Column: Awareness able to combat sexual assault

By Valerie Lewis     4/17/08 7:00pm

Two minutes. In the United States, someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, sexual assault includes "rape, attempted rape and other violent felonies that fall short of rape." Want a figure that includes only rape? Eight minutes. In the United States, someone is raped every eight minutes. RAINN defines rape as "forced vaginal, oral or anal penetration." These statistics include women as well as men - one in six American women and one in 33 American men are survivors of attempted or completed rape.How are these figures so huge? It is predicted that 6 out of 10 rapes are never reported to the police. According to RAINN, even if a rape is reported, there is only a 50.8 percent chance of an arrest. If an arrest is made, there is only an 80 percent chance the rapist will be prosecuted. If he or she is prosecuted, there is only a 58 percent chance of conviction. Finally, if that conviction happens to be a felony conviction, there is a 69 percent chance the rapist will serve jail time. What does all this mean? Only six percent of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. The rest walk free.

How is this relevant to our Rice University bubble? College age women are four times more likely to be raped than any other age group. Within the last school year, 9.2 percent of undergraduate students across the country were sexually assaulted and 1.1 percent of students were raped. In the last Sex at Rice survey, 10.6 percent of the 922 male and female Rice University students polled said they have in their "lifetime been forced to engage in a sexual act against [their] will or when [they] were unable to provide consent (i.e., asleep, passed out, drunk)" with "sexual act" being defined as "oral, anal, or vaginal penetration with an object, i.e., penis, finger, tongue or a foreign object." Additionally, 4.2 percent of the same pool answered yes to having "been forced to engage in a sexual act against [their] will or when [they] were unable to provide consent [in the past academic year]," and 75.7 percent of those assaults "occur[red] on the Rice campus."

Now, what exactly do all of these statistics tell us? Sexual assault is an epidemic that is affecting your country, your school and your life in a very big way. What can you do to help? Learn more about rape and sexual assault. Next fall, Rice is offering a very powerful course, University Courses 219: Survey of Sexual Violence, which will cover topics such as dating violence, sexual harassment, stalking and rape.

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Get involved. Students Organized Against Rape and the College Assistance Peer Program will be combining efforts, funds and members next fall. SOAR will exist as a subcommittee under CAPP. You can help by volunteering, attending and participating in its campaigns against sexual violence such as the Night of Decadence carts, Walking the Campus, T-Shirt Campaigns and spreading the word and educating yourself about the startling statistics which affect everyone around you. Volunteer at the Houston Area Women's Center to help survivors. Learn what resources are available on campus and in the greater Houston community to survivors of sexual violence should you ever need the information for yourself or a friend or family member. Together, we can make great strides to end sexual victimization of men and women.

Valerie Lewis is a Jones College senior.

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