It is estimated that one in every six women in US is raped in her lifetime, but a study reveals that only 18% of adult and 11% of child assault are reported. Primary reason for assaults not being reported seems to be the guilt associated with the crime and embarrassment in some cases as well.

A study reveals that most women don’t share about the assault with anyone including their friends or parents. Some don’t tell because they want to forget about it and wish to continue forward, while some have unknown fears that they don’t wish to disclose.

Although, there is no exact measure on the number of cases that happen, there is however some data on the percentage of cases reported in different scenario. Survivor’s relationship with the offender has deep relationship with reporting of assault.

It is found that when the offender is an intimate partner or is a former intimate partner of the survivor, approximately 25% of the cases are reported. When the offender is a friend or an acquaintance, around 18- 40% cases are reported. When the offender is a stranger, around 40-65% cases are reported. 

Although with movements like ‘me too’ have encouraged many more women to come forward and report cases of assault on them, still lot of work needs to be done and women need to be assured about full support from the family, friends, society and government officials so that they can accumulate enough strength and guts to come forward and report the crime.

There can be multitude of reasons for women not to come forward and report sexual assault on them. Some of the reasons are discussed for educational purposes you could check them here.

 Shame and embarrassment:

Since we live in a patriarchal society where men rule and govern the world order, women who face the trauma of being sexually assaulted often feel ashamed of themselves and embarrassed to even share about their trauma with friends and family.

In most cases women often feel the guilt for crime by finding fault with themselves regarding their dressing or actions that have led to the crime or feel embarrassed that crime has happened to them and how would they be able to tell their family or friends about it.

Fear of police harassment:

It has come out in study that where women have reported their cases to police authorities, instead of helping the women, police have actually mocked them and harassed them to the limit of taking back their complaint.

There have also been cases where the police have in fact taken advantage of the already assaulted woman to re-assault her. In some cases, police have not taken action against the offender because they just don’t want to look for an unknown offender or the offender is a high-profile person.

Don’t want to get entangled in law:

 Sexual assault cases are often time and resource consuming cases and most women when sexually assaulted become vulnerable and under confident. They are in such a trauma that they just want to remain silent and within themselves. 

Law is a big challenge for most women because they don’t have knowledge of law and fear that if they report about the assault, they would get entangled in the rules of law and face public shame and no justice for a very long time.

Not enough proof:

In cases where the woman is assaulted by a stranger, it becomes very difficult for her to find out details and identity of the person who has committed the crime. Secondly, in many cases these days people assault women after drugging her with substances that often erase her memory about the details. Therefore, she has very limited or no proof about the identity and details of the offender.

Personal matter:

Sometimes women don’t report sexual assault to the police or anyone because it is a personal matter between her and the offender. It could be that both of them had a relationship and the offender took advantage of the relationship to commit the crime. Or the woman and the offender had previously been in a relationship that went awry and the offender committed the crime.

Sometimes, the offender is a close relative of the woman offended and she is under pressure from the offender or she has no clue on how to disclose the offender to police or family.

Fear of Reprisal:

In a study it was found that most sexual assaults were committed on working women. Sometimes, the offender is known to her and she does not report the case to the authorities for sheer fear of reprisal from the offender.

Hundreds of offices related sexual assault cases are reported every year but these are a very small proportion of the actual cases committed. In most cases women are not so aggressive and fearless to come forward and report sexual assault case against her boss for sheer fear of loss of job or seniority.