Abstract:
ABSTRACT
One in five collage women are victims of acquaintance rape during their academic career and less than 5% of collage women who are victims of sexual assault report their victimization The historically stable prevalence of non-campus sexual assault as well as consistently low rates of reporting point to the need for a collaborative process between the campus personnel that are charged with responding to reports of on-campus date rape or sexual assault. Through intensive questions from the respondent’s feedback, this qualitative study addressed the following issues about the emotional effects and challenges of responding to on campus acquaintance or date rape.1) How do senior campus personnel understand the disparity between high prevalence rates and low reporting.2) What are the challenges and effects on students welfare and safety when dealing or responding to date rape.3)What are the specific roles of on-campus supportive resources; and 4)What are successful elements of a coordinated approach to on-campus date rape. All study respondents acknowledged the disparity between prevalence and reporting and implicated the guilt, shame and fear, experienced by victim-survivors as a key factor in underreporting. Respondents blamed gender inequality, alcohol abuse and other rape myths for high rates of on-campus date rape. Respondents also identified trust between fellow students, roommates, classmates and other school workers as the most important aspect to successful collaboration. Trust refers to collective agreement to protect the confidentiality of alleged victims of sexual assault and generate victim’s decision-making control through their post-assault recovery process. They also gave various primary prevention models and harm reduction strategies to target on-campus date rape. Models mainly endorsed on improving the already existing changes in campus culture and on focused predation. A harm reduction strategy also created awareness among Maasai Mara University students how to minimize their risk for victimization.
