April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I see raising awareness about sexual violence as the first step to preventing it on a systemic level. In other words, I believe our society could drastically reduce and nearly eliminate the presence of sexual violence if we truly decided to do it and put our resources into it. And I believe people will most often choose to work together to fix a major social problem like sexual violence when they are most aware of the problem.
Anyway, let me do a small part to help raise awareness by posting some quick statistics about sexual violence:
According to the latest U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, 272,350 sexual victimizations occur each year in the United States. That includes rape, attempted rape and sexual assault. But the survey’s figures do not include victimizations of people 12 years old and under.
Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime, according to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Approximately one million children enter the sex trade each year, according to UNICEF.
If you know any other useful statistics or facts about sexual violence, please post them as a comment.
Saturday, April 12th 2008 at 11:53 pm
Richard Payne,
I wouldn’t say that nobody pays attention to the males who get sexually assaulted. Generally speaking, I would say that our society does not pay enough attention to sexual assault, both of that which happens to females and that which happens to males.
Thanks,
Scott
Friday, April 11th 2008 at 7:16 am
If “April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month”, how ome nobody looks at the males who get sexually assaulted (by women) each year?