I, however, was also marking another anniversary of violence.

Nine years ago, one week before the first anniversary of 9/11, I was raped outside my house in lower Germantown. As with that morning of 9/11, it was a beautiful, sun-drenched, blue-sky day. The first day of school meant that my block was deserted for the first time in months, empty of children playing.

Empty of everyone except the man who politely–yet with a sexual aside–offered to help me bring my trash cans up from the street. A man who, when I told him thanks, but I was fine, was suddenly behind me, pinning my arms behind my back and forcing me into the alleyway alongside my house and onto the ground in a neighbor’s yard where he proceeded to slap, punch, bite and threaten to kill me as he raped me.

Like many victims of sexual assault, my experience with the Philadelphia Police Department–the oldest municipal police department in the country–was problematic. The male police officer who came to my house was as sensitive as he could be, although the overall tone toward assault victims seems to be that they are lying until proven otherwise.

Sexual assault victims in Philadelphia are often treated like criminals themselves–something Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has said ceased in 2000. Yet the first thing I was told by the male detective (there were no female detectives in the SVU) who interviewed me was that if I was lying, I would be prosecuted.

That was, however, before he saw the severity of my injuries, which could not have been self-inflicted.

Statistics show, however, that the percentage of false rape reports is actually about two percent, nationally. According to the detective interviewing me, it was “about half.” The Philadelphia Police Department actually reports ten percent false reporting–much higher than the national average.

In the nine years since I was attacked–an attack that changed my life in many ways, both significant and minor–my rapist has never been caught.

While this is not unusual in rape cases, it’s significant in my case because the man who raped me wasn’t just my rapist. According to the detective who interviewed me at SVU, four other young women had been raped by the same man with his distinctive arm-pinning M.O.

At the time I was raped, local news attention was focused on a man dubbed “the Center City rapist,” who was attacking and sexually assaulting women in the heart of upscale Center City.

A serial rapist in Germantown where all the victims before me had been African-American hadn’t garnered even a neighborhood warning, which made me wonder then and now, how many other women had been raped by the same man, but had not reported their rapes. The SVU had dozens of rapist sketches on its corridor walls, but how many of those had been circulated in the neighborhoods where the attacks occured?

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Crime Statistics and the FBI, rape is the second most common violent crime after domestic violence. One in five American women will report a rape in her lifetime, but it is estimated that one in three women is actually raped–meaning nearly half of all women who are raped are not reporting the crimes against them.

White women comprise the majority of victims overall–80 percent–but minority women are slightly more likely to be attacked with the exception of Native American women who are attacked twice as often as any other racial or ethnic group.

The highest risk for sexual assault and rape occurs between the ages of 12 and 44; 15 percent of victims are under 12, 80 percent are under 30. Young women between the ages of 16 and 19 are four times more likely to be assaulted than any other age group. Among girls under 12, over 95 percent know their attackers–a family member, a teacher, the parish priest, a neighbor. There are no statistics on how many women have been raped more than once.

According to the FBI, rape is the most recidivist violent crime after domestic violence, and it is also the least likely to convict a perpetrator. Only 50 percent of rapists are caught. Of those, 58 percent are prosecuted, but less than 20 percent of prosecutions result in conviction. So while Mayor Nutter reported last year that 70 percent of sexual assault cases “cleared,” that does not mean the perpetrators went to prison.

In 1999, while John Timoney was still Philadelphia Police Commissioner, local news investigations reported that Philadelphia was one of the least likely cities for rape kits to be processed appropriately. A subsequent CBS news investigation in May 2010 noting the tens of thousands of rape kits lying untested nationwide garnered this response: “Joseph Szarka,

Lab Manager at Philadelphia Police Department’s Forensic Science Center, tells CBS News that his department, like New York City, tests every rape kit. ‘How could we not?’ he asked in a phone interview.”

Women’s Law Project director Carol Tracy, who facilitated many of the changes in the processing, agreed with that assessment.

However, the reason that processing happening with such regularity may have a problematic side to it. In Philadelphia, there are only two hospitals certified to administer rape kits: Jefferson Hospital and the Episcopal Hospital campus at Temple University Hospital. This means the majority of women in the city must travel at least a half hour to be “processed” with a longer waiting time for “collection.” A woman raped in the Northeast or West Philadelphia or Germantown/Mt. Airy will be traveling almost an hour to a certified center–often covered in dirt, blood and semen. This could easily be one more reason for women to not report assaults.

Rape kits taken at other hospitals or at private doctor’s offices, like mine was, are not considered evidence. And while in Philadelphia rape victims are not charged for their rape kits–unlike in many cities–that only applies in the city proper and if the kit is processed at one of the two certified hospitals.

In September 2010, Carol Tracy and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey testified at a Senate Subcommittee Hearing on The Chronic Failure to Investigate and Report Rape Cases. The hearing was chaired by former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), long an advocate for women’s rights who as Philadelphia District Attorney, established the Special Victims Unit in the city.

Ramsey noted that significant changes had been made in the police department’s handling of rape cases in 2000.

This was certainly necessary considering that in 1999 Philadelphia police still deemed more than 50 percent of rape reports “unfounded,” SVU was called “the lying bitches unit” internally and police officers gave reasons for women reporting rape as “free abortions, revenge [this is what I was told], covering up truancy and covering up infidelity.”

At the Senate hearing Tracy said the Uniformed Crime Report definition of rape had not changed since 1927 and in her opinion this greatly impacted both reportage and prosecution. The definition–”carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” leaves out, as Tracy testified, “anal, oral and statutory rape, incest, rape with an object, finger or fist, rape of men.” Tracy also noted that at least five percent of rape reports were deemed “unfounded” solely due to the guidelines.

