Reporting a Rape: How would you convince her?

[1savvydiva]

Just as the title suggests, I have a friend that was in a situation yesterday where she was sexually assaulted. She has not, and does not want to file charges. We are trying to convince her that she should...here is the background.

"Tasha" is friends with "Mike" for the last 2 years or so. "Mike" is cordial with our group of friends and we all look at him like a somewhat okay guy. "Tasha" and "Mike" end up having sex about 3 months ago...twice in a week period. They haven't had sex since, but remain good friends. About a month ago, Tasha gets kicked out of her apartment, and Mike offers to take her in to his house. We tell Tasha, that that's not a good idea because of their history, he's quite a bit older than her, and because he may want something (although he said that he doesn't want anything...no rent or nothing). She moves in with him, and we ALL have bad feelings about it, but she is one of the younger ones, and I just feel like she was being naive (and we told her so).

Anyway, everything was okay for the last month. No sex, strictly platonic. So "Tasha" comes home yesterday, and Mike has one of his homeboys over there and they are drinking. Tasha doesn't drink (she's only about 100 lbs anyway), but they "convince" her to drink some fruity drink. She said she took a couple sips and started feeling funny after a few minutes, so she said she didn't want any more. They both got aggressive with her and "Mike" forced the cup in her face. She got mad and pushed the cup out of the way and told him No. So he picks her up and takes her in the room...long story short, the "homeboy" holds her down while "Mike" gets protection...the homeboy leaves and Mike continues to assault her.

Long story, shorter...she said that she fought him, she scratched him so I'm sure that she had his skin under her nails. She had bruises on her back from being slammed against the wall, and on her arms from being held down. YET, she doesn't want to report this. She told us after the fact. She had locked herself in the bathroom for hours until he left for work this morning. We asked her why, and she said that she feels stupid for thinking she could stay with him for nothing. She said that she feels naive because we knew that it wasn't a good situation for her but that she did it anyway. We tried to tell her that nobody deserves to be violated, but she just said that she'll take it as a lesson. They moved her stuff out yesterday, but he wasn't there...but what can we say? I mean, i want to put out a hit out on him, but other than that ...what can we do?

Can anyone offer advice?