Silent Survivors and Their

Decisions
Why don’t women report sexual assault?
Jacqueline D. Cañez

Sexual assault affects an innumerable amount of women. In fact, sexual assault affects 1 in 5

women nationwide (Basile, Black, Breiding, Merrick, Smith, Stevens, Walters, 2011). However,

many women choose not to report it to the authorities, thus making sexual assault the most

underreported crime (Rennison, 2002). The purpose of this study is to investigate the decision-

making process of a female sexual assault victim. A personal interview with a female victim

reveals that self blame and fear of reprisal hinder a victim from reporting sexual assault.

Key words: sexual assault, rape, underreported, female victim

It has been 27 years since Rose arrived to California. She came from Mexicali, a city in

Mexico, at the age of 15. In Mexico, Rose had a harsh childhood. Rose always had to walk to

school, which was a couple miles away. Her parents, born and raised in Mexico, were very strict

and conformed with the ideals of Mexican culture. Petrified of what her father and mother may

say about her decisions, Rose always complied to their rules.

At the age of 10, Rose’s innocence was taken by her own uncle. Her ‘uncle’ sexually

assaulted her, and from that day out Rose’s perspective of life had changed. Rose’s sexual

assault story is not uncommon, since approximately eight out of ten sexual assault cases the

victim knew the perpetrator (Cohen, Miller, Wiersema, 1996). Furthermore, approximately 1 in
8 victims (12.5%) are raped by a family member (Basile, Black, Breiding, Merrick, Smith,

Stevens, Walters, 2011). Emotionally distraught, Rose kept it all to herself. At the moment where

she needed guidance and support, Rose felt alone. Guilt and fear filled a child’s soul, and only

built over time as she chose to withhold reporting to the authorities.

It is uncommon amongst female victims to disclose their sexual assault experience.

About 63% of rape cases are not reported, making it the most underreported crime (Rennison,

2002). It is unknown as to why the victims decide to keep silent. It was this silence and high

percentage that encouraged me to investigate the decision of a silent sexual assault victim.

Literature Review
Rose’s experience and decision to withhold her story are an example of an ongoing crisis

that is happening worldwide. In fact, 91% of sexual assault victims are female (Rennison, 2002).

Of these females, approximately one in four girls are assaulted by the age of 18 (Finkelhor,

Hotaling, Lewis, Smith, 1990), and 12.3% are sexually assaulted by the age of 10 or younger

(Basile, Black, Breiding, Merrick, Smith, Stevens, Walters, 2011). Rose falls within all of these

percentages, for she was merely 10 years old when she was sexually assaulted. Much like Rose,

there is an increasingly high number of women who are sexually assaulted at least once during

their lifetime, yet many don’t report it to the authorities.

These percentages are extremely high, which is very unfortunate. However, what is far

more unfortunate is the fact that many of these victims do not receive justice (Lorenz, 2017).

More women are being victimized, and many do not disclose their story. Victims often do not

report their experiences, and the factors vary as to why they do not report. Underreporting of

sexual assault has become a major issue in today’s society, and for this reason I sought out to

identify why Rose decided to not disclose her story about sexual assault.
 Method
Data Collection

My research goal was to collect data to understand more clearly the processes used by

victims to make their decisions. Since the point of the study was to focus on a victim’s

perspective and decision for not reporting, I conducted a semi-structured interview. The

interview was held over Facetime and was recorded.

Before beginning the interview, I assured the victim that everything was confidential. I

stated that a pseudonym, Rose, would be given, as well as that if she felt uncomfortable at any

moment she may choose to stop. After doing so, I began asking the interview questions, taking

breaks in between to allow the victim to respond in depth without feeling pressured.

Data Analysis

Sexual violence is a very complex issue, which cannot be examined through only one

type of data. The integration of qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches is thus

the best way to study such complicated matter (Lorenz, 2017). Hence, my strategy for organizing

and interpreting the data was based on the Triangulation Design. Triangulation Design involves

both quantitative (statistics) and qualitative (interviews) data. It corroborates both types of data,

and ultimately seeks convergence (Johnson, Schooenenboom, 2017). Although I did not do any

quantitative research, I did use statistics from other resources. The results from both qualitative
and quantitative are analyzed and interpreted. A conceptual model for this methodology is shown

in the figure below.

QuQuantitative Qualitative
Method Method
(Survey, Stats) (Interviews)

Interpretation of
quantitative &
qualitative
results

(Johnson, Schooenenboom, 2017).

