April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and it is a long-standing tradition for people to wear jeans/denim on April 25th-27th to raise awareness for sexual assault. This is a very touchy subject, but ignoring it just makes it worse. Our justice system isn’t fair to victims and society has a habit of silencing victims or victim blaming.

Society and our justice system often don’t listen to the victim or let their voices be heard. Sexual assault is one of the hardest crimes to prove happened for it is often just one person’s word against the other. There are many cases where there is no evidence to prove what happened and in cases of rape, the victim has to go to the hospital and get swabbed right away for any evidence at all. The issue is that most people are ashamed of what happened and don’t go to the hospital right away. Actually, 63% of rape cases go unreported, and those numbers may be way higher just because of how underreported this crime actually is.

1 in 4 women and 1 in 26 men have reported they were victims of attempted or completed rape. Once again, these numbers may be significantly lower than actuality because people don’t report it. Men are often overlooked when sexual assault is talked about because their likelihood of being sexually assaulted is majorly lower than women, but 1 in 26 is still an unacceptably high number.

Women are taught from a young age to hide their bodies and if they don’t they are “asking for it”. This is just plain victim blaming and completely untrue. Women should be able to wear whatever they want without having to be in constant fear of what might happen to them. 81% of women (and 43% of men) have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives. These numbers are horrific and even more disgusting is that most are harassed starting at a young age. Many women don’t feel safe walking around alone or even with another woman. Getting catcalled is a daily occurrence for many of us and no matter what people say, it’s not a compliment and we should not thank the person who said it.

Some may know about the group of men on TikTok who posted that they were going to sexually assault women on April 24th in “celebration” of sexual assault awareness. This is absolutely disgusting and the fact that people make a mockery of this very important issue is vile. Sexual assault is one of the most serious and relevant subjects to have been discussed for the past 25 years.

People often try to blame victims for “ruining” the lives of the people who assaulted them and say the victim just had something against them and wanted to ruin them. Only 2% of reported rape cases are false claims meaning these people are taking away the voices of and invalidating the stories of 98% of reported victims. This is another reason victims don’t come forward. They are often not taken seriously and called liars, dramatic, and many other horrific names that just add to the trauma they had to endure during and after the sexual assault took place.

Take a minute to listen to the stories of victims before completely invalidating their experiences. I highly recommend reading through the stories of Molly, Lexi, Naomi, and other first-hand stories from the RAINN Website.

If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual violence call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673, or contact your local law enforcement. Remember that all stories matter, including yours. Sexual violence needs to be destigmatized because the longer we put off talking about it, the longer people are being assaulted at ungodly high rates. Don’t be scared to reach out to people close to you and share your story. Wear denim on the 25th-27th of April to support Sexual Assult Awareness.

Here are more websites if you wish to do additional research:

https://www.uwest.edu/april-is-sexual-assault-awareness-month/

https://www.nsvrc.org/saam

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofvps/sexual-assault-awareness-month

https://opdv.ny.gov/april-sexual-assault-awareness-month

https://nomore.org/campaigns/sexual-assault-awareness-month/