Sexual abuse or misconduct is the most underreported crime. It encompasses any behavior or attempted behavior of a sexual nature that is committed without consent or with someone incapable of consent, or by force, intimidation, coercion, or manipulation. In the United States, a sexual assault occurs every 98 seconds, amounting to more than 320,000 cases of sexual assault each year. It affects all ages, all races and ethnicities, in all areas of the country.
As many as 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys experience sexual abuse before age 18. Individuals 18-24 experience the highest rates of sexual abuse. Over their lifetime, nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men reported experiencing rape at some time in their lives. Approximately 45% of women and 22% of men reported experiencing sexual violence other than rape, such as being made to penetrate someone else, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, or noncontact unwanted sexual experiences.
Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. It involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion through drugging, assault, threats, false promises, protection, family pressure, starvation, rape, isolation, shaming, and debt to make another engage in prostitution or commercial sex acts. The range of those responsible for trafficking can include not only pimps, hustlers, or madams, but any procurer who derives financial gain from the prostitution of another. Mr. Cowan targets all those who traffic especially those who enabled the trafficking and received money in return for hotel or motel rooms, advertising, protection, including bouncers, or for providing a location for sex acts.
Yet trafficking and sexual misconduct is preventable — both before any harm is caused and by preventing future harm. There are many different types of prevention approaches, ranging from individual bystander intervention to family safety plans, from community situational prevention to systemic policies. Mr. Cowan handles rape, sexual misconduct, and trafficking lawsuits with compassion, confidentiality, and expertise. It is critical to contact a sexual abuse lawyer soon because of statutes of limitations or deadlines to timely and lawfully file claims against those responsible, this is especially true as minors age into adulthood.