How to Report Marital Rape and Sexual Assault

Until the last 30 years, many states did not consider marital rape or sexual assault "true" crimes. However, times are progressing to where forced sex or sexual contact that is not consensual is a crime that is prosecuted. This article will explain how to report and begin the steps to recovery after a marital rape or sexual assault.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Inner strength
• Good support system or the ability to find one
• Phone or
• Transportation
• Strong Faith in God to get through trials and to handle big changes

1. If a marital rape or assault occurred, do not wash the evidence away just like if you had experienced a non-marital rape. If possible, go immediately to the hospital. The hospital will call the police for you. Have the rape kit done to preserve evidence.

2. If you have children, NEVER, NEVER leave them alone with a person who committed marital rape. This means that you might need to drop your children off at a relative's home that you can trust or bring them to the hospital with you or bring them to the police station. The doctors, nurses, and police usually understand.

3. If bruises from the assault darken over time, make sure to have the police or doctors take more pictures. Depending on the color of your skin, it may take a few days for your bruises to come into full color. It is best to have an "authority" take the pictures and put them in a file. Also take your own picture and put them in a safe place, like at a relatives home, in a safety deposit box, and even saved on the web in a website file. Geocities offers free web space, you can load your pictures but you don't have to post them.

4. Stay at a shelter or with a relative if possible. It is probably best not to stay in your home. Bring the important papers with you. Also bring important toys for children, memory photos, and pets. Abusers can get violent and destroy things or kill pets or people. Fill out injunction papers and seek an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, seek assistance in finding representation through your local domestic violence shelter.

5. Sometimes right after a rape, sexual assault, or domestic violence attack it is impossible to leave for help immediately, especially if you have small children or several children. It poses a safety threat to your life or your children. Plan your reporting very carefully.
   
   DO NOT EVER leave your children, girls or boys at ANY age, alone with a man or woman who commits a sexual assault or rape against you. They are completely capable of sexually assaulting or physically assaulting a child, regardless of gender, as marital violence is about power and control not sex or lust.
   
   Seek help with planning an escape or coping in the meantime through your local domestic violence shelter and rape counseling center. Some churches, not all, are very good resources for help - make sure your church and staff believe in reporting marital rape, child abuse, and domestic violence.

6. Seek out a good supportive church, supportive understaning friends and relatives (don't be embarassed to take space from those who "don't believe in marital rape or domestic violence" or who believe in "love covering all sins" (their own misinterpretation of scripture), and some counseling and/or a domestic violence support group. Domestic violence support groups are free.

7. Once you are healed, help others. Speak out against society's acceptance of marital rape and date rape. Advocate for laws to be changed to a better standard nationwide. Improve the world for women and children - use your anger and pain to change things for the better. Forgive your abuser so your don't suffer any ill health effects from bitterness. The best revenge will be to help change society and the laws to be more supportive of rape victims and abused chldren.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember, you are a very, very strong person. People can hurt your body, but you don't have to let them hurt your mind, dignity, or how you feel about yourself - that is your choice, and yours alone.
• Seek God and Jesus to help with healing, read the New Testament, Malachi (God does not look kindly at abusers at all), Psalms, and Proverbs for support. Realizing God takes a strong stance against marital rape, domestic violence, and child abuse is helpful.
• Leave a counselor or church that promotes "covering the sin" of marital rape, marital sexual assault, or domestic violence.
• NEVER, NEVER leave your children alone with a person who commits a brutal marital rape - do whatever it takes to protect your child. At all costs protect your children because they are innocent and do not need to be sexually or physically abused.
• Most men who physically or domestically abuse their intimate partners will physically abuse their own children. They will also abuse someone else's children, like step children or a neighbor's child.
• Men who physically assault their wives (but do not sexually assault their wives) are MORE LIKELY to sexually assault a child.
• Men who sexually assault their wives are even more likely to sexually assault children, it is not about sex, it is about anger, frustration, power, control, and fear (the abuser's own fears and insecurities).
• In some areas, marital rape occurs in 1 out of 4 marriages.
• States handle marital rape differently, Virginia had a case that where the husband planned it during a separation leading to divorce and committed it IN FRONT of his children - yet the original rape charge was overturned.
• Check your state laws regarding marital rape, how it is handled, and also child custody. Half of the states in the US are still adjusting their laws regarding marital rape - advocate for marital rape to be taken just as seriously as other rape cases (marital is usually more brutal).
• Advocate for marital rape and domestic violence to be taken into consideration for your state's custody laws. In no fault states, like Florida for instance, these issues don't have as much weight for child custody as other states despite statistics proving that marital rapists and domestic violence abusers usually abuse their children too.
• Advocate means to write your president, government officials, state representatives, and get involved in changing laws to support rape victims and children. 1 email or letter is interpreted as representing several thousand people from an area, so EVERY letter or email counts greatly for changing things.
• Speak out that it is NOT acceptable to tolerate rape or use it as humor - as in the new Observe and Report's Date Rape scene (see resources)- demand an apology for them trying to make date rape a joke and write the president and other government officials.

Resources

• Rape, Abuse & Incest Network - 1 800 656 HOPE available 24/7 Free and Confidential
• Essential Readings to Overcome Abuse and Life Your Best Life AFTER Abuse
• Discussion Regarding Observe and Report - The Producer Thinks Date Rape is Comical - SPEAK OUT, IT'S NOT!

[heatherinks]

on 5/23/2009 Why did the man in Florida who shot a family get the death penalty yet the American soldiers (4) in Iraq who premeditated raping an under-developed poor 14 farm girl and shooting her mother, father, and 5 year old sister in the head after gang raping her - then setting the little 14 year old Iraqi girl on fire - and then ate friend chicken like it was nothing NOT receive the death penalty? Those American soldiers were representing the USA - they should be held to a hire punishment, no excuses for bad behavior. There are children who grow up in terrible situations yet they don't turn on others and rape and kill them.

[texasparky]

on 5/20/2009 I don't see how marital rape is any different from plain ol' rape. Rape is rape, and at the risk of offending the anti-capital punishment folks, rapists should be shot in the head.

[heatherinks]

on 4/30/2009 Find out is marital rape is considered a full crime like stranger rape in your state. If it is not, like in Virgina, take the steps to changes things to help your daughters or grand-daughters.

[elyria]

on 4/22/2009 informative and helpful article on such an important topic of marital rape and sexual assault. 5*