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Esbeidi Reynel
Senior Inquiry
Ms.Yonamine
Research Paper
4/19/2016
Let's Take Action On Rape And Sexsual Assualt

All over the world rape and sexsual assault exsist, and all over the world men and
women suffer from this and it's time to for a change a change for justice and support for
these people. Rape and sexsual assult is something that happens any where, any time
and to anybody, it's something we can't control because it's unpredictable. On average
there is 293,066 victims of rape and sexsual assult each year and it's crazy seeing
these results and thinking about the pain many people have gone through. These two
problems are not just any problems it's a problem where people have died and have
long term effects that stay with them for the rest of their lives. Also every 107 seconds,
another American is sexsualy asulted and is suffering many but many long term effects
that may last for ever. Three of the most long term effects are pregnancy, suicide and
trauma effects that happens to the victims after being raped or sexsually harased by
someone. I ask myself how much longer are these problems going to keep on
happening, how many more people have died so people around the whole world can
realize and take action to this nightmare for many
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people who have been through this and most importantly to prevent this from happening
to other victims. In this paper you will learn and find solutions to rape and sexsual asult
that many people suffer from and I will focus more on the three long term affects that
rape causes which are pregnancy, trauma and suicide attempts.

I believe pregnancy is something beautiful and that it's the best gift god can give you
but when it comes from a unexpected behavior it's hard for the victims to have special
feelings towards their creation. Pregnancy is one of the most serious and important
effects rape or sexsual assult can cause. According to Rape- Related Pregnancy there
is 32,101 estimated pregnancies results from rape each year and the national rape
related pregnancy rate is 5.0% among victims (Holmes MM). This rape data is
ridiculous, seeing how many women go through this face in their life and the pain is
extremely sad and disappointing because you realize people cant feel compassion
towards these victims. Also Rape- Related Pregnancy confirms that Only 11.7% of
these victims received immediate medical attention after the assault, and 47.1%
received no medical attention related to the rape. A total 32.4% of these victims did not
discover they were pregnant until they had already entered the second trimester; 32.2%
opted to keep the infant whereas 50% underwent abortion and 5.9% placed the infant
for adoption; an additional 11.8% had spontaneous abortion. When you see these
result you can tell the lack of support victims receive from people, organization,
government and hospitals give to them. In the article Wars Impact on Children Born of
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Rape and Sexual Exploitation: Physical, Economic and Psychosocial Dimensions by
R.Charli Carpenter tells us that According to anecdotal reports and available evidence,

these war babies often face stigma, discrimination, abandonment and even infanticide
as infants ( Carpenter). So not only do women suffer but the kids do too and these
problems make it hard for the mother and child to forget or heal from the rape. We have
to take action by helping those womens instead of insulting them, criticizing and giving
them our backs. We need to give them a hand and support them especially us as
women who can relate to many things.

A second effect is that victims commit suicide after actually taking in and internalizing
what they had just experience in their life. One major thing we should keep in mind is
that suicide attempts can happen years after the rape because it's a memory that is
hard to forget. Some of the effects are deppresion, stress disorder, sexsuall trasmitted
infections, body memories, and flashbacks. All these six effects can cause a person to
commit suicide because it's a lot of pressure for them to handle, the pressure of being
pointed at and the pressure of a low self esteem and so many other things that goes
through the head of a victim that they will only understand. According to Kevin Caruso
he gives us data about the victim deaths and who are the ones who are most affected
by this problem. About 33% of rape victims have suicidal thoughts and about 13% of
rape victims will attempt suicide ( Caruso). Victims feels vulnerable and rejected by the
society because they are quick in judging people without knowing the whole story.
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People who have been through similar situations like these should speak up and tell
their stories so other people in a situation like this can feel that they are not alone and
that there's plenty of help out their.

