In 2009 Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to recognize April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, codifying a campaign, which has been observed since the nineties.
The month is a time to focus on methods of prevention and the problem of underreporting.
The Albany County SAFE Project is a local crisis and prevention center that, last year, helped 612 residents of Laramie struggling with sexual assault or domestic violence issues.
“We want to teach young people about what healthy sexuality looks like and breaking down assumptions about what hooking up looks like,” Becca Fisher, executive director of SAFE, said. “We believe strongly that the victim is never responsible for sexual assault. The only thing they did wrong, if anything, was had the bad luck to be in the vicinity of a rapist.”
“Nearly two-thirds of college students experience sexual harassment and less than 10 percent of these students tell a college or university employee,” according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC).
The STOP Violence Program at UW aims to prevent stalking and sexual and relationship violence and estimates that rates of sexual assault in Laramie are no worse than the national average. Project Coordinator Megan Selheim said it is difficult to know exactly how widespread the problem is on campus because so many sexual assaults go unreported.
“There is a lot of stigma around sexual assault,” Selheim said. “There are people who have an idea of what sexual assault looks like but that idea is limited. People are familiar with the idea of a stranger hiding out in the bushes, but are less familiar with date-rape situations where the two people know each other.”
Situations like the one outlined by Selheim represent the overwhelming majority. According to the NSVRC, “Among college women, nine out of 10 victims of sexual assault knew the person who sexually assaulted them.”
Fisher said these perpetrators would often use alcohol or other means to take advantage of their victims.
“We know that it’s a small percentage of men who are committing rapes over and over again,” she said. “These are serial perpetrators looking for vulnerable individuals and they’re using purposeful tactics.”
Fisher said SAFE wants to empower bystanders to intervene when they see a situation like this occurring because the best way to prevent sexual assault is to identify it.
Selheim said victims often fear they will not be believed or that their partner might retaliate against them and that this fear keeps some individuals from seeking help.
“A lot of times, sexual assault will happen in intimate relationships,” Selheim said. “The victim will know it wasn’t okay and that they didn’t like it but they don’t know it’s possible to be assaulted by a dating partner.”
Fisher said victims sometimes blame themselves.
“Sometimes people think, ‘Oh if I had only not had those drinks…’ or ‘If I had only not been wearing that…’ or ‘If I had only not gone to that party…’ or ‘If I had not led them on then maybe that wouldn’t have happened.’” Fisher said. “They think they’re partially responsible.”
This is the mentality that both SAFE and STOP want to abolish.
Last year the Laramie Police Department received 16 calls that were labeled “sexual assault.” The UW Police Department received three. The Albany County Sheriff’s Department received 12. Ivinson Memorial Hospital admitted 26 sexual assault patients, eight of whom were under the age of 18.
