This past January, five high-school boys were charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl one afternoon at her middle school in an upscale suburb of New Jersey.

The girl supposedly knew two of her assailants, who were between the ages of 15 and 17. One may have been her ex-boyfriend.

The alleged gang rape of a young teenage girl shocked residents, many of whom felt that something like this couldn’t happen in their town. But the sad truth is that rape and other sexual assaults occur in suburbs, cities, and rural areas, and victims come from every walk of life.

Staff writer Andrea Lee, 16. Meet Andrea.

Rape and sexual assault mostly happen to females. One out of every six American women has been a victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Acquaintance rape is most common—about 62 percent of victims know their assailant.

Teen girls are especially at risk. From ages 16 to 19, they are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault, according to the 2000 National Crime Victimization Survey.

At a Party

Dana was 17 years old when she was sexually assaulted. Before the assault, she had “the insane perception that bad things didn’t happen to me,” she says.

One night she was “chilling” at a friend’s house with her girlfriends and three guys they’d just met. Everyone was drinking beer and smoking pot.

“One of the guys offered me drink after drink, and toke after toke. I noticed he wasn’t doing more than sipping his beer and was barely smoking, but somehow I just didn’t care,” says Dana.

When he asked her to go out to the balcony, she went with him.

“He shut the door behind us and handed me a joint. I lost my balance and fell into him … he took the joint away and handed it back to someone inside. When the door closed again, the sound of it came from far away, like at the end of a very long tunnel,” she says.

“Things became disjointed … one minute I was leaning on the railing, staring off mindlessly at the city lights, and then he was behind me, groping me. He turned me around and told me to give him oral sex. I found my voice and said ’no,’ over and over again, but he wouldn’t listen.”

He forced her to give him oral sex.

Dana’s case isn’t unusual. Drugs and alcohol play a big role in rape and sexual assault. Thirty to 90 percent of rape and sexual violence incidents involve alcohol, and up to 42 percent involve illegal drugs, according to a recent study of substance abuse and sexual behavior by the Kaiser Family Foundation, in Menlo Park, CA.

Facing the Pain

The next morning, Dana says she “cried for a while,” but then decided “not to think about what happened.”

Months went by.

“I felt really, really depressed and sad—all that typical stuff about feeling like it was my fault. I wanted to change everything that had happened. I was so angry,” she says.

“Rape and sexual assault has a profound effect on victims’ lives,” explains Mary Beth Roden, assistant director of the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica–UCLA Medical Center, in Los Angeles.

“Victims often feel angry, sad, betrayed, ashamed, and guilty. They may also become fearful and self-protective.”

Rape victims are also at risk of sexually transmitted infection and unintended pregnancy after an assault. To prevent pregnancy, victims can take emergency contraceptive pills within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse.

Steps to Support

Unfortunately, like many rape victims, Dana didn’t report the assault to the police or tell her parents. But it’s important for teens to report the crime. It prevents the rapist from hurting others, and it also helps the victim get support and help.

“Victims should know that what happened to them is not their fault—they did not ’deserve’ it—and what he did to them was and is wrong,” says Lynn Iannarelli, director of the Teen Victim Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime, in Washington, D.C.

Here are steps to take after a sexual assault, recommended by the Rape Treatment Center:

• Go to a safe place
• Report the crime to the police immediately
• Call and ask a family member, friend, or someone you trust to stay with you
• Keep all evidence of the assault (don’t change clothes, shower, brush your teeth, etc.)
• Go to a hospital emergency department that provides medical care for sexual assault victims
• Talk with a counselor trained to assist rape victims

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network helps victims through its 24-hour crisis hotline, (1-800) 656-HOPE (4673), and Web site, www.rainn.org. Info on reporting rape can be found at www.911rape.org.