Rape Statistics

[bluesjnr]

I received one of these "send it to 5 friend type" of e-mails today from my father. Normally I bin them but if they are from family I always make a point of looking at it in case it comes up in conversation.

This one was themed on child abuse and rape. Don't ask me I don't know?

The mail stated a number of stats, one of which is that worldwide, 1 in 3 women will suffer rape or sexual assault. That stat holds true for USA.

I decided to check this out and came across this report and this one which gives some world stats.

Here is an excerpt that offers some harrowing statistics

It is estimated that worldwide, one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. In a randomly selected study of nearly 1,200 ninth-grade students in Geneva, Switzerland, 20 percent of girls revealed they had experienced at least one incident of physical sexual abuse. According to the 2005 multi-country study on domestic violence undertaken by the WHO, between 10 and 12 percent of women in Peru, Samoa and Tanzania have suffered sexual violence by non-partners after the age of 15. Other population-based studies reveal that 11.6 percent of women in Canada reported sexual violence by a non-partner in their lifetime, and between 10 and 20 percent of women in New Zealand and Australia have experienced various forms of sexual violence from non-partners, including unwanted sexual touching, attempted rape and rape.

Frankly, I'm staggered particularly when you factor in the number of unreported cases. I wonder what your thoughts are? Do these claimed figures shock and surprise you?

 

[MG1962]

I would be cautious about the figures till I saw what the study as rape. That aside, any level of rape in society is simply unacceptable

 

[casebro]

I guess any unwanted touch is considered a 'sexual assault'.

Teens boys have been known to "steal a kiss", or even "cop a feel" in semi-privacy. Is even putting your hand on your date's knee an assault? Playing footsie? I guess that could be a major clump of the stats?

Anybody else think zero tolerance is a stupid policy?

 

[foxholeatheist]

Yeah... Any form of ass-grabbing is considered sexual assault at least in the Armed Forces. I suppose that's fairly common but I still think it's an awfully big leap to go from a slap on the ass to full on rape.

 

[Cainkane1]

I received one of these "send it to 5 friend type" of e-mails today from my father. Normally I bin them but if they are from family I always make a point of looking at it in case it comes up in conversation.

This one was themed on child abuse and rape. Don't ask me I don't know?

The mail stated a number of stats, one of which is that worldwide, 1 in 3 women will suffer rape or sexual assault. That stat holds true for USA.

I decided to check this out and came across this report and this one which gives some world stats.

Here is an excerpt that offers some harrowing statistics




Frankly, I'm staggered particularly when you factor in the number of unreported cases. I wonder what your thoughts are? Do these claimed figures shock and surprise you?

Replace shock with disgust. Thats the way I feel about the sexual abuse of women or anyone else for that matter.

 

[Information Analyst]

The problem with this sort of thing is when you get "X out of Y women with suffer rape, attempted rape, soemthing else, or another thing," but it headlines as just "rape." Even I've been "groped" on the London Underground a few times, but I didn't end up behaving like Peter griffin in the "prostate examination" episode of Family Guy*!

 

[Sunray Breaker]

That is a pretty sad statistic.

I know three close friends that have some pretty horrific rape stories. These poor girls just sort of zone out and become fixated on that tramatic memory, when they start to talk about it. But it seems the talking helps. It shocks me to know that all 3 of those girls, we're raped before they we're even 14 years old. It enrages me to hear about.

That being said, I most certainly disagree with a zero tolerance policy. That's the kind of madness that has gotten little 7 year old kids, trying to kiss girls in school, suspended or expelled for sexual assault. It's rare but it happens. And zero tolerance is usually the cause.

I wonder how many men would admit to having raped in one way or another, if they could do so without the threat of incarceration or shame...That'd be an interesting statistic as well. Because there's some relatively normal looking pervs out there, that have probably gotten away with some pretty ugly things that no one will ever know about. That's sad.

 

[bluesjnr]

Thanks for your opinions up to this point. I'm still confused as some of you seem to be saying that the figures may be skewed by sexual assault reports and not actual rape. I'm assuming that rape for the current respondents means non consensual penetrative sex so that leaves us with sexual assault.

Foxholeatheist Yeah... Any form of ass-grabbing is considered sexual assault at least in the Armed Forces. I suppose that's fairly common but I still think it's an awfully big leap to go from a slap on the ass to full on rape.

FHA - Are you saying that a degree of "ass-grabbing" should be tolerated and it should not constitute sexual assault? I can't tell from your reply.

Casebro & IA you both seem to be making a similar claim that what you deem to be harmless actions get reported thus skewing the figures.

I suppose I need to reframe my initial question. Are you shocked or disgusted or surprised by these figures or do you not believe them?

In all honesty how many of you even glanced at the reports? I don't mean this in a bad way I'm just curious. There is information on male rape also.

 

[brodski]

Casebro & IA you both seem to be making a similar claim that what you deem to be harmless actions get reported thus skewing the figures.

