In 2021, every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.
Only 25 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will be incarcerated.
When Tarana Burke started the Me Too movement in 2006, her goal was to reach survivors and help them heal. When the movement picked up speed in 2017, the intention of Alyssa Milano was to give people a sense of the magnitude of sexual harassment and assault.
Women in the military, especially, are speaking out forcefully against the ongoing sexual harassment and rape of women serving their country. In 2019 two U.S. senators revealed they had been raped: Martha McSally of Arizona when she was a combat pilot in the Air Force and Joni Ernst of Iowa when she was a college student.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois said that the military “has utterly failed at handling sexual assault through the Uniform Code of Military Justice process, and I will push for meaningful reforms.” She made that promise after a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing in March 2019 on sexual assault in the military. Duckworth served as commander of an assault helicopter company. She is the Senate’s first member to give birth in office, first Thai-American (and second Asian-American), and first female double amputee, her legs severely damaged when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during a 2004 Iraq War mission.
#MeToo has led to increased attention on sexual assault in America.
In 2020 in the United States,
Nine of every 10 rape victims are female.
One in 6 women and one in 33 men will be the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes.
Yet rape is the most under-reported crime.
Thirteen percent of women who are raped attempt suicide.
One in 9 girls and one in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or sexual assault by an adult.
College-age adults are at a higher risk of sexual assault.
Transgender students are at a higher risk of sexual violence.
Native Americans are at greatest risk of sexual assault.
Fewer than 3 in 10 victims report sexual assaults to the police.
Some 94 percent of women report significant short term- or long-term impacts from sexual assault, such as PTSD.
Go to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center for more information.