The Science of Rape Prevention

I was honestly really excited to read this new research study on the Efficacy of a Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women when it first came across my newsfeed earlier this month.

The study focuses on the prevention of a serious and widespread problem—sexual assault against female university students—and it was published by a team a researchers hailing from three Canadian campuses—the Universities of Windsor, Guelph, and Calgary—in the New England Journal of Medicine, which is a huge deal!

During the study, first-year female students recruited at all three universities were randomly assigned to participate in either the Sexual Assault Resistance Program—a four-session, 12-hour educational program providing information and teaching skills to “assess risk from acquaintances, overcome emotional barriers in acknowledging danger, and engage in effective verbal and physical self-defence”—or a single session providing access to brochures on sexual assault (to mimic the passive practice of providing information, for example in the waiting room of a health clinic on campus).

After one year of following both groups of female students, the researchers found that female students who participated in the educational program were less likely to have been raped or to have experienced a rape attempt than students who only participated in the single session. The researchers calculated that for every 22 female students who participated in the educational program, 1 rape was prevented.  As one of the few published rape prevention interventions to have been evaluated using a randomized controlled trial—the gold standard study design for proving cause and effect—and show positive results, the study was billed as a rare success.

However, while I really respect the researchers for the rigour of their study design and their program design, my main concern is with the narrowness of their approach. We need to stop rapists, not change who gets raped, argued The Guardian’s commentary—and I completely agree.

The most obvious weakness of the Sexual Assault Resistance Program is that, on its own, the program focuses only on potential victims, and ignores potential perpetrators of sexual violence—the male students also entering their first year of university. Our friend Elliot, who leads self-defence programs for girls and women in Toronto, often asks: “Even if every girl and woman in the world knew how to defend herself, why would we accept living in a world in which they had to?”

Educational programs are still very valuable, but in an ideal world, everyone would learn about consent, no university student would simply be handed a pamphlet of information on sexual assault, and the onus for preventing sexual violence would never rest with potential victims.

A comprehensive, public health approach to rape prevention could include a focus on bystander education and training, might identify factors in the physical design and the rules and policies of the spaces and institutions where we live, study, work, and play, and should definitely engage boys and men.

Sexual violence is truly a complex, widespread, public health problem. However, it is also a preventable public health problem. And as with most things, we need to start focusing on the root causes.

The other terrifying problem that this new study highlights? In the control group of female students who did not participate in the educational program, almost 1 in 10 reported they were raped and almost 4 in 10 reported they experienced nonconsensual sexual contact during their first year of university. This is the cost if we choose not to act.

— Jason