Identifying Common Barriers to Formal Disclosure of Sexual Violence

Abstract

This study analyzed tweets from Twitter containing hashtags related to the #WhyIDidntReport movement, which was created to allow victims of sexual violence to share their experiences and seek support. The study aimed to identify common barriers to formal reporting of sexual violence. The study used the Twitter API and snscrape, a social network scraping tool, to gather tweets from January 1, 2020 to October 31, 2022. A total of 29,855 tweets were collected and preprocessed, and 1,500 were randomly selected for analysis to identify themes. The study found that the most common reason for not reporting was personal, followed by societal. The least common reason was criminal. The study also found that the most common subtheme for not reporting was fear of retaliation from the perpetrator, which made up 30.6% of the tweets. Another subtheme under the personal theme was ignorance of assault, which made up 15.3% of the tweets. The subtheme of considering the assault as not serious made up 12.6% of the tweets. Several recommendations were made to the prevalence of sexual violence.