Raising Awareness
- Anny Jacoby writes that Teens Face More Consequences from Sexting than Congressmen Do! reflects on the way laws against electronic transmission of images are being used against teens. In some states, prosecutors have charged teens who text images of themselves with transmitting child pornography. Students who send the images to others can end up 70 or more such charges, one for each person on their male list. Both can end up on sexual offender lists. She also tells the story of Allyson Pereira who paid a terrible price in terms of bullying. Pereira is now is educating students about sexting and trying to change laws that leave teens with heavy legal consequences for an impulsive or accidental act.
Publicity and Milestones
- Angela Rose. Activist Angela Rose, founder of PAVE, talks with ABC News about PAVE, the organization she founded, and the kidnapping and sexual assault that turned her into an activist. PAVE is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Its name stands for “Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment”
- The Angel Band Project. At the end of May, the founders of the Angel Band Project were keynote speakers at the 2011 SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) conference in Austin, Texas. The Angel Band Project was started as a creative musical response to the rape and murder of Theresa Butz. Her family and friends created a benefit CD of original cover songs. They donating royalties from the CD will be donated to the Voices and Faces Project.
- Maria DiBari‘s Tri-County Crisis Center (TCCC) has received a grant from Verizon Wireless. The center will provide services to domestic violence victims regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Male and LGBT victims often lack services and TCCC wants to address that issue. Maria DiBari is a survivor of domestic violence. Her experience opened her eyes to gaps in services and she has been advocating for legal reform and solutions to service gaps since 2008.
Collaboration
- Alexis A. Moore from Survivors in Action and Maria DiBari from Tri-County Crisis Center (TCCC) are working together to improve GPS monitoring in Dutchess County, NY, USA. They are also working together to help domestic violence survivors get free reconstructive surgery for injuries casued by domestic battering.
- Betty Makoni from the Girl Child Network will be speaking at the London event of the first ever Global “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes”® Day on June 19. This day is a joing project of The Pixel Project and Venture Humanity. There will be events around the globe to raise money and encourage men to work together to prevent domestic violence. Venture Humanity will raise money through “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” events. This is a march where men where men do their best to walk literally in women’s shoes, i.e. pumps and high heels. A admission fee is charged to each man, depending on where they march. In Kuala Lumpur it is US$ 12. In London it is US$ 25. The Pixel Project will raise money through its Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign. This campaign will raise US $1,000,000 for domestic violence by drawing a million pixel picture of four mystery male role models. Each time someone donates US$ 1, a dot will be added to the picture.
Volunteering
- Erin Merryn, who advocates for teaching young people how to recognize and react to sexual abuse, is spending the week as a camp counsellor working with abused children in foster care.
Calls to Action
- The Office of the Inspector General of the Peace Corps is conducting a review of procedures for handling sexual assault. They are requesting that survivors of sexual or physical violence while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer, please contact the OIG at OIG@peacecorps.gov to share your experience. For more information, see First Response Action. First Response Action is a coaliation of former Peace Corps volunteers who were sexually assaulted during their service.
- In 2008 a cheerleader at Silsbee High School in Texas was raped by one of the members of her schools basketball team. After the rape she participated in all basketball game cheers, but she refused to shout out the alleged rapist’s name. The school kicked her off the team and her family sued. After three years of legal battles she lost her suit and was ordered to pay the schools legal fees to the tune of $45,000. The alleged rapist had not yet been indicted at the time she refused to cheer, so the court ruled that the suspension from the team was legitimate.
Change.org has put up a petition asking that the school waive the legal fees and set up a proper policy so that students don’t have to cheer the name of a student they allege has raped them. Please visit the site if you would like to sign it.
If you would like to donate to a fund to offset the legal fees, you can visit http://www.helpthecheerleader.com/ .
Religious protest
- Linda Fossen, a survivor of CSA, but also a Christian, writes a post explaining why Jesus should use the church for defamation of character.
- Karenp@RealGrace, another christian survivor of CSA, writes a post challenging superficial understandings of the idea that “God is behind every trial”. She argues that trials that are a by-product of human wrong doing cannot simply be brushed off as the handiwork of God and we need to understand God’s ability to bring good out of these situations in a different way. See “Is God Behind Every Trial?”.
