50 Facts: A Rape Reality Index

Soraya ChemalyGuest blog post: Soraya Chemaly is a feminist satarist and media critic. She is also an insightful and thought-provoking blogger whom I greatly respect and admire. I highly recommend following her on Twitter.

This excellent piece was originally published in far greater length and considerably more detail on The Huffington Post.

 

  1. Low estimate of the number of women , according to the Department of Justice, raped every year: 300,000
  2. High estimate of the number of women raped, according to the CDC: 1.3 million
  3. Percentage of rapes not reported: 54 percent
  4. A woman's chance of being raped in the U.S.: 1 in 5
  5. Chances that a raped woman conceives compared to one engaging in consensual sex: at least two times as likely
  6. Number of women in the US impregnated against their will each year in the U.S. as a result of rape: 32,000
  7. Number of states in which rapists can sue for custody and visitation: 31
  8. Chances that a woman's body "shuts that whole thing down": 0 in 3.2 billion
  9. Rank of U.S. in the world for rape: 13th
  10. A woman's chance of being raped in college: 1 in 4 or 5
  11. Chances that a Native American woman in the U.S. will be raped: 1 in 3
  12. Percentage of women in Alaska who have suffered sexual assault: 37 percent
  13. Number of rape kits untested by the Houston police force: 6,000-7,000 (Texas ranked second in nation for "forcible rape")
  14. Number of adult men accused of repeatedly gang raping 11-year-old girl in Texas: 14
  15. Quote in the New York Times regarding the rape: "They said she dressed older than her age."
  16. Age of woman raped in Central Park in September, 2012: 73
  17. Number of rape kits left untested in Detroit, listed by Forbes as one of two the most dangerous places for woman to live in the US: 11,303
  18. U.S. state in which, in September 2012, mentally disabled rape victim was required to provide evidence of her "kicking, biting, scratching" in objection to her rape: Connecticut
  19. State seeking to reduce childcare welfare benefits to women cannot provide proof of their pregnancy-causing rapes: Pennsylvannia
  20. Percentage of sexual assault and rape victims under the age of 12: 15 percent
  21. Percentage of men who have been raped: 3 percent
  22. Percentage of rapists who are never incarcerated: 97 perent
  23. Percentage of rapes that college students think are false claims: 50 percent
  24. Percentage of rapes that studies find are false claims: 2-8 percent
  25. Number of rapes reported in the military last year: 16,500
  26. Pentagon's estimated percentage of military assuaults not reported: 80-90 percent
  27. Percentage of military rape victims who were gang raped/raped more than once: 14%/20%
  28. Percentage of military rape victims that are men: 8-37 percent
  29. Percentage of military victims who get an "involuntarily" discharge compared to percentage of charged and accused who are discharged with honor: 90 percent involuntary to 80 percent with honor
  30. Chances an incarcerated person is raped in the U.S.: 1 in 10
  31. Increase in chance that LGTB prisoner is raped: 15x greater chance
  32. Number of men raped that could be counted as legally raped before the FBI changed its definition in December of 2011: 0
  33. Number of rapes noted in commonly used World War II statistics: 0
  34. Number of rapes of WWII concentration camp inmates: Untallied millions
  35. Number of rapes of German women by Russian soldiers at the end of WWII: between 1m and 2m
  36. Number of women raped in 1990s Bosnian conflict: 60,000+
  37. Number of women raped per hour in Congo during war: 48
  38. Country where 12 year old was forced to participate in the rape of his mother: U.S.
  39. Country where women are imprisoned for being raped: Afghanistan
  40. Age of Moroccan rape victim who committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist: 16
  41. Worldwide number of "child brides" under the age of 18 forced to marry every day: 25,000
  42. Ages of girls forced to marry a 59-year-old at the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry in Arkansas: 8, 14, 15
  43. Estimated number of people, primarily children, sexually abused by priests in the U.S. versus the number of senior Catholic officials found guilty of sexual abuse related crimes in the U.S.: 10,667 to 1
  44. Chances that a woman in the U.S. is raped versus gets breast cancer: 2 to 1
  45. Chances that a victim is "Emergency Raped" by a stranger versus percentage of victims who consider their rapes emergencies: 7 percent versus 100 percent
  46. Percentage of victims of rape who report the use of a weapon: 11 percent
  47. Prison sentences for four men found guilty of participating in gang rapes of two teenage girls in France over two years: one year, six months, suspended sentence
  48. State where in 2012 a doctor is facing the loss of her medical license for providing an abortion to a pregnant10-year old incest rape victim: Kansas
  49. Country where doctors (but not the rapist) were excommunicated for performing a life-saving abortion to nine-year-old incest rape victim: Brazil
  50. Country where major party's vice-presidential candidate wants to criminalize all abortions including rape-related ones, because rape is just "another method of conception": U.S.

Read the full article here.

Soraya Chemaly is a feminist starist and media critic. She is also an insightful and thought-provoking blogger whom I greatly respect and admire. I highly recommend following her on Twitter.

This excellent piece was originally published on The Huffington Post.

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