Obama pledges stand against college sexual assaults

Surviving in Numbers

The numbers are small and large. They symbolize days, months, and years. They describe conversations had and not had. They represent attackers and attacks, scars and bruises, nightmares and suicide attempts.

But most importantly, the numbers illustrate resilience in the face of sexual assault--legal cases won, fears abated, and messages spread.

They inform the sexual assault awareness campaign ' Surviving in Numbers,' a Tumblr of posters submitted by victims and an exhibit at Massachusetts colleges and universities.

'The numbers are powerful because they give freedom for someone to express their story in the numbers they choose,' said Ali Safran, the creator of 'Surviving in Number and a Mount Holyoke senior, in November. 'They also make it easier from people who are not survivors to understand because numbers are an easy concept.'

Here are two striking ones: One in five women has been sexually assaulted at college, a new White House report found, and only 12 percent of student victims report the assault.

President Barack Obama announced Wednesday an initiative to combat sexual assaults, particularly those on college campuses. Obama assigned a newly formed task force of college administrators 90 days to formulate a list of recommendations on preventing and responding to college sexual assaults, reported news3blog.blogspot.com.

The White House Council on Women and Girls report, entitled 'Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action,' found that 22 million American woman and 1.6 million men have been victims of sexual assaults. The criminal justice response is often lacking, the report said, due to police bias and inadequate training.

The highest prevalence of rape is on college campuses, where drinking and drug can incapacitate victims, said the report.

According to a Boston.com study of 2013 Clery Act reports, there were 101 reports of forcible sex offenses and one report of a non-forcible sex offense at local colleges and universities.

Forcible sex offenses on Boston-area campuses predominantly occurred in residential buildings.

Reports of sexual assaults on campuses have increased in recent years. In 2010, 68 forcible sex offenses were reported, according to Boston-area colleges' Clery Act reports. At Harvard University, the number of reports nearly doubled between 2011 and 2012.

Harvard University Police Department spokesman Steven Catalano told Boston.com in September that because rapes are under-reported, he hopes the increase in reported cases means more victims are coming forward and not that more crimes are occurring on campus.

Decreasing the number of cases and making reporting them easier is the goal of Obama's task force.

'The president is committed to solving this problem, not just as president of the United States, but as a father of two girls,' senior advisor Valerie Jarrett told the AP.

Safran said her own sexual assault came the year before college. 'Surviving in Numbers' was inspired by her recollections of that time.

'I thought about the number of people who I had told my story to with no result,' said Safran. 'Then, I focused more on the number of things I've done since the assault.'

Since it launched in October 2012, 'Surviving in Numbers' has received more than 250 anonymous poster submissions. Safran has worked with students at Boston University, Tufts University, and Mount Holyoke College, displaying the signs on campus and offering time and supplies for victims to make one of their own.

Safran said she hopes the Obama administration will elicit survivor input in addressing the prevalence of sexual assaults.

'It's a great step,' she said, of the initiative. 'And college campuses are a great place to start.'