According to national statistics, one in six women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

Most — 60 percent or more of the victims — don’t report the crime to police.

These statistics are at the heart of a poster campaign that launched Tuesday in Helena as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The posters urge, “It’s time we talk about it.”

The posters grew out of a Capital High School peer-mentoring class discussion about dating violence, said CHS senior Tierney Gozelanski.

Allison Savage, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer who works with the peer counseling class, along with Gozelanski and community member Ashley Stevick brainstormed ideas for creating a public awareness campaign.

Soon, they’d recruited students and community members to take part in photo shoots to develop four different poster designs.

This week, the posters will be plastered on walls in Capital High School bathrooms and hallways, said Gozelanski.

The students are also doing an informational display in the school’s foyer.

Additional posters are slated to go up at Carroll College and in cafes, restaurants and bars, said Stevick. And there will be a billboard of one of the designs on the 900 block of Main Street.

“This crime is incredibly under-reported,” Stevick said, “which is why we say it’s time to talk about it.

“If we can make the topic not be taboo, ...we can hopefully get people talking about it.”

Once people discuss the topic, “we can move to solutions,” said Savage.

For Stevick, the issue became more personal after she heard from several of her closest friends that they had been raped.

“I just really wanted to do something about it,” she said.

Often, sexual assault is considered a “gender issue,” said Savage, but national statistics show that 1 in 33 men will be molested in their lifetime.

“It was really nice to get men on board to help with this campaign,” said Savage. They participated in the photo shoot and other aspects of the campaign.

Locally, The Friendship Center provided services for 141 victims of sexual assault in 2007, said Deborah Bakke, crisis program manager at the center.

Based on federal Department of Justice statistics, it’s estimated that as few as 16 percent of all rapes are reported to law enforcement, Bakke said.

There are many factors for why sexual assaults aren’t reported, including fear of the rapist and of the law enforcement investigation and trial, said Bakke.

For some, there is still stigma attached to being a rape victim.

These crimes are hard to prosecute, she added. “There typically are no witnesses,” she said. “It’s one person’s word against another’s.”

The poster campaign is funded by the Montana Department of Justice.

To request poster copies, call 431-2802.

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com