Malis­sa Lara

There have been 120 re­port­ed cas­es of rape for the first six months of this year. Ac­cord­ing to the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis branch (CA­PA) of the Po­lice Ser­vice, there were 117 cas­es for the same pe­ri­od last year. CA­PA's sta­tis­tics stat­ed that the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion had the high­est re­port, with 19 cas­es, while the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion had 16 re­port­ed cas­es.

To­ba­go was not with­out its prob­lems, as there have been 11 re­port­ed cas­es on the sis­ter isle. Rape is sex you don't agree to. Date rape is when you are raped by some­one you know, like a boyfriend. Both are crimes. The T&T Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety (RCS) said that thus far, they had ten cas­es of stranger rape, nine cas­es of ac­quain­tance rape, and two date rape cas­es in their north­ern records.

For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to June, the So­ci­ety al­so record­ed 20 child sex­u­al abuse cas­es in their North of­fice. Be­tween Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary, last year, there were 14 re­port­ed child sex­u­al abuse cas­es. The so­ci­ety gave some safe­ty tips, which in­clude go­ing out in groups and trav­el­ling with cel­lu­lar phones with cred­it. The RCS said one should al­ways tell some­one where one was go­ing and the ex­pect­ed time of re­turn. Women should al­so avoid trav­el­ling in cars with men on­ly.

Rape Stats

Sta­tis­tics of 2009 re­port­ed rape cas­es from the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch

�2 Cen­tral 19

�2 North-East­ern 16

�2 West­ern 15

�2 South-West­ern 13

�2 North­ern 13

�2 South­ern 12

�2 Port-of-Spain 11

�2 To­ba­go 11

�2 East­ern 10

Sex­u­al as­sault

Sex­u­al as­sault and abuse is any kind of sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty that you do not agree to, in­clud­ing:

�2 in­ap­pro­pri­ate touch­ing

�2 vagi­nal, anal, or oral sex

�2 sex that you say "no" to

�2 rape

�2 at­tempt­ed rape

�2 child mo­lesta­tion

Sex­u­al as­sault can be ver­bal, vi­su­al, or any­thing that forces a per­son to join in un­want­ed sex­u­al con­tact or at­ten­tion.

Ex­am­ples of this are voyeurism (when some­one watch­es pri­vate sex­u­al acts); ex­hi­bi­tion­ism (when some­one ex­pos­es him/her­self in pub­lic); in­cest (sex­u­al con­tact be­tween fam­i­ly mem­bers), and sex­u­al ha­rass­ment.

It can hap­pen in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions, by a stranger in an iso­lat­ed place, on a date, or in the home by some­one you know.