Women must remember that defending themselves is their responsibility

Startling Stats

• In fiscal year 1995­1996, Pennsylvania Rape Crisis Center personnel spent more than 252,000 hours working with sexual violence victims and their significant others.

• In 1995, there were 2,964 rapes reported to Pennsylvania police.

• In Pennsylvania, children between the ages of 6 and 11 account for 30.5 percent of rape crisis center clients.





MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT RAPE



MISCONCEPTION: Rape is not an act of impulse.



REALITY: Rape crisis centers report that more than half the rapes are planned.



MISCONCEPTION: Rape is an act of sex.



REALITY: Rape has nothing to do with sex. Rape is a way to express control and anger.



MISCONCEPTION: Women provoke rapes.



REALITY: No one has the right to assume by the way someone dresses or looks that they want their body and their mind to be violated for a lifetime.



MISCONCEPTION: Women feel that it’s their fault.



REALITY: This is the most horrendous crime that can happen to women. No one provokes or commits a crime against herself. Rape is a crime against women.







KEY POINTS TO SURVIVAL

In order to successfully escape a rape attack, women must know how to protect themselves from actual positions that they would be forced into a real rape attack. An enlightening, true statistic is that 85 percent of women who immediately resist an attack, escape a rape attack without the use of a weapon. It is imperative that when a female victim decides to use her physical self-defense skills that she attack full force to vital areas of the body and not surrender under any circumstances until she is safe. She must be vicious and lethal is dealing with her animalistic assailant. Following are some key points in surviving a vicious and life threatening rape attack:


• Breathe. Relax. Think as best you can.

• Go for the three main areas of the eyes, throat and groin. If your opponent cannot see or breathe, this will pro­vide you precious time to escape.

• Your best defense is your mind. After that, it is an all out fight.

• Trust your instincts.

• Do not stop when injured; you must persevere until you are safe.

• Do not look or act like a victim.

• Watch your assailant's eyes and hands.

• Never underestimate your attacker.

• Keep in mind that a weapon is only as good as the per­son using it and the accessibility to it.

• Use anything and everything against your attacker. Bite, poke, elbow, kick, knee, scratch, rip and gouge... every and all parts of his anatomy.