A screening of “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary that explores the rampant issue of sexual assault on college campuses across the country, will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21, in the Mount Carmel Auditorium at Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Ave. This event is free and open to the public.
“The Hunting Ground” has been described as a startling exposé of rape crimes on U.S. campuses, institutional cover-ups and the brutal social toll on victims and their families. Weaving together vérité footage and first-person testimonies, the film follows survivors as they pursue their education while fighting for justice despite harsh retaliation, harassment and pushback at every level.
“The problem of sexual violence on college campuses is not new,” said Hillary Haldane, associate professor and director of the anthropology program at Quinnipiac. “What is new is the fact that colleges and universities are beginning to address the issue, have frank conversations and bring administrators, faculty, staff and students together to work for positive change. ‘The Hunting Ground’ is a chilling reminder of what happens when we ignore the issue, sweep it under the rug or wish it away. Universities like Quinnipiac are fostering open dialogue so eventually we can eliminate the problem of campus sexual assault and the need for documentaries like ‘The Hunting Ground’ to exist in the first place.”
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s 2015 Campus Sexual Assault Fact Sheet:
- It is estimated that the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions may be between 20-25 percent over the course of a college career.
- Among college women, 9 in 10 victims of rape and sexual assault knew their offender.
- Almost 12.8 percent of completed rapes, 35 percent of attempted rapes, and 22.9 percent of threatened rapes happened during a date.
- 2.8 percent experienced either a completed rape (1.7 percent) or an attempted rape (1.1 percent) during the six-month period in which the study was conducted. Of victims, 22.8 percent were subjected to multiple rapes. If this data is calculated for a calendar year period, nearly 5 percent of college women are victimized during any given calendar year.
- It is estimated that for every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are 35 incidents of rape each academic year.
- Off-campus sexual victimization is much more common among college women than on-campus victimization. Of victims of completed rape 33.7 percent were victimized on campus and 66.3 percent off campus.
For more information about the documentary, visit http://www.thehuntinggroundfilm.com or call 203-582-8652.