Where is rape on the increase? Are you speaking about a specific country? Or pretty much the world?
Well, I would argue that these steps are important:
1) People need to educate themselves. Both men and women. We need respect ourselves and each other, we need to learn from one another. We cannot continue to dehumanize others.
2) Adequate help and protection needs to be given to civilian women in war-zones, since a lot of systematic rapes happen in destabilized countries and communities. Rape is a war crime. Everyone needs to be aware of this.
3) The culture of silence and shame needs to be stripped away. When I was little, my mother, a product of patriarchal society, used to tell me that "only stupid women get raped." So, after my assault, I didn't tell anyone for years. I was a "stupid woman"! Why would I shame myself even further? In communities where rape victims are stigmatized, attackers have free reign. They KNOW that their victims will not dare come forward. This allows them continue to attack others.
4) Women and children and, yes, men, who are raped should no longer be stigmatized. Did you know that in regions like Eastern Africa women who have been raped in conflicts are dumped by their husbands and shunned by their communities? More often than not, their only way out is suicide. This needs to stop. It allows for the perspective that rape-victims are "damaged goods," and discourages them from coming forward and naming their attackers.
5) People need to look out for one another. Everyone feels comfortable about asking a couple of good friend to walk them home, or walk them to the library. However, we know that acquaintance rape, as opposed to stranger rape is the real problem (I was also assaulted by someone I knew, it was no stranger). Therefore, we need to establish better relationships with one another, we need to know whom to trust. It's not a panacea, but I think it might help. Also, if you have a friend who is inebriated, unwell, or perhaps if you suspect that her Pepsi has been laced with drugs, take action! Women ought to look out for other women. If you, as a man, feel that another man wants to take advantage of someone, take action! Men need to look out for other men. Communities that work together on these issues see a strong decrease in rape and sexual assault.
6) Combat the direct percipitators of rape. Did you know that some studies show that in the West, men who rape fall into two categories: they were abused and/or humiliated as children, or they were utterly spoiled and given free reign as children? In either case, they were never educated on the fact that other people are human beings (as opposed to hamburgers). If parents took more responsibility for raising their children properly, if the state did not fail to address the concerns of abused/neglected children, we would see less rape. This is my opinion.
7) Technology. In the West, a battered/raped woman has her body scrupulously photographed, DNA samples are taken, her clothes are combed for the tiniest bits of evidence, and so on. I believe that this practice needs to spread to more nations. I hate to be gruesome, but rape victims should not take showers after they are assaulted. The immediate desire is to try to clean yourself up after what happened, I know, I've been there, but valuable evidence can be lost. Everyone needs to be educated on how their own bodies can provide evidence against attackers. There should be zero shame in being examined as soon as possible by trained professionals after the attack. This, I think, provides a deterrent at least in some cases. A single hair from a rapist, found on the victim, could help with his arrest.
Overall, we need to focus on the fact that there are issues of power, domination, and humiliation involved in rape.
