Are DIY DNA testing kits the key to ending rape culture? It’s the premise at the heart of Enough, a controversy-stricken nonprofit that distributes these products across UK university campuses. “We want to help create a world without rape,” reads a bold tagline on their website—right under instructions on how to order a kit, report an incident of sexual violence, and recover from a traumatic assault. Yet, whether these kits can aid the mental recovery of victims or be used as admissible evidence in a court of law has been hotly debated.

Anyone who finds this concept and its criticisms familiar might recall the US healthcare company MeToo Kit, now called Leda Health, which faced similar backlash back in 2019.

Critics insist that these kits are nothing but cheap and potentially dangerous gimmicks that hurt survivors far more than it helps them. For this reason, SCREENSHOT decided to take a closer look at the disputed company, which claims to spearhead a “revolutionary form of reporting” rape.

“After moving back to the UK, I visited Bristol for the weekend and put up posters around the city asking, ‘Are you a survivor? Do you want to help end rape?’ During my time there, I engaged in detailed conversations with people about their experiences,” shared Enough co-founder Katie White.

“Although each story was unique, three themes consistently emerged: the desire for a simple, discreet way to take action without the formality of an official report, the need to confirm what happened and deter further abuse, and the pursuit of healing. This is what most survivors need. What we developed isn’t meant to replace the police; it’s meant to offer an option when there’s otherwise nothing available. From these conversations, we created Enough—the first survivor-centered solution to this problem.”

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This is enough to end rape. myenough.com for more info #enoughtoendrape

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Consent needs to be spoken about openly. We started the conversation, continue it with your friends and family. Thank you to Dismantle for fundraising and making this possible #enoughisenough #socialjustice #allyship #consent

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And so Enough’s DIY testing kits were born; small, orange packets with the company’s name on them  that serve as a symbolic reminder of our rape crisis, as well as the willingness of survivors and their allies to prevent new victims by distributing this resource.

Neither White nor her co-founder, British entrepreneur Tom Allchurch, are survivors themselves, as she clarified. However, they still understand the matter as personal one due to their close connections to many.

“This isn’t about choosing between using the kit and going to the police,” White stressed, responding to the frequent criticism that the kits serve as a replacement to professional forensic exams. “It’s about validation—letting survivors know that it’s okay if they don’t want to report officially. That’s their personal choice, and no one can tell them otherwise. But this kit gives them something they can do—something that helps them regain a sense of control after it was taken from them.”

The company’s clinical lead, Dr Maisie Johnstone, endorsed the kit’s role as a recovery tool and socio-psychological deterrent for abusers.

“For the individual, it’s well documented that trauma cannot be worked through unless it’s acknowledged. Having a kit—or even just knowing that a recovery service is available—ensures you engage in conversations and reflections that confirm something serious has happened,” Johnstone noted. “It’s a symbol of bravery, really, and a symbol of acknowledgement.”

She continued: “Additionally, it serves as a deterrent: the presence of these kits on campus speaks to the social psychology of shame and inclusion. When many people take a stand against sexual violence and challenge rape myths, anyone who opposes that effort becomes a threat to social inclusion.”

This ties into Enough’s larger vision: end rape culture by distributing these kits everywhere, making them inescapable reminders of the UK’s disturbingly high rates of sexual assault. The product is supposed to spark conversation about violence against women and expose everyone who opposes the company’s product and messaging as a threat to this urgent cause.

Yet, how usable these kits are—whether on their own or combined with a forensic exam—has been fervently debated and remains the root cause of the controversy surrounding the nonprofit.

“Having spent the last 30 years caring for people reporting rape and sexual assault, I use [the] phrase ‘The swab is not the job’,” Professor Catherine White, a forensic physician and Medical Director at the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, shared with SCREENSHOT.

“If a person self-swabs, this would throw doubt on the veracity of the results,” Professor White noted, highlighting the risk of contamination in a home environment. “And then if that person attended for a forensic medical examination afterwards, again, was the DNA only found on the high vaginal swab, because it had been introduced to that area by prior swabbing? […] A long-winded way of me saying, no, I don’t see the potential or opportunities for victims via these self-swabbing schemes.”

