Faith and Sexual Violence: An Empirical Assessment

Abstract

This study empirically examines the potential impact of religious composition on sexual violence on a global scale. A dataset of 120 countries, for which both religious distribution and rape per capita data are available, is used for analysis. Preliminary descriptive analyses reveal that nations with the highest rape per capita rates are predominantly Christian-majority, with an average Christian population of 83%. North America and Europe are home to 68% of these countries. Conversely, countries with the lowest per capita rates of rape show a significant presence of Muslim populations, averaging 36%. More than 60% of Asian countries with significant Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim populations are categorized as low in terms of the prevalence of sexual violence per capita. Regression analysis indicates a statistically significant positive relationship between the percentage of the Christian population and the incidence of rapes per capita. Conversely, there appears to be an inverse relationship between Muslim population percentage and the occurrence of sexual violence. The examined dataset did not yield any evidence to support a relationship between the percentages of Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and other religious groups and the incidence of rapes per capita. These findings suggest that there are potential faith-related factors that play a role in sexual violence, highlighting the need for more research.