Expressing Sense Of House With Respect To Raising Awareness And Encouraging Prevention Of Sexual Assault

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EXPRESSING SENSE OF HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO RAISING AWARENESS AND ENCOURAGING PREVENTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT -- (House of Representatives - April 23, 2007)

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Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from Virginia for yielding to me.

As the sponsor of this legislation, I also want to thank the Democratic leadership for bringing it to the floor, because, Madam Speaker, sexual violence is an epidemic in this country, it is a threat to our public health and our public safety that demands our attention. One in six women and one in 33 men in the United States will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. This is the highest rate of any country publishing statistics on sexual assault. A woman is raped in this country every 2 1/2 minutes. We must do more to stop that. Responding to sexual assault must start with prevention.

The roots of sexual violence are cultural. A study of American high school students found that the majority of girls and three-quarters of boys thought that forced sex was acceptable under some circumstances, including when a woman had had past sexual experiences or when a boy spent a lot of money on the girl. Statistics like this make it tragically unsurprising that 70 percent of assaults are perpetrated by someone that is known by the victim.

Fifty-five percent of rapes, the majority of rapes, occur in the home of the victim or a friend, relative or acquaintance.

We must begin with prevention, because the consequences of sexual violence are so severe and because it is a crime whose impact is felt disproportionately by those least able to protect themselves: the young, the disabled, the impoverished. In addition to suffering the physical effects of these terrible acts of violence, a third of victims suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder, a third seriously consider suicide, and 13 percent actually attempt it. While we hope and work for a day when sexual violence might be eradicated completely from our society, we must also deal with the consequences of these crimes, working to provide assistance to victims and aggressively prosecuting offenders.

National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month is dedicated to increasing the public's understanding about sexual violence in our society. This effort can help communities support rape and sexual assault survivors, victims and their families, as well as the individuals and agencies that provide rape crisis intervention and prevention services throughout the year.

More than 1,000 rape crisis centers nationwide educate their communities about the prevention of sexual violence and provide services to victims. In Virginia, for example, these centers serve approximately 3,000 victims of rape every year. In my district, the SARA Program at the Alexandria Office on Women supports survivors throughout their healing process, through hotline counseling and support groups and innovative programs like ``Living Out Loud,'' a performing arts program for survivors of sexual violence looking to find new joy in life after recovering from rape or sexual assault. The person who founded that is an inspiration to everyone and brings back lives that have been so profoundly and adversely affected by this experience.

Madam Speaker, National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month is a chance for us to pause and consider the enormity of the impact of these crimes on our society and the status of our efforts to end it. I commend these public health, social services, and law enforcement professionals working in our communities to respond to sexual violence and those educators and advocates working to prevent it, and I encourage my colleagues to stand with us in rededicating ourselves to efforts to end these crimes on our streets, in our schools and in our lives.

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