Christy that consultation report appears to be a faction of badly complied statistics from females responding to what any competent lawyer would describe as leading questions.
61,000 rapes a year in a population of 60,000,000 people, half of whom are female, means that 1 in 500 is traumatised *every* year, from babies to grannnies......and statistically means that in the 50 years of my lifetime one tenth of all the females I know would have to have been raped.......that's just mince.
If one were to take your argument to it's logical conclusion the advice would be that women who walk or camp alone are asking for whatever befalls them, and one would then not in any way leave oneself so vulnerable: so we'd do what ? live inside the cloistered walls of a harem or a nunnery ?
Not going to happen, it's our country too.
I refuse to live in a climate of paranoia.
I like people, the vast majority I meet are just folks like everyone else, not would be assailants, and would sooner go out of their way to help than to hurt anyone.
That said, I'm not stupid and even though I know that I am more likely to be run over than I am attacked but I do consciously *be aware* of where I am, who I am with, and who is likely to be around, and that's the advice I give to my family and friends daughters.
Toddy