Training to prevent sexual assault halves risk of rape on campus: study | Reuters
▻http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/06/12/us-usa-women-rape-idINKBN0OS1WT20150612
Training female college students to recognize and fend off unwanted sexual advances can halve the risk of rape, experts said following a trial program in Canada.
The risk of rape for first-year students who took the 12-hour training course was about 5 percent versus nearly 10 percent for a control group who were given brochures and brief information sessions instead.
The risk of attempted rape was even lower, 3.4 percent, compared to 9.3 percent for students who didn’t receive training, according to the study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“What this means in practical terms is that enrolling 22 women in the ... resistance program would prevent one additional rape from occurring,” said Charlene Senn, author of the study and a professor at Windsor University in Canada.
She added that nine out of 10 sexual attacks on campuses were by someone known to the victim.
Almost 900 students took part in the two-year trial at three Canadian universities.
Students in the non-control group were given four sessions on assessing the risk of assault and learning self-defense techniques — both verbal and physical.
A study last month found sexual violence on U.S. campuses had hit “epidemic levels” with more than 18 percent of female students at one university reporting rapes or attempted rapes in their first year.