Peace corps safety?

Question

I want to join the peace corps right out of undergrad, before i go to law school. i am female, and i have read news stories of pc women being raped and my dad is terrified for my safety and doesn't want me to go. i want to help people, i am low-maintenance, and want a broader view of the world. i want to volunteer in asia, learn chinese. is there a high chance of me being raped/assaulted in peace corps?

Answer 1

You can be raped anywhere. Coeds get raped every year on college campuses. I search for "Peace Corps" every week or so. The safety question comes up frequently. Whenever it does I think about those poor Amish school girls and the maniac who raped and shot them, as an extreme example. Normally all the Amish have to worry about are traffic accidents between their buggies and outsiders' automobiles.

You do have to be careful. You are safer in small towns than in big cities. (Just like the US, Europe and Canada.)

You do have a disadvantage; much of the third world gets much of its information about day-to-day life in the USA from TV and movies, and not documentaries. In the James Bond movies, for instance, scene 1 he's drinking a martini in a fancy bar, raises one eyebrow at a buxom blond, scene 2 they are waking up and the room service waiter is bringing in champagne with strawberries in the flutes. Women in TV and the movies are easy. A lot of the third world thinks all you have to do to sleep with an American woman is ask her.

We worry about our daughter, who is a PCV today, but no more than we did when she was at college in a large city.