Sexual Assault 

Sexual assault is when someone touches another person in a sexual way without their consent or if they force that person to touch them in a way they don’t want to. Sexual assault is very common, but most assaults don’t get reported. 463,634 experience sexual assault each year, and 66% of victims are under 18, 34% of victims under 18 are younger than the age of 12. 

Sexual assault at school

Sexual assaults can happen at school whether it’s student on student or teacher on student. If this happens you should never be scared to report it to someone, report it to someone you trust and feel safe to tell. It should never be taken lightly for the reason that you don’t want it happening to someone else or happening to you again or it turning into something worse. Most sexual assaults don’t get reported because they feel shamed, disgusted by what happened to them, however; you should never feel shamed or disgusted by what happened to you: the only person who should feel ashamed is the person who did it to you. About 10% – 13% of students that were reported are said to experience it by the time they graduate high school, and 5% were as young as 5-6. 63.4% is when a teacher does it, 19.7% is when a gym coach does it and about 89.1% are males. If you see someone getting sexually assaulted speak up, don’t be part of the problem but be part of the solution. I got this from the RAINN sexual assault article. 

Child on child sexual assault and how to avoid it

Child on child sexual assault (COCSA) is exactly what you think it is, when a child sexually assaults another child without consent. This can happen for many reasons, one may be that the child is getting sexually assaulted so they think it’s okay to touch other kids like that when it’s not. Getting touched at a young age like that can be traumatizing and can later lead to depression. Most cases go unreported because the parents don’t believe them or because they’re scared to tell someone what happened, or they don’t think anything is wrong in view of the fact that it’s a kid who probably has never been told about the areas that people shouldn’t touch. How to avoid COCSA is checking on kids every hour without telling them to make sure they aren’t doing anything they’re not supposed to. 

Sexual assault can happen anywhere with anyone and if it happens to you don’t be afraid to report it to someone. If someone doesn’t believe you, tell it to someone else you trust.