A lot of victims are apprehensive of professional exams because they can feel highly invasive, take several hours to carry out, and aren’t always immediately accessible. If a survivor decides to subject themselves to a the exam, it is advised not to shower, use the restroom, or change clothing.

“Victims often want to wash, clean their teeth, etc so it can be horrible for them to have to wait. Toxicology samples (urine and blood) are required quickly when there may be a possibility of drug-facilitated rape—something not offered in self-swabbing […]. Sexual Assault Referral Centres should have the capacity to see people quickly which would negate the need for the person to self-swab,” the medical professional maintained.

Notably, Professor White’s claims would exclude any possibility for cooperation with forensic testing and thus law enforcement—something Enough has been vying for—and reduce the product to a gimmick, besides from some therapeutic value. Or is it?

“It’s not instead of the police, it’s not instead of a sexual assault referral centre, it’s not instead of the university, it’s instead of doing nothing. The fears that we are going to detract people from reporting to the police are unfounded. The first line of our reporting page is, ‘If you are considering reporting to the police, you should do that.’ Go there first.” Enough’s co-founder Katie White stressed, emphasising once again that the company isn’t trying to replace the current way of rape testing.

“If you test with Enough, what you get is a frozen portion of DNA from the moment it happened, and you have a timestamp testimony,” White defended. “We’ve received legal advice that confirms, of course, something is better than nothing—having a frozen portion of DNA and a timestamped testimony is better than nothing.  That can only be of support to a case, especially the ability to see potential repeat perpetration.”

Yet, Dr Hannah Quirk, a Reader in Criminal Law at King’s College London was more sceptical of these claims when I confronted her with them via email. “In a lot of rape cases, the issue is not who the accused is or whether or not the couple had sex. The problem is did ‘A’ have a reasonable belief that ‘B’ was consenting—so DNA would not help with that.”

After consulting a barrister, Quirk became more steadfast in her opinion: “There would be discussions [before the trial] about what the complainant could say in front of the jury. If [the victim] knows who the accused is, the fact [they] took a DNA sample proves nothing and could be very prejudicial. If it helped the police identify a suspect, they would need other evidence to charge him.”

Still, Katie White doesn’t accept that her company is frequently tarnished to defend and uphold a system that is incredibly unsuccessful at delivering either care or justice.

“The critics often use the line about false hope, saying, ‘Oh, this won’t be admissible in court, and this is going to give false hope to survivors.’ It can be admissible, and the only thing giving survivors false hope today is the system that currently exists. Being told to report to a criminal justice system that delivers less than a one per cent conviction rate is false hope. To go through three to four years—on average—of a court case, have your life ripped apart on the stand, have everyone you love interrogated about how much you go out, how much you drink, and how much sex you have, only to have no justice and see your perpetrator walk free, that is false hope.”

This brings us back to how Enough sees itself and the novel avenue it provides: the company aims to give desperate and disillusioned survivors a sense of having done at least something to report the incident, which then lays a firmer basis for their recovery. Seeing these kits everywhere is not just a sign of constant threat but also one of community and shared hardship in a legal system that fails to protect and prosecute. They are the children with vigor and new ideas being shushed by the adults in the room, who seem unable to let go of a broken system.

And Enough’s confidence isn’t at all unfounded. Its social media pages are flooded with support from young adults, wanting the organisation to set up camps at their schools or campuses.

In fact, the nonprofit is already collaborating with The Hammond, a specialist performing arts school in Chester, to distribute its kits and spread its message about ending rape.

Still, this isn’t a David and Goliath story centering a scrappy startup, where the many issues around its acceptance can be reduced to a generational divide—our conversations with experts conclusively prove this.

My interview with Katie White revealed that, in principle, even she is open to acknowledging that this might not be the right solution to ending rape, despite the company’s firm and decisive marketing.

This leaves us with the saddening truth that survivors are ultimately left to carve out their own sense of peace and justice—an uncomfortable reminder that our society is decidedly failing at combating and reliably punishing rape. So how can we blame and criticise young people for looking at unconventional solutions? This might not be the answer, it might not even be a start, but for better or for worse, it’s something.