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RateMyStudyAbroad.com - Preventing and Dealing With Sexual Assault Abroad, Infographic

I studied abroad during my junior year of high school. I lived with a wonderful host family and never felt particularly unsafe during any point of my time overseas.

But one of my classmates in this program had a very different experience. She began her year living with a Spanish family of five—a mother, a father, and their three children. The trouble started when she first suspected that someone was going through the drawers in her bedroom. Then, on the way out of her host family’s apartment, her host father cornered her in the elevator. Fortunately, my friend was able to bolt out of the elevator before he could do anything more, and the school immediately moved her to an all-female household. The program in which she and I went abroad takes the time to develop a personal relationship with each of their host families, in addition to careful screening, yet stories like this one still occur. Despite the many precautions that program providers take to ensure the safety of their students, it is important that all students know how to best prevent and handle sexual harassment and assault abroad.

Risk is an inevitable part of study abroad, though the risks are often outweighed by the immense potential benefits of foreign study. One of the biggest risks, of course, is student safety. Program providers should address how they assist their students in crimes as minor as pick pocketing or as serious as sexual assault, but they are not required to disclose their safety and security records. In fact, there are no federal safety standards that must be met by program providers. Students and parents, therefore, must look into program policies and country information with scrutiny. Below you will find some subtopics of sexual harassment and assault abroad as well as resources concerning sexual safety abroad.

Are there Safe Countries?

One of the program providers I spoke with suggests that English-speaking countries are the safest countries for U.S. students abroad. This is due to the fact that your words and actions are less likely to be misinterpreted. Of course, bad things happen everywhere, and just because these countries have made our safest country list does not mean that things can’t go wrong.

See our infographic for more information about safe and unsafe countries, according to surveys conducted 1989 – 2000 by ICVS.

A Program Provider’s Responsibilities

One alarming fact about study abroad today is that there are no federal regulations stipulating which safety precautions and standards program providers must guarantee to their students. The Interassociational Advisory Committee on Safety and Responsibility in Study Abroad composed “Responsible Study Abroad: Good Practices for Health and Safety”, a compendium of good safety practices for study abroad institutions, students, and parents. This criterion can be useful for you to measure how well your program provider addresses health and safety issues. You can continue to the full list of guidelines here.

Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention

“Sexual Harassment And Prevention In College Students Studying Abroad”, by counseling consultant to the Peace Corps Nancy Newport, is a great article on sexual harassment abroad and offers many tips for prevention. In order to prevent foreign sexual harassment, Ms. Newport recommends that students:

• Integrate into the community
• Make friends with the women of the village
• Learn from the women about self protection and practice what you learn
• Dress according to local customs
• Interact with men according to the local customs
• Behave according to the local customs
• Stay in control; staying sober and alert keeps your senses in place to protect you
• Have a buddy system: having at least one other person with you that you trust can help you in regular circumstances as well as in problematic situations (what if someone spikes your drink). It is generally a good idea to travel in groups
• Pay attention to your “gut” feeling and respond to any signal that “something isn’t right” and remove yourself from the situation.

“Personal boundaries are the personal space around us, physically and emotionally, that serves to preserve our physical and emotional integrity. When someone gets “too close”, an alarm sounds inside.” –Nancy Newport

Sometimes harassment is just plain inevitable, and men and women alike may fall victim. You may be catcalled from across the street or someone may sit next to you a little too close for comfort. When encountered with harassment of any kind, Ms. Newport advises it is most effective to:

• Ignore the harassment/pretend ignorance
• Feign confusion/lack of understanding
• Move away/remove yourself from the situation
• Harassment behavior and language varies from one culture to another. How do men harass women in the culture in which you are visiting? How do national women in that culture deal with it? Notice their effectiveness and use their response as a model.

If you are sexually assaulted:

• Go to a safe place.
• If you want to report the crime, notify the police immediately. Reporting the crime can help you regain a sense of personal power and control.
• Call a friend, a family member, or someone else you trust who can be with you and give you support.
• Preserve all physical evidence of the assault. Do not shower, bathe, douche, eat, drink, wash your hands, or brush your teeth until after you have had a medical examination. Save all of the clothing you were wearing at the time of the assault. Place each item of clothing in a separate paper bag. Do not use plastic bags. Do not clean or disturb anything in the area where the assault occurred.
• Get medical care as soon as possible. Go to a hospital emergency department or a specialized forensic clinic that provides treatment for sexual assault victims. Even if you think that you do not have any physical injuries, you should still have a medical examination and discuss with a health care provider the risk of exposure to sexually transmitted infections and the possibility of pregnancy resulting from the sexual assault. Having a medical exam is also a way for you to preserve physical evidence of a sexual assault.
• If you suspect that you may have been given a “rape drug,” ask the hospital or clinic where you receive medical care to take a urine sample. Drugs, such as Rohypnol and GHB, are more likely to be detected in urine than in blood.
• Write down as much as you can remember about the circumstances of the assault, including a description of the assailant.
• Get information whenever you have questions or concerns. After a sexual assault, you have a lot of choices and decisions to make – e.g., about getting medical care, making a police report, and telling other people. You may have concerns about the impact of the assault and the reactions of friends and family members. You can get information by calling a rape crisis center, a hotline, or other victim assistance agencies.
• Talk with a counselor who is trained to assist rape victims. Counseling can help you learn how to cope with the emotional and physical impacts of the assault. You can find a counselor by contacting a local rape crisis center, a hotline, a counseling service, other victim assistance agencies, or RAINN. RAINN is a national victim assistance organization, at 1-800-656-HOPE. RAINN will connect you to a rape crisis center in your area.

Cited from the Rape Treatment Center Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center

In conclusion, cultural awareness and modesty are key to preventing sexual harassment. Researching and adopting your destination’s cultural customs will allow for a much safer interaction with foreigners. Although this article may seem daunting to your study abroad preparation, do remember that the majority of college students abroad experience no safety incidents. Safe travels!

Safety Resources

• Country Specific Information from the U.S. Department of State. Includes worldwide U.S. Embassy locations, current crime and security information, travel tips specific to each country, and much more.
• Responsible Study Abroad: Good Practices for Health and Safety from the Association of International Educators (NAFSA). A comprehensive list of responsibilities that program providers should address to participating students and their parents.
• Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) from the U.S. Department of State. Enroll in STEP for better governmental assistance in case of an emergency abroad.
• Help for American Victims of Crime Overseas from the U.S. Department of State.
• JourneyWoman “What to Wear, Where” database allows you to select your country of travel and read reviews from real women travelers on what to pack and wear.
• Forced Marriage Prevention from the U.S. Department of State. See which countries have reported cases where U.S. citizens have faced forced marriage.
• “Students studying abroad face dangers with little oversight” USA Today article on Jenee Klotz’s sexual assault in Jamaica, calling attention to the lack of a federal safety standard on study abroad programs.

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