How we can stop rape

 We've published the statistics many times in these pages.

Every five minutes a woman in this country is raped.

One out of every eight will become a victim of sexual assault sometime in their lives.

We just don't think it will be us.

Or our sisters or our mothers or our wives or our girlfriends or our best friends.

The sad truth is, it might already have happened to someone you love.

More numbers for you to digest: Seven out of 10 rape victims in Illinois never report the crime to police or prosecute the attacker.

That means there are many silent victims living in your community, in your neighborhoods.

Perhaps even in your own home.

That also means the vast majority of rapists get away with the crime — a crime that is guaranteed to change forever the lives of the victims.

And the only way we can lower those statistics is through education and awareness.

That's the reason we are making a special effort to highlight April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month through a series of stories that will run each Sunday through the 23rd.

This community is fortunate in that we have Mutual Ground here, which provides advocacy, counseling, prevention programs and a crisis line for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. All it takes is a phone call to (630) 897-8989 and trained professionals will help victims work through every aspect of their ordeal — from seeking medical assistance to the court system.

But in order to take advantage of this help, they have to know it's available.

An estimated 683,000 women over 18 are raped each year in the U.S. — and most of them are still suffering every day.

The anonymous victim we featured on the front page of today's paper not only gives us painful insight into the consequences of this ugly crime, she also offers hope:

"Once you work through things," she told our reporter, "you're able to be free again ..."