Unacknowledged Rape: The Influences of Child Sexual Abuse and Personality Traits

Evidence supports that the majority of young women who experience sexual victimization that meets the legal definition of rape do not label their experiences as rape—this has been termed unacknowledged rape. In a sample of 77 young adult women, the odds of unacknowledged rape significantly increased as a function of less severe child sexual abuse histories and greater levels of dysfunctional personality traits. Potential explanations for these findings as well as clinical implications are discussed. Because of the potential psychological and societal consequences of unacknowledged rape, it is vital that researchers continue to examine this phenomenon.     

Speculators,swindlers and other Jews: regulating trade in revolutionary White Russia

The Bolshevik Revolution introduced sweeping campaigns for social and economic regulation in the geographic region of the former Pale of Settlement. Focusing on the policing and rhetorical construction of the economic crime of “speculation,” this article examines the effort to reconstruct Jewish economic practices in the early Soviet period of the New Economic Policy. Based on archival material from the National Archive in Minsk, Belarus, and from the contemporaneous Yiddish Press in Minsk, the article concludes that the campaign to regulate speculation and economic practices constituted a primary front in the attempt to construct post‐revolutionary Soviet Jewish culture. At the same time, this article suggests that campaigns to regulate speculation served to reinscribe Jewish actors as socially alien elements in post‐revolutionary society.     

Guns,Money and Justice

In late 2005, Suzette Nicolas, then known publicly only as ‘Nicole’, alleged that on 1 November of that year she had been gang-raped by US Marines in Olongapo City in the Subic Bay area on the island of Luzon, site of one of two former large US military bases in the Philippines. Thus began what was to become an internationally notorious rape case, involving the US and Philippine governments, the US military, the Philippine judiciary and a broad feminist-led activist coalition. The case, played out against the backdrop of the US state's Asian front in the ‘War on Terror’, has become inextricably linked with the ongoing Philippine campaign against the US–Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement. This article looks at the case, its background, its symbolism and the current political debate on the ongoing connections between militarism, globalization, US imperialism and violence against women in the Philippines.     

Morality and Patriarchal White Sovereignty

This article offers a reading of three separate stories of gang rapes that have been prominent in the Australian media since 2000. The men involved – an Indigenous leader, young Sydney men identified as Muslim and several ostensibly un-raced professional footballers, have been positioned through different legal outcomes, media representations and through a prominently deployed discourse of morality. The article locates the gang rape stories in mutual inter-relationship with the expression of racism in Australia and the performance of ‘patriarchal white sovereignty’ by the Australian state in the 2000s in the global climate since 11 September 2001. It argues that the politics of race and whiteness, and the protocols for their speaking, have been central in the telling of the rape stories. These stories of gang rape have also created differently racialized positions for women including some remarkably respectful mainstream representations of the women raped by non-white men. The article concludes that these stories perform a gendered and raced moral justification for the racist and colonialist policies of the Australian state, both within national borders and beyond, that characterized the national government led by Prime Minister John Howard (1996–2007).     

Remembering Hiroshima

Visions of the post-conflict reintegration process in Sierra Leone as a moment of healing, reconstruction, opportunity and rehabilitation do not take into account the experience of women and girls who were raped during the conflict. For them, the post-conflict period is often characterized by trauma, silence and stigmatization. This article examines wartime rape in relation to the liberal family model and the perception of sex as a ‘private’ social concern rather than a public security issue.     

Nelson Rockefeller in Latin America: Global Currents of US Prison Growth

Nelson Rockefeller is a key piece of the puzzle that is the explosion of the US prison population in the last forty years, thanks both to his drug policies of 1973 and his response to the Attica prison rebellion two years previously, which set in motion a series of changes in prison practice. This essay argues that understandings of Rockefeller’s attitudes about crime and pun-ishment, and US prison growth in general, would be enhanced by paying at-tention to transnational currents, in particular the riptides of the Cold War. It therefore places Rockefeller’s prison-related actions within the context of his long experience in Latin America prior to and during his governorship of New York, showing his evolving anti-communism to be a product of his Latin-American engagements, including a crucial trip to the region in 1969. Contextualizing Rockefeller in this way reveals some of the transnational currents of his punitive turn, as well as the nation’s.     

Evaluation of the RAINN National Sexual Assault Online Hotline

ABSTRACT

This article describes the evaluation of rainn National Sexual Assault Online Hotline, a new model for delivery of rape and sexual assault crisis services through a secure, confidential chat-based online hotline. Outcome data from 623 visitors and 54 volunteers for the first 11 months of the program are presented. The results indicate that the model is viable and useful for approximately 80 percent of visitors, and volunteers are satisfied with the program. Recommendations for program development and further research are presented.     

Latinas and Sexual Assault

SUMMARY

This paper will discuss the problem of sexual assault among Latinas, an under-researched population whose social and cultural characteristics contextualize the trauma of sexual assault in ways that need to be considered by service providers striving to provide culturally syntonic interventions. The authors will present the sparse empirical data on sexual assault among Latinas, Including prevalence, assault characteristics, and post-assault sequelae. Given the bicultural reality of most Latinas in the U.S., a working model of sexual assault in Latinas is presented that frames the problem as occurring within both traditional Latino and modern American gender role systems. The result is a dual dilemma for Latina victims of sexual assault with both negative and positive implications that need to be better understood by victims and service providers.     

Regional Prevalence,Patterns and Correlates of Sexual Coercion Among Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Multi-Country Population-Based Study

Abstract

Objective: This study investigates the prevalence, perpetrators, and factors associated with forced sexual acts. Methods: Pooled secondary data from the most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) in 22 sub-Saharan African countries was used in this study. The individual woman components of the questionnaire involving 148,720 women of reproductive age (15-49?years) were analyzed. Percentages and graphs were used to present distribution of study variables. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine factors associated with sexual coercion. Results: Forced sexual acts were prominent in Rwanda (15.7%), Gabon (12.3%) and Democratic Republic of Congo (10.9%). The lowest mean age at first forced sexual acts was recorded in Gabon (14.1?years), Comoros and Mali (14.9?years each), whereas the maximum was recorded in Namibia (25.9?years). Results from adjusted logistic regression models identified that factors such as high women decision making power, large spousal age difference, rural residence, Islamic religious beliefs and listening to radio were significantly associated with reduction in the odds of forced sexual acts. Conversely, high-risk partner’s behavior, older age at start of first marriage, early age at sexual debut, most disadvantaged community, education, and the use of newspapers were significantly associated with higher odds of forced sexual acts. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, policies should be reinforced to handle perpetrators of sexual violence especially non-intimate partners. Population-based preventive measures of sexual coercion are essential to complement justice system responses. Our findings also showed the importance of building gender equity as part of sexual violence prevention approach.     

Understanding the magnitude and extent of crime in post-apartheid South Africa

The crime of apartheid (1951–1994) was predicated upon the spatial segregation of the country's diverse population according to certain state-defined racial groups. This socio-spatial redesign not only racialised South African cities but led to the concentrated disadvantage of the majority black population in certain segregated geographical areas. Despite democracy, apartheid's urban spatiality has not automatically dissolved but rather continues to shape and define the urban landscape. This article argues that these macro-social patterns of racial and spatial inequalities, borne out of repressively enforced apartheid-era segregationist policies, can be used to explain the magnitude and extent of crime in post-apartheid South Africa. Policing and developmental policy implications of this argument are outlined and discussed, and strategic recommendations are made for the future.