At Risk and Doubly-Traumatized Groups

Racial minorities, particularly women,  are more likely to experience sexual violence, often along with physical and intimate partner violence, and are less able to access help and justice.

LGBTQ2IA+ youth are more likely to be victims of sexual assault and rape, and other intersectional identities increase this risk even more.

People with disabilities, particularly those with cognitive and developmental disabilities, are one of the most at-risk groups in both the US and Canada.

Refugees are at risk of sexual violence both in their countries of origin and in the closed and often lawless camps where they are housed, but research fails to adequately address explore these risks.

Institutionalized loss of power and liberty put incarcerated people at heightened risk of sexual violence and leave them without the ability to seek help or restitution.

Foster youth, especially when housed in group homes, are at extreme risk for sexual violence, but researchers have failed to adequately study the risks for these highly vulnerable youth.

Homeless youth are often doubly victimized, fleeing sexual abuse at home and then forced into survival sex and subjected to sexual violence as young people who lack basic protections.

Due to the police not taking action against the perpetrators of these crimes, and an overall societal disproval of the profession, sex workers are often targeted as victims of sexual assaults.

Hundreds of thousands of youth are trafficked globally each year, winding up in the sex trade and often arrested and prosecuted as sex workers rather than being protected as childhood rape victims.