According to American Academy of Experts In Traumatic Stress some of the trauma

symptoms are avoidance of being touched, low self esteem, a feeling of being dirty, lack
of concentration and so many other symptoms that we should be aware of. Trauma is
another big long term effect on victims after being raped. A lot of this symptoms are
pretty obvious to tell, so we need to take action and find different solutions or resource
to help the victims. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) means that it is a mental
health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event either experiencing it or
witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as
well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. A lot of victims suffer of PTSD because
it leads to a lot of different effects that makes it hard for them to be themselves once
again. In the journal Sexsual Violence, Bodily Pain, and Trauma by Joanna Bourke
says Injuries inflicted affect the health of the female; and such injuries may even cause
death. Such cases show the death, under such circumstances, may result early or
late in accordance with the immediate cause. Thus it may be due to shock, hemorrhage
sepsis, and to hemorrhages[sic] into the central nervous system ( Bourke). One
problem leads to another problem and one effect leads to another effect and is a cycle
with not end if we don't come together and help these people. Lastly in the article Giving
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Birth to a Rapists Child by Shauna R Prewitt says They may face specific health risks
due to the circumstances of their birth, and the psycho-social trauma of their mothers
may affect their early childhood development (Prewitt). She is pretty much saying that
women transmit their trauma affect to their children and then the children also suffer

from trauma affects early in their childhood. Its sad seeing an innocent baby suffering
from a tragic event that makes them the victim from all this.

The ones that suffer the most after being raped or sexually assaulted are women,
however men also suffer, there. There are 17.7 percent women victims who have been
raped or have been attempted raped in America. Something even more crazy is that
34.1 percent of the times it's an American Indian or Alaskan women who have the most
highet rate of raped. Furthermore the second highest rate is 24.4 mixed race women I
personally think it's ridiculous how much race has to do with this huge problem that
excites around the whole world. Rape and sexsually assult is a really serious topic to
talk about but we should be aware of this important problem so we could put an end to
this. Not doing anything and just seeing how people watch this happening is
disappointing because people tend to feel compassion to things when they have
experience or goona through a similar issue in their life. That's a true reality that is scary
because if people think like this then what will the world become in a couple of years. In
the Journal of Traumatic Stress by Nixon, Reginald said that Past research had
found that one-half or more of all women who have had an experience that might meet
the definition of rape
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do not label themselves rape victims. The present study examined the actual rape
experience of 33 women who labeled their assault experience as rape and 56 women
who did not label their assault as rape through questionnaires and open-ended
descriptions of what of what happened during their assaultb ( Reginald). This clearly

shows the lack of information people have and how not knowing this can lead into a
bigger problem.

In conclusion we should take this information and make changes so people can
know this for their own safety and so they can have a voice when it comes to
unfairness. Over all the voices that are missing here are the victims who have been
through rape and especially women since they are the ones with the highest rate of
rape in America. People in this world have a lot of power and voice therefore they
should use it to help out problems like this which many people suffer from. With one
step at a time and with one action per person we could make so many changes and all
it takes is time, committed and the willing to.

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Work Cited
Bourke, J. Sexual Violence, Bodily Pain, and Trauma: A History. Theory, Culture &
Society 29.3 (2012): 25-2. Web.23 May 2016.

Carpenter, R. Charli. "Wars Impact on Children Born of Rape and Sexual ..." Web. 23
May 2016.
Caruso, Kevin Rape Victims Prone to Suicide- Suicide.org. Rape Victims Prone to
Suicide- Suicide.org. Web.12 May 2016.
National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Web.
13 May 2016.
Nixon,Reginald D.V, Pallavi Nishith, and Patricia A. Resick. The Accumulative Effect Of
Trauma Exposure On Short -Term And Delayed Verbal Memory In A Treatmen- Seeking
Sample Of Femal Rpe Victims. Journal Of Traumatic Stress 17.1 (2004):31-35.
Psychology and Behavioral Science Collection. Web 11 May 2016.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Rape Survivors. Web. 11 May 2016.

Prewitt, Shauna R. "Giving Birth to a Rapists Child:A Discussion And Analysis ..." Web. 23
May 2016.