Abuse in our countries is something that we all get indigent about when it stares us in the face, but we don’t want to talk about it. I find that more and more the issues that people want to discuss are the ones that affect our pocketbooks. Or they are the ones that are the focus of the news media. So here are some numbers for us to look at. Some of the data that I pulled is a bit old, but it gives us something to think about.

In 2009 the labor force in the United States numbered at 154.5 million people. In 2010, according the Bureau of Labor Statics, the percentage of workers that belonged to a Union was 11.9% and numbered 17.7 million workers .

The following statics come from the “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence against Women ” which was writing by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes in 2000. In 1996 8,000 women and 8,005 men were contacted randomly via the phone and asked to participate in a survey about violence in their history. For the number of children determined to be victims of abuse in the US I used the data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human service Administration for Children & Families summary of Child Maltreatment 2007.

• 51.9% of women and 66.4% of men report that they were victims of physical assault as children and the perpetrators of the assault were adult caretakers or a random adult.
• 17.6% of all women surveyed stated they were the victim of a rape or attempted rape. 21.6% were younger than 12 years old at the time of the their first attack, 32. 4% were between the ages of 12 and 17.
• 8.1% of women and 2.2% of men have been stalked at sometime in their life.
• Women appear to experience intimate partner violence than men with 22.1% of women stating they were physically assaulted by a current or former parter or date. The percentage of men who answered affirmative to the question was 7.4%.
• Only 1/3 of women who were raped received some type of medical care.
• In 2007 794,000 children were determined to be victims of abuse in the United States.

Statistics from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network:

• 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime
• 17.6 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape.
• 2.78 million men in the United States have been sexually assaulted or raped.
• 15% of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 12.
• 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.
• 6% of rapists will spend a day in jail.
• 50% of all rape/sexual assault incidents occurred with in 1 mile of their home or at their home.
• In Pittsburgh (where I live) there were 441 registered sex offenders as of April 2010.

I don’t know if these numbers speak to you or not. They do to me, but that is because I am part of the 60% that never went to the police. I have always said that I would never discuss my abuse and yet I did in my post “It is time to wake up”. I do believe in a future post I will discuss it more. Not for sympathy, but to raise awareness. I have always worried about what others would think of me. Would speaking about my experience make people hate me? Think that I am the slut or whore that I often feel I am? That I deserved what I got? I don’t know. People may think that and turn against me. That is their right. What I do know is that this is my truth and I have the right to speak about it. If it helps anyone than it is worth it. If it only helps me it is worth it.