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“According to the 2011 study, which surveyed 14,155 people, an estimated 19.3 percent of women and 1.7 percent of men said they had been raped. An estimated 43.9 percent of women and 23.4 percent of men said they suffered some other form of sexual violence. Just to reiterate, for anyone who doubts that sexual assault is a serious, ubiquitous problem in our culture: nearly half of women and a quarter of men endure unwanted sexual contact or sexual coercion in their lifetimes. That’s fucking horrific.
And, across different races and ethnicities, the proportion of women who report being raped is distressingly high: an estimated 32.3 percent of multiracial women, 27.5 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native women, 21.2 percent of non-Hispanic black women, 20.5 percent of non-Hispanic white women, and 13.6 percent of Hispanic women say they’ve been raped.
“A substantial proportion of U.S. female and male adults have experienced some form of sexual violence, stalking, or intimate partner violence at least once during their lifetimes,” the CDC report concludes. “Consistent with previous studies, the overall pattern of results suggest that women, in particular, are heavily impacted over their lifetime.””
– Jezebel, CDC Study: 1 in 5 Women in the United States Have Been Raped.
“The majority of victims of all types of sexual violence knew their perpetrators. About 60 percent of women who experienced alcohol or drug-facilitated rape were victimised by an acquaintance, the report found.
Universities are failing to address cases sufficiently, said Berkowitz. More than 40 percent of 440 colleges surveyed hadn’t investigated a sexual assault in the past five years, according to a July report by Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat.
Multiracial women were the most affected by sexual violence, with 32 percent raped at some point in their lives, the survey found. That compares with 28 percent of American Indian or Alaska Native women, 21 percent of black women, 21 percent of non-Hispanic white women and 14 percent of Hispanic women.
“Although previous research has suggested explanations for elevated rates of violence among American Indian/Alaska Native women,” including “elevated poverty, social and geographic isolation, and a higher likelihood of alcohol use by the perpetrator, little is known about why multiracial women are at greater risk for these forms of violence,” the authors of the report wrote.
Better research into the prevalence and nature of sexual violence is needed, said Berkowitz, as it affects public policy. For instance, understanding the extent to which incidents are criminal in nature could influence the role the government and law enforcement.
“I’d give us a B minus,” he said. “We’ve made a lot of progress, but there’s still hundreds of thousands of crimes that occur every year, so we’ve got a substantial way to go.””
– Timaru Herald, One in five US women have been raped.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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