Survivor Weekly Roundup

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?”.
Raven overlooking canyon

Credit: Al_HikesAZ @ Flickr.com

We’ve been on hiatus so this week’s roundup will include a few tidbits from earlier in the year and not just the last week.

Survivor artists, writers and activists

Anne Jacoby

Ayanna Nahmias

Beth Fehlbaum

Erin Merryn

  • On February 14, 2011, after many years of advocacy, Erin’s law was signed by the Governor of Illinois. We congratulate her and all who have worked along side of her on their efforts. The law ensures that school aged children will be educated about child sexual abuse prevention. Erin Merryn herself is a survivor of childhood sexual assualt. For her story and future plans,see her website.

Ginger Voight

  • Tells the story of the first time she told her story of stranger rape at age 4 and contrasts that with the reception that Ben Stein gave the Strauss-Kahn story in the American Spectator.

Maria DiBari

Wendy Blight

Survivor founded organizations and projects

First Response Action, started by a group of Peace Corp volunteers who had been raped during their Peace Corp service, works to improve prevention and care for Peace Corp volunteers who have been assulted during their service.

PAVE, started by Angela Rose, survivor of a knife-point abduction at 17. The organization encourages and empowers survivors to work towards the elimination of sexual violence.

Survivors in Action is a project of Alexis A. Moore, a survivor of cyber-stalking. The organization focuses on raising awareness about domestic violence and stalking survivors who fall through the cracks. Recent activities include

Stilletos and Self-Defense is a project of Jennifer Cassetta, a survivor of attempted assault and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She discusses her motivations for the project. From time to time her blog contains various self defense tips including this interesting set of safety tips for actresses: How to Stay Safe at Auditions.

Where’s Your Line is a project of Nancy Schwartzman, a survivor of rape who made a documentary that included her rapists confession that he raped her. The project examines the meaning of consent and advocates to bring the conviction rate for rape in line with the conviction rate for other crimes. In the past month the blog has had posts on:

In addition Where’s Your Line is partnering with Planned Parenthood and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention program to lead a day long seminar on sex, consent, and intimate partner communication.

Raven overlooking canyon

Credit: Al_HikesAZ @ Flickr.com

Survivor Project News

Marcella Chester @ Abyss2Hope publishes a “carnival”, or roundup, of posts on sexual assault related issues on the first and 15th of each month. The latest carnival was published May 15, 2009. If you have an article you would like to recommend for the next carnival (June 1), you can submit the link, using this form. In general, recommendations should be submitted at least 3 days before the 1st and 15th.

Erin Weed, who founded Girls Fight Back after a friend of hers was murdered, writes about attending and being inspired by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network and Women’s Funding Network conferences. She is beginning to talk to major funders about internationalizing Girls Fight Back, possibly with the goal of teaching self-defense to women in war zones.

Art, Literature & Entertainment

Ellen Moody discusses the literary and cinematic influences on two Jane Austin movies originally made for TV: Sense and Sensibility (2008) and Miss Austin Regrets.

Carol Lehman reviews the book Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan . She describes it as a fantasy book that “honestly address issues that child sexual abuse survivors face”. The book is a fantasy story based on the Grimm Brother’s tale, “Snow White and Rose Red”. Note: In 2009, the UK Guardian book reviewer Meg Rosoff called it “the must-read of the summer”.

Purple Stained Skin has written up a list of the major poetry magazines available on newstands and libraries and provides a short description for each. In a second post Purple Stained Skin provides commentary on the poems published in No 23 of the Columbia poetry review. In a third post he has a review of Ally Malinenko’s The Wanting Bone.

White Dove’s Nest has written and posted a beautiful poem about learning across generations: A Boy Looking After Teddy Bears.

Feminism, Ethnocentrism, and other isms

Ayanna Nahmias reflects on the good and bad of a 1917 National Geographic story on North Africa. The photography in the story preserved a culture that has since changed in the face of global connectednes. But the commentary on the photos reflects the extreme ethnocentrism that develops when cultures do not meet each other.

Facts for Working People reflects on spending priorities in California, disputes over African investment policies, the never ending corporate search for cheap labor, and low usage rate of US industrial capacity, all from a socialist perspective.

Body and Self

This week, the body and self category was dominated by posts on the oversexualization of young people.

Abyss2Hope reflects on the phrase “prostitots” and argues that this particular way of describing over sexualized children is problematic because it uses “slut-shaming” to deal with the problem of oversexualized children.

Anny Jacoby comments with concern about a video of 8-9 year olds dancing in the World of Dance competition. She feels that by approving this dance routine the coach and the children’s parents were sending the wrong message and teaching their children to gain applause and approval from sexualized behavior. Note: The video has since been taken off line, but two ABC segments about the video contain partial images, a response by the parents, and commentary by a child psychologist.

