No one thinks when they are accepted into college that they may become a statistic. No one thinks it will happen to them, but 1 in 5 women have been which means you probably know more than one victim of sexual assault if it isn’t yourself.

Why is it that rape has been happening for quite some time yet society has a way of brushing it off? Eliana Dockterman stated in her article, "Party Culture No Longer Excuses Rape on College Campuses," that in America forced sex with someone you know- a friend, a boyfriend, someone you met at a party- wasn’t even really considered rape until the mid-1980s, after a landmark study found that 1 in 4 college women said they’d been sexually assaulted. Now that statistic has recently gone to 1 in 5 which many of you know. This is still incredibly alarming especially since less than 5% of completed or attempted rapes were ever even reported to law enforcement. So there has to be more that aren’t even accounted for.

I don’t blame them either for not reporting the rapes. It isn’t like they are handled correctly by their schools or the justice system. Many victims are afraid that the police will not believe them, or afraid of what people may think. Many colleges have zero rapes reported, but this is a little odd. Laura L. Dunn, founder and executive director of the advocacy group SurvJustice says, “Any time you have a zero, it is not an indicator of safety. It is an indicator of comfort in reporting.” Many colleges even go out of their way to cover up rapes to keep their safety statistic at a good number.

Women tend not to report rapes due to the fact that the interrogation process usually makes them feel like they are the suspects. For example, they asked the Stanford University rape victim the following questions after Brock Turner raped her behind a dumpster while she was unconscious: Have you ever drank before? Would you say you’re a heavy drinker? What were you wearing? Did you flirt with him? These questions have nothing to do with prosecuting a rapist.

Not only are victims being persecuted, but rape kits are on backlog. This pretty much means that the evidence they take from the rape victim’s body may actually never see a courtroom. There are 10’s of thousands of these rape kits on backlog, and they are decades old. Decades-old rape cases that will never be brought to justice, victims who will never see justice, the deserving criminal never seeing the inside of a jail cell.

Rape is serious, and it shouldn't be taken lightly. These things shouldn't just become a big deal because of your mother, sister, or daughter. Sexual assault should already be a big deal because people do not deserve to have something taken from them without consent.