Press Room

“Data issued today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that rape and sexual assault remain serious, widespread problems in this country, and the vast majority of victims are women. The new data finds that there were more than 160,000 rapes and sexual assaults in the United States last year – and we know the problem is much greater, as this is a crime that has always been both underreported and undercounted.

The new research also shows that the greatest disparity between violent crimes committed against males and females in 2008 was intimate partner violence. Current or former spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends were responsible for nearly one in four incidents of violent crime committed against females (23 percent), and three percent of violent crimes committed against males. Intimate partners were responsible for nearly one in five rapes and sexual assaults (18 percent) committed against females over age 12 last year.

While the overall decline in violent crime, including rape and sexual assault, from 1999 to 2008 is encouraging, it remains a pervasive problem. We must do much more to stop this violence, and focus on young women, age 16 to 24, who continue to suffer the highest rates of rape and sexual assault. It is indisputable that there is a vast, unmet need to prevent teen dating violence.

We have identified violence prevention programs that help stop domestic and sexual violence, and services that are effective in protecting victims. But we aren’t taking those programs to scale and implementing them as widely as we should. In fact, in some ways we are going backward. California Governor Schwarzenegger recently eliminated the state’s Domestic Violence Program, domestic and sexual violence programs around the country are in danger of being cut or eliminated by state legislatures, and Congress has yet to fully fund the Violence Against Women Act. If we want to continue the progress of the last decade, that must change.”

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The Family Violence Prevention Fund works to end violence against women and children around the world, because every person has the right to live free of violence. More information is available at www.endabuse.org. The Family Violence Prevention Fund, in partnership with the Advertising Council and the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence against Women, launched a national public service advertising campaign - That's Not Cool - designed to helps teens recognize digital dating abuse and take steps to prevent it earlier this year. More information is available at www.thatsnotcool.com.