who go to parties, to clubs. But we know the danger. In December in Kraków last year, Kraków police caught a drug dealer was distributed these ‘club drugs’ so we think it’s a big problem and young people don’t know about this drug. After a few minutes or hours, you don’t know what’s going on with you, you may be a victim of rape or some other kind of threat.”

The drug is so cunning that it is almost impossible to detect, with no colour change or smell. I spoke to a victim of the drug, who chose to remain anonymous.

So you’ve been a victim of this date rape drug. Can you tell me as far as you can remember, what was it like, what happened?

“I was at a big party in a club in Kraków, I was having a lot of fun, there were many people and many friends, but I met one man who I think put something in my beer because the next day I was totally sick and I don’t remember anything that happened that night. I left my beer at the bar to go and dance. After half an hour he gave me my beer and after that I don’t really remember anything. I remember only that in the morning my friends took me home and I was really sick.”

And do you think people in Kraków or around Poland are conscious of the dangers of this date rape drug?

“I’m not sure if they are, probably not.”

The Manko Association in Kraków is in charge of promoting awareness of date rape drugs and drink spiking, and has started a campaign to try and avoid situations like the one previously described. Łukasz Salwarowski from the Association explains:

“We want to cooperate with owners of restaurants, bars and cafés, and motivate them to be conscious also, because it’s a common problem for the owner and for the client, because if you an owner of a club, you don’t want to have this problem in your pub.’

The Association also wants to promote the use of testers to check for any unwanted substances.

‘We are not going to produce them and we are not going to sell them, but we’ll be promoting these methods to check your drink and we’ll be promoting the pubs where you can get or buy a tester.”

Poland has to wake up to the threat of date rape, and hopefully this campaign is a first step in the right direction to make young Polish clubbers aware of some very real dangers when out on the town.