President Barack Obama is targeting sexual assault on college campuses with a presidential memorandum released Wednesday, which creates a task force to protect college students, namely women.
The report, "Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Arms", created by the White House Council on Women and Girls, states almost 22 million women and 1.6 million men in America have been raped during their lives. According to the report and the Associated Press, one in five women has been sexually assaulted during their college years although only 12 percent of victims actually report the assault. College women, according to Obama, are the most at-risk for rape and assault.
The task force will take 90 days to create a plan of prevention, focusing on the individual efforts of each campus to end assault. The task force aims to increase prosecution and conviction for those who have committed assault. The report states the government should increase police training to test DNA evidence from victims and eliminate bias in rape and assault cases.
The existence of rape on college campuses has been extensively linked to drug and alcohol consumption, according to the report. Victims are commonly party guests and are raped by individuals they know. The study states seven percent of college men admit they have raped someone. 61 percent of those men have been repeat offenders with an average of six rapes each.
The report follows several recent cases of rape at universities. Vanderbilt University football players fell under scrutiny last fall after information came to light about the rape of an Oklahoma woman by the football players. Fraternity brothers at the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity at Georgia Institute of Technology were caught with a letter, written and shared by fraternity members and elaborating on tips used to rape college women at parties. These cases are among many cases left unreported.
Obama signed the executive order Wednesday, not just as the President of the United States, but as the father of two girls.
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