Findings

How Rose Formed her Decision

This narrative began as the victim, Rose, disclosed her rape story and reflected upon her

decision-making process. Her process was complex, thus various features were examined

throughout the narrative. The features included: parental constraints and self-blame which all

shaped Rose’s decision. Asking my interviwee questions revealed the reasoning behind staying

silent. The following paragraphs describe what I found.

At the age of 10 Rose was sexually assaulted by her uncle. She was only 10 years old,

thus was very afraid and confused. For many years Rose blamed herself, and felt as if she
provoked the sexual assault. This affected her relationship with her husband a lot. Rose always

worried that her husband just wanted her for one the thing, the same thing.

A couple years afterward Rose told her mother and husband, but she never mentioned

who had assaulted her. She was afraid that if she told the police her father would eventually find

out and he WOULD have done something to her ‘uncle.’ Rose was very afraid that her father

would end up in jail for life if she ever told him that she was sexually assaulted.

Rose’s underlying fear about her parents doing something that would cause them to go to

jail hindered her decision to report. Afraid of what her father would do, Rose stayed silent. She

became a silent survivor with deep sorrow. Aside from the fear, Rose blamed herself for what

had happened. Feeling as if she had provoked the assault, Rose avoided disclosing her sexual

assault story to the police.

Rose’s sexual assault story is one of many. Rape affects nearly 22 million women in the

United States (Basile, Black, Breiding, Merrick, Smith, Stevens, Walters, 2011). This does not

imply that we should ignore the stories of these victims. Many victims feel ashamed for what

occurred, and never come forth with their story. Their stories remain unheard and many factors

come into play. Such factors are often: self-blame, and fear of reprisal.

Like Rose, many rape victims tend to self-blame (Snow, 1994). Female victims often

agonize over past actions, and review their roles in the scenario with a self-incriminate view

(Snow, 1994). They try to justify their beliefs that they were to blame for what had happened.

Alongside self-blame is fear of reprisal, or the act of retaliation. Rose hesitated to

disclose her sexually assault because of her father. She feared that her father would retaliate, and

ultimately end up in jail. Reprisal is often a reason why women choose not to report the crime. In

fact, a study done by the U.S. Department of Justice found that 16.3% of female victims feared
reprisal (Rennison, 2002). Both fear of reprisal and self-blame are two substantial reasons why

rape and sexual assault are underreported.

Conclusion
Investigating a female victim’s decision making process opened the possibility for

exploring how individuals formed decisions while taking into consideration various factors. This

study helped gain insight as to why so many women do not report their sexual assault

experience. The study was particularly useful for showing how self-blame and reprisal play a

major role in the underreporting of sexual assault.

Sexual assault is largely underreported. As mentioned, 63% of rape cases are never

reported (Rennison, 2002). Despite the limitations, such as victims not wanting to disclose their

stories, it’s crucial to understand that the reasoning behind the underreporting is simply fear of

reprisal and self-blame. Understanding these reasons may help us identify what actions can be

taken to help sexual assault victims receive justice. Millions of women are affected by sexual

assault, and as scholars and members of society we should investigate how we can support these

women.

Future Research

As the amount of sexual assaults and rapes increase, we should be wondering how we can

minimize this major issue. We should be asking ourselves what can we do as citizens and

scholars that will help these women. This underlying question can be the basis of future research.

Perhaps one can research why women blame themselves after being assaulted. Answering such

questions offer implications that can help improve victims’ reporting experiences.
 Cited Literature
Black, M. C., Basile, K. C., Breiding, M. J., Smith, S .G., Walters, M. L., Merrick, M. T.,

Stevens, M. R. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey

(NISVS): 2010 summary report. Retrieved from the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control:

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

Burke Johnson, Judith Schooeneboom. “Home - PMC - NCBI.” National Center for

Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 5 July 2017,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/.

Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I. A., Smith, C. (1990). Sexual abuse in a national survey

of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics and risk factors. Child Abuse &

Neglect 14, 19-28. doi:10.1016/0145-2134(90)90077-7

Lorenz, K. (2017). Reporting Sexual Assault to the Police: Victim Experiences and the Potential

for Procedural Justice. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10027/22170

Miller, T. R., Cohen, M. A., Wiersema, B. (1996). Victim costs and consequences: A new look

(NCJ 155282). Retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice

Programs, National Institute of Justice: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/victcost.pdf

Rennison, C. M. (2002). Rape and sexual assault: Reporting to police and medical attention,

1992-2000 [NCJ 194530]. Retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of

Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics:

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsarp00.pdf

Snow, N. (1994). Self-Blame and Blame of Rape Victims. Public Affairs Quarterly, 8(4),

377-393. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40435895