I think that is slightly unfair, what they seem to be saying is that less harmful or less sever forms of sexual assault skew the figures.

this is not to say that any form of unwanted sexual touching is acceptable, but some forms are much much worse than others.

I would go on to say that to group them all sexual assaults together like this would be as ridiculous as to group together all assaults and murders together and report that one in three people worldwide has been assaulted or murdered (I suspect hat figure to be much much higher actually). It tells us nothing about the scope or scale of the issue.

 

[Delvo]

The problem with this sort of thing is when you get "X out of Y women with suffer rape, attempted rape, soemthing else, or another thing," but it headlines as just "rape."

When I first went to college, a video about date rape was shown to a bunch of us. Every single story in the video was about a girl/woman choosing to have sex and then regretting it and thinking it was a bad mistake later. That was called rape.

 

[bluesjnr]

Brodski,

If you read the first line of the quote I provided in the OP you will see it relates to rape or attempted rape only. So it is 1 in 5 women according to the report. This claims that 20% of the worlds female population has been raped or the victim of attempted rape.

 

[bluesjnr]

Double post - can this be removed?

 

[brodski]

here is a link to the full text of the BMJ published paper on child sexual abuse in Geniva.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full...FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT

here are it's key findings

The prevalence of sexual abuse involving physical contact was 20.4% among girls and 3.3% among boys; the prevalence of abuse involving some form of penetration was 5.6% among girls and 1.1% among boys

Half of the children reporting sexual abuse expe- rienced the first event before the age of 12; in one third of cases the abuser was an adolescent

Table 1.1 gives some good information on the categories of sexual assault included and the methodology.

 

[bluesjnr]

When I first went to college, a video about date rape was shown to a bunch of us. Every single story in the video was about a girl/woman choosing to have sex and then regretting it and thinking it was a bad mistake later. That was called rape.

In law that would not classify as rape. If sex was consensual at the time then it isn't rape. Can you recall the name of this video, it seems entirely misleading to me?

 

[brodski]

Brodski,

If you read the first line of the quote I provided in the OP you will see it relates to rape or attempted rape only. So it is 1 in 5 women according to the report. This claims that 20% of the worlds female population has been raped or the victim of attempted rape.

In that case the report missrepesents teh research, which I have linked above.

Although the 1 in 5 suffer are or attempted rape is not from the Geneva research it is from a comment made at a conference- no supporting data is made available from the source you cite.

It's juxtaposition with the 20% figure from the Geneva research seems to indicate that the Geneva research supports this claim- it does not.

 

[bluesjnr]

here is a link to the full text of the BMJ published paper on child sexual abuse in Geniva.

With respect that report is too limited as it only takes into account Geneva and I don't know if we can conflate the detail in table 1.1 to my referenced worldwide report.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

The British Crime Survey defines sexual assault as someone using threats, violence or intimidation to force, or try to force you to do something sexual against your will. They still come up with about 1 in 10 who have been sexually victimised, but state it is probably an underestimate for methodological reasons.

 

[brodski]

With respect that report is too limited as it only takes into account Geneva and I don't know if we can conflate the detail in table 1.1 to my referenced worldwide report.

But your worldwide report does not provide any evidence whatsoever for the one in five claim- it was a remark made at a conference, the proceedings of which do not seem to have been made available on-line. Putting this (as yet) unsubstantiated claim next to a well evidenced (but different) claim which happens to have produced a 1 in 5 number as well make same suspicious- if the Geneva data are not relevant why does your worldwide report refer to them?

Do you have any data to back up the 20% rape or attempted rape claim?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I wonder how many men would admit to having raped in one way or another, if they could do so without the threat of incarceration or shame...That'd be an interesting statistic as well. Because there's some relatively normal looking pervs out there, that have probably gotten away with some pretty ugly things that no one will ever know about. That's sad.

I haven't read the study myself, but...

But arguably the most distressing statistics came from a study conducted at the University of California in 1980. A group of men was read a story in which a woman politely refuses a man's offer of a lift home. Enraged by this perceived rejection, the man holds a knife to her throat and proceeds to full intercourse, the victim protesting wildly throughout the attack. Asked, after hearing this account (which studiously avoided the word "rape"), whether they might behave similarly, 17 per cent of respondents said yes, while 51 per cent agreed there was some likelihood that they would, but only - and this is key - if they could be sure they would get away with it. The results of this study, and many others like it, should have been enough to make us seriously reconsider our view of rape. Even if we apply a dose of healthy scepticism to the results (in some of the surveys the boys were very young; they had been exposed to pornography before questioning; it was a few decades ago, and attitudes may well have changed) they remain very difficult to explain away entirely. Here was almost 70 per cent of a sample of young men stating that, under the right circumstances, they would be tempted to rape.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200509260024

 

[bluesjnr]

Brodski

You misunderstand my intent. I am not here to back up any claimed figures. I presented them and stated that I was surprised. I want to stimulate discussion.