Health and Wholeness

Ayanna Nahmias discussed a 7 year old Russian boy whose adoptive mother decided that he was “too difficult” and sent him back. She observes that parenting is a life-long responsibility. Children, whether born or adopted, shouldn’t be discarded because they are too difficult.

Just Be Real focused on people pleasing and why that can become a destructive addiction. She quotes liberally from evangelit Joyce Meyer. Both Just Be Real and Joyce Meyer are survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Reasons You Shouldn’t Fuck with Kids continues her exploration of the many ways childhood rape can impact a life. This week she discussed the impact of being raped by her brother on her adult relationship with her husband and reflected on how a prior face to face confrontation with evil magnifies her reactions to events like the Columbine massacre.

Crime and Terror: Advocacy, Prevention, and Aftermath

Anny Jacoby tells a wonderful story about how an attempted stabbing was thwarted by a combination of self-defense skills and cooperation. One student ran to security to get police to the scene. The other, Jesse Hladik, worked to subdue the attacker, along with two other students. When Hladik noticed the knife in the attacker’s had, she was able to force him to drop the knife by applying pressure to appropriate points on the wrist.

Anny Jacoby has also written two posts questioning how much protection against dating violence is provided for by current laws in Virginia and the proposed policies of the University of Virginia. University of Virginia student Yeardley Love was murdered by an ex-boyfriend on May 3, 2010.

Abyss2Hope compares the social tolerance for false rape claims to the social tolerance for auto insurance fraud.

Gayle Force @ Unnatural Forces reflects on how rape changes the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. She also shares an example of how the right kind of humor can help us deal with rape.

Theology, Religion and Ethics

Shen @ Reunited Selves has just finished a long series of posts describing a private retreat where she carried out a ceremony she created for herself to symbolize and carry her through a transitional moment of healing and letting go.

Darlene Ouimet reminds us that sometimes positive affirmations and religiously motivated actions are sometimes the end point rather than the starting point of a journey of healing. Before we can deal with matters like forgiveness or the belief that God doesn’t make junk, first we must give ourselves permission to feel and experience ourselves as we are now, in the moment, and not as we think we should be. Two part post: (1, 2) .

Wanda’s Wings explores her anger at God. Harriet J @ Futitivus describes how taking a risk with prayer helped her defuse her intense anger at her less-than-nice neighbors.

Raven overlooking canyon

Credit: Al_HikesAZ @ Flickr.com

Survivor Project News

  • Beth Fehlbaum is progressing with her efforts to market a line a young adult novels about survivors of childhood sexual assault and abuse. The first book in the series, Courage in Patience, is now available on Amazon through Marketplace Sellers. The second will be published in October by Westside Books. She has also added a Facebook community page (a.k.a. fan page) to support her marketing efforts.
  • Erin Merryn‘s bill was approved by the Illinois Senate.  The bill must now be approved by the state House of Representatives.  An article on Erin Merryn and her advocacy work was published in Chicago’s Daily Herald.    She has also written a post describing the hearings and the actual vote.
  • Maria Phelps has been working on an amendment to strengthen protections of women whose partners have violated a restraining order. Zebrowski and 8 co-sponsors have introduced bill A. 10736. The bill will prevent a domestic abuser who has violated a restraining order, from being released without seeing a Judge first, or being held for at least 12 hours. The bill was inspired by the case of Isol Cotto who was murdered by her husband when he bailed himself out 2 hours after being jailed for violating a restraining order. (more…)

New Survivor Blogs

  • Silence the Lies, Give Voice a Truth has started a blog “to educate readers of some of the misconceptions about rape that are rampant in our societal subconscious.” She was raped when a fellow guest at the birthday party for a friend’s 9 year old daughter offered to walk her home.

Survivor Project News

  • Marj aka Thriver is fullfilling her dream and learning to draw botanical sketches. She showed off a sample of her developing skills here.
  • Erin Merryn who was sexually abused by her cousin at age 11 has been advocating to change the Illinois school code so that children are informed about how to recognize, report and get help for sexual abuse. On April 19, Tom Bivins formally turned her proposed school code ammendments into a bill and asked her to testify You can see the proposed ammendments here. If you live in Illinois and want to support this bill, we encourage you to contact your state senators and representatives.
  • Denise Brown, whose sister, Nicole Brown, was a victim of domestic violence and murder, has founded the Elite Speakers Bureau. The Bureau meets a need for celebrity and nationally recognized speakers on family and sexual violence for corporations and shelters fundraising events. (more…)