Last week, a female student reported she was sexually assaulted near the Quad on Oct. 7.
While we don’t have many details of this incident, the fact that she reported it to the police sets it apart from most other campus-related sexual assaults.
One in five women and one in 16 men are sexual assaulted in college, according to National Sexual Violence Resource Center. That means based off of current enrollment numbers 3,566 students attending class have been or will be sexually assaulted before they graduate. But only 28 sexual assaults have been reported to Auburn University in the last four years, according to the University Department of Public Safety. That is appalling.
There can be a long list of reasons why individuals choose not to report sexual assaults, but we believe there are two things we, as a culture, can do to help prevent assaults from going unreported.
The first thing we can do is to raise awareness and make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what exactly sexual assault means. While this may be an obvious solution, it is critical.
According to the United States Department of Justice’s website, “Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.”
Furthermore, the blame should not be placed on the survivor, but this is all too common in our society.
Though in most sexual assault cases the victim is female, our beliefs hold true for males well.
Too often we hear “she brought it on herself,” in response to an assault.
Females are constantly advised not to drink too much or to go places alone, particularly after dark, because “someone might take advantage of you.” If a girl wears what could be considered revealing clothing, then automatically, “she was asking for it.”
Even if a woman is wearing revealing clothing or walking alone at night, it is disturbing that in today’s times, women are often advised to take precautions that males aren’t, because if they don’t then some people believe it’s partially their fault if they become a victim of sexual assault.
People don’t come forward for many personal reasons, but one of those reasons is the fear that they will be blamed for one of the most traumatic things that will ever happened to them. The only way to change this is to change the culture, and culture can only happen through public discourse and awareness.
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