Women at three Canadian universities who were taught tactics to prevent sexual assaults were less likely to be raped than peers who received standard brochures, say researchers who call it a short-term solution. In Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, psychologist Charlene Senn from the University of Windsor in Ontario and her team describe the effectiveness of the program in recognizing danger and resisting pressure through forceful physical and verbal resistance.
The research, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, included 451 women at the universities of Waterloo and Guelph in Ontario, and Calgary who were randomly offered the resistance training, and 442 women in the control group who received brochures like the ones commonly given out on campuses.
After one year, there were 23 completed rapes in the resistance group and 42 among those who received brochures.
“What the results show is that as few as 22 women need to receive the workshop in order for one completed rape to be averted,” Senn said.