Most states and municipalities have a statute of limitation on rapes that do not include kidnaping or murder. In Pennsylvania that statute is 12 years. The crimes in this category include rape, statutory sexual assault, sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, incest and child sexual abuse.

This is why the majority of sexual assault cases linked to Philadelphia’s Catholic priests in several highly publicized grand jury reports cannot be prosecuted–the statute of limitations has expired.

Sexual assault victims in Philadelphia may also have been alarmed by recent cases of police officers alleged to have sexually assaulted women while on duty. In August, two women were allegedly forced to perform sex acts by police officers who initially–like my own rapist–offered to help them. (The officers have since been arraigned.) A series of cases of men posing as law enforcement in recent years may also have impacted victims.

Three years remain to catch the man who raped me and at least four other women before the statute of limitations runs out on his prosecution. The question for the one in five–or one in three–women in Philadelphia who have been assaulted but whose attackers have not been caught remains the same: Are the crimes against us being taken as seriously as they could and should be, or are rapists being allowed to rape with impunity, with little fear of either arrest or prosecution?

For many of us there can be no closure without an arrest–or at least the knowledge that an effort has been made to get our rapists off the streets. And for one in five women, the clock is ticking.

Defense contractors are lobbying Sen. Dan Inouye (D-HI) to strip Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) anti-rape amendment from the defense appropriations bill. The amendment would withhold defense funding from companies barring their employees from taking sexual abuse cases to court. “The defense contractors have been storming [Inouye's] office,” said one source.

inouye chairs the appropriations committee (the franken amendment is tacked onto a must-pass apporpriations bill).

email sen. inouye at inouye@senate.gov

let him know that rape victims deserve justice, irrespective of defense contracts. —vab

those of us for whom rape is not passe feel differently. the polanski case is not over. nor is rape.

rape isn’t yesterday’s news, and we are not–no matter what some say–living in a post-feminist world where rape doesn’t count.

jamie leigh jones isn’t a name as well-known as that of roman polanski or even roman polanski’s victim, samantha geimer. jamie leigh jones was gang-raped in iraq. sen. al franken (D-MN) wanted to make sure what happened to her never happened to another woman working for our government. it wasn’t complex–it was just allowing victims of assault to seek justice. we used to call that democracy in action.  

here are the facts, via ThinkProgress: 

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor  Franken said:

The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.

that’s the story–both jones’ and franken’s. her tale is grim beyond belief and what’s more awful is that it took the most junior senator in the entire senate to try and right that wrong. bravo, franken!

in what parallel universe is gang rape incidental?

the jones/franken story does not end with franken’s amendment, of course, because decency seems to be low on the list of concerns for members of congresss.

 30 republicans voted against the provision, among them sen. david vitter (R-LA), who is best known for having patronized brothels in new orleans and having a fetish for being diapered and sen. john ensign (R-NV) who was just caught in a sex scandal involving lots of money and a former co-worker. john mccain (R-AZ) also voted for gang rape of women. the father of daughters.  

today, the 30 republicans for gang-rape (the names of the others are posted at the end of this column, so you can contact them and ask them why they support the gang rape of american women working in iraq) got a nod from a decorated war hero, WWII veteran sen. dan inouye (D-HI). 

at 85, inouye has served in congress longer than almost anyone–since 1959. he is the second most senior member of congress (after robert byrd). he’s distinguished himself over his years of service in the house and senate in many ways. but  now, as chair of the appropriations committee, he’s considering deleting  franken’s provision.

apparently the lives of women are not as important as defense contracts. just like the lives of 13-year-olds are not as important as those of esteemed film directors.

let me say again–i expect the republicans to act like the thugs they are (ten republicans voted for the franken amendment, however, which does make one wonder why they are still republicans). but we need better democrats. democrats with spine and with integrity. why would someone of inouye’s stature do something so puerile? the lives of rape victims matter.

but to whom?

 here’s another tidbit from the “rape is over” file:

health insurers consider rape a pre-existing condition.

if you have been raped and you have an exam and you get the drugs usually given to rape victims—HIV and other STD preventatives as well as the morning after pill–you qualify as having a pre-existing condition because your rapist might have infected you with HIV or another STD. because you were raped.  

here’s one account taken from the investigative report done by Huffington Post’s Danielle Ivory in today’s story (http://www.alternet.org/story/143426/):

A 38-year-old woman in Ithaca, N.Y., said she was raped last year and then penalized by insurers because in giving her medical history she mentioned an assault she suffered in college 17 years earlier. The woman, Kimberly Fallon, told a nurse about the previous attack and months later, her doctor’s office sent her a bill for treatment. She said she was informed by a nurse and, later, the hospital’s billing department that her health insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, not only had declined payment for the rape exam, but also would not pay for therapy or medication for trauma because she “had been raped before.”

Fallon says she now has trouble getting coverage for gynecological exams. To avoid the hassle of fighting with her insurance company, she goes to Planned Parenthood instead and pays out of pocket.

let’s be sure we keep giving the health care industry whatever it is they want. last week we discovered that domestic violence was a pre-existing condition. this week it’s rape. maybe it’s just being a that woman is the pre-existing condition.—-vab 

here are the senators who voted for the gang rape of women: Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Bond (R-MO), Brownback (R-KS), Bunning (R-KY), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Gregg (R-NH), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Kyl (R-AZ), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Vitter (R-LA) and Wicker (R-MS).