If You Have Been Sexually Assaulted or Raped
You can call the Help Restore Hope Center hotline at 1-855-9NOWSAFE/1-855-966-9723 for assistance with knowing your rights, and/or for accompaniment to both medical care and/or law enforcement agencies.
IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO NOT REPORT THE RAPE TO POLICE!
You can seek medical attention to help with physical injury.
Medical care can be important to assist with the prevention of HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Medical care can be sought to assist with the prevention of pregnancy due to the rape.
A Rape Kit can be used to collect evidence of the rape.
Should you decide to prosecute the rape, a Victim’s Advocate from the Help Restore Hope Center can assist you through the Criminal Justice Process.
Important information you should know if you were sexually assaulted!
Wanting to wash, shower, and change clothes is a natural impulse after a sexual assault, but wait. If you have not done so already, do not:
- Take a bath or shower
- Brush your teeth
- Go to the bathroom
- Douche
- Change your clothes
- Brush your hair
- Eat or drink anything
As uncomfortable as you may be, if you can avoid doing any of these things, you will preserve evidence that can help convict the person who raped you. If you have already washed up, don’t worry–but don’t wash any more. If you have taken off the clothes you were wearing when you were assaulted, put them in a clean shopping bag and take them with you to the hospital.
Go directly to the hospital emergency room. If you have already called the Help Restore Hope Center, an Advocate will meet you there. If not, ask the hospital to call the Center for you. We will be there as soon as possible. At the hospital, a nurse will offer to call the police for you. This is your choice. The police will not be called automatically, either by the hospital or by Center staff. This is to protect your privacy. There are some circumstances in which hospital staff are required to notify the police: if a gun or knife was used or if there is reason to suspect child sexual abuse. How much or little you choose to tell the police in these cases is still your choice; the intent is to protect you or someone else from further harm in these grave situations.
