Persecuting Athena

Imagine growing up in a country where one in every four girls will be raped before they turn eighteen.

Now "realize" that you already live there.

For one family, that statistic became an impossible reality when their teenage daughter was assaulted by A friend when she was just fifteen. The rape of teenage girls by boys they know, and often trust, is a silent epidemic in North America. Bravely, Athena stepped up to become one of only an estimated 1 to 2 percent of acquaintance-rape victims who report the crime to police. What could keep a rape victim from coming forward to demand justice?

It was a question that haunted the family-and one that inspired Athena's mother, Marion Schuler, to action.

Written from a mother's point of view, "Persecuting Athena" tells the heartbreaking story of one teen survivor's fight for justice in Canada's legal system only to be treated as a criminal herself.

Marion believed that her daughter's rape was the worst thing that could have happened to her-but she could not have been more wrong. At times, the family feared for Athena's survival. The young woman endured victim blaming by all levels of the legal system, and the experience almost destroyed what had been a stellar young woman.

The events in "Persecuting Athena" are shocking but painfully true. It is past the time when concerned citizens must demand the social changes needed to save our daughters.