Associated Factors to Reporting Process of Rape in Adolescent Women

Abstract

Background: The severity of the effects caused by rape will depend on a serie of personal, family variables as others related to rape itself, but an important element to relieve damage caused to the victim and support her treatment is to make a formal complaint and thus to get the aggressor punishment. Aim: To determine the factors related to the formal complaint process of the rape in a group of women who suffered rape during childhood or adolescence. Material and methods: A group of 225 adolescent women with rape record was stidied. A questionnaire was applied to all of them at the first visit to CEMERA and interviews and home visit were performed afterwards. Uni, bivariate and OR analysis to explain the selected variables and the formal complaint were performed. EPI-INFO 6.0 and STATA 8.0 softwares were used.Results: Intrafamilial rape was associated to: repetitive rape, that take place at adolescent and aggressor home, rage and hate as an after-rape reaction, threat and intimidation as a factor related to rape, delayed formal complaint due to aggressor threat and, also the fact that the abuser is a relative is a reason for not making the formal complaint. Extrafamilial rape was associated to: unique, that happens during the home-school way, fear to parents is a reason for the delay of the formal complaint. Variables related to the non making formal complaint were: victim was not a student, she has maltreatment record and she expresses rage and hate against aggessor. This difference was more relevant for the extrafamilial rape.