Can't We Change This?

What is it:

Sexual abuse is unwanted sexual behaviour, or sexual behaviour without consent. Such as touching, feeling, rape, etc. Sexual harassment is unwanted sexual attention. Sexual abuse is about power, the victim has lack of power and the perpetrator abuses them to gain power.



Who:

15% of sexual assaults and rape victims are under the age of 12. 29% are 12-17 years old. 44% are under 18 years old. 80% are under 30. 12-34 years of age are the highest risk years. 7% of girls in grade 5-8 and 12% of girls in 9-12 says sexual abuse has occurred in their life. 3% of boys grades 5-8 and 5% of boys grades 9-12 said they were sexually abused. In 1995 child protection service agencies identified 126, 000 children victims of substantiated or indicated sexual abuse. 75% of that was girls. Nearly 30% of that were child victims ages 4-7. In Canada 39% of woman have faced an incident with sexual abuse.(1993) Canadian studies show that 53% of females were sexually abused as children, and 31% of males were sexually abused as children.



Statistics:

  In 1993 Canada had the second highest rate for sexual abuse.   In a lot of cases with sexual abuse the perpetrator tries to gain or already hast the power over the victim such as if you are sleeping, drugged, comatose. Why victims/survivors may not open up about this fear, dependency, conflicting emotions, age or developmental stage they may be too young to understand, feeling powerless. All non-consensual sexual relations is a criminal offence regardless of the age. Only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.



Foundations/organizations:

Some foundations and organizations are Joyful Heart Foundation (Founded by Mariska Hargitay) RAINN (Rape, Incest, National Network) (founded by Scott Berkowitz) Mariska Hargitay started the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2002, she has a role as Detective Olivia Benson On...