Women are the predominant victims of rape and sexual assault; therefore, they may have some insight on the editing of a col-umn on sexual assault. A study by the Women’s Media Center showed that women staffers at newspapers are outnumbered.

Lauren Wolfe, director of the journalism project Women Under Siege, which has documented decades of wartime rape, says little has changed over the years because of prejudice against rape vic-tims based upon culture and religion. “Most victims cannot expect support or to see a prosecution. The most likely outcome would be stigma, even within families,” Wolfe said.

“It is a problem in almost every war — whether the conflict is based on ethnicity or religion, it’s always there for one reason or another,” said Lauren Wolfe, director of Women Under Siege, a journalism project at the Women’s Media Center on sexualized violence in conflict, and an advisory committee member for the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict. “In Syria, rape is present because it is an effective tool. It is culturally so pow-erful, an easy way to make a statement ... to humiliate your enemy in a culture where the purity of women is so sanctified.”