Important Facts and Statistics
The statistics below show how dating and sexual violence affect college students.
Click on the asterisk to see the citation.
20-25% of women will be sexually assaulted or experience a sexual assault attempt while in college.*
Nearly 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted or experience an attempted sexual assault while in college.*
90% of sexual assault victims know their attacker. *
95% of sexual assaults are not reported to law enforcement agencies.*
42% of college women who are raped tell NO ONE about the assault.*
Rape is reported to crisis hotlines 10 times more than to law enforcement agencies.*
52% of women report knowing a friend who has experienced relationship abuse and/or violence.*
58% of students would not know how to help if they knew someone had been victimized.*
13% of women are stalked during the academic year.*
42% of women who are raped expect to be raped again.*
LGBT college students are at a greater risk of sexual assault than heterosexual college students.*
Young women between 16 – 24 years experience the highest rates of intimate partner violence, nearly three times the overall average. *
While perpetrators can be male or female, the vast majority, 98%, of perpetrators are male./p>
Sadly, many women experience sexual violence more than once in their lifetimes. Over a third of women who were raped as minors were also raped as adults.
Certain populations are at higher vulnerability for sexually assault, including people with disabilities, the LGBT community, and the homeless.
Recent studies have found that people with disabilities are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
While 1.6% of heterosexual men have been raped in adulthood, 13.2% of bisexual men and 11.6% of gay men experience sexual assault as an adult. While 13% of lesbians and 17% of heterosexual women have been raped, 46% of bisexual women have. Transgender individuals have high rates of sexual assault as well, with 25% of transgender individuals experiencing sexual assault after the age of 13.
- It has been found that 13% of homeless women experience sexual assault each year, compared to the national average of 1% per year.
Suicide attempts are higher among victims of sexual assault than non-victims.
Campus sexual assault has unique characteristics:
- Of men on campus who admitted to attempting or committing rape, the majority are repeat offenders. 63% stated they had committed an average of 6 rapes each.
- College sexual assault victims suffer from higher levels of mental health problems, drug use, and alcohol abuse.
- There are severely low reporting rates among college victims, as only 12% on average report the sexual assault to law enforcement.
- 5/33
