The present study was conducted to determine the epidemiological characteristics of rape victims and rapists.
Method
This cross-sectional study conducted on 68 examined cases of sexual violence in Shiraz legal medicine organization during 2013-2014. Victims were referred from juditional authority or his deputy. The file information of referred cases was extracted without a name and with a special code for each file.
Results
All cases in this study were female victims. The mean+SD age of victims was 21.39+6.11. The majority of cases were single (94%). Of all cases in the study, 63.2% and 30.9% had middle and low socioeconomic status respectively. Someone's home was the most frequent place of rape (54.4%). In 58.8% of cases, victims and assailant knew each other. In most of the times, there was a single perpetrator (59.7%) but in 19.4% and 11.8% respectively there were two and three perpetrators concurrent. In 76.5% of cases, victims mentioned that they were under verbal treats, 8.8% were under gun treats and 28% were under knife treats. Completed rape happened in the most of victims (98.5%).
Conclusion
The results of this study emphasized the priority of sexual assaults prevention and increasing public awareness of these violations as a legitimate public health issue.
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