R.I.S.E. Together

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

1 is 2 Many and the White House Task Force for Students

I could post a long article about this, but the video explains it all.

What is the video for? President Barack Obama released new anti-sexual assault videos with celebrities such as Vice President Joe Biden, Daniel Craig, Benicio Del Toro, Steve Carell, Seth Meyers and Dulé Hill.

Vice President Biden introduced the PSA during the official release of "The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault". The main objective of the task force's report is devoted to increasing male activism and awareness surrounding issues of sexual assault. This video in particular is part of the 1 is 2 Many campaign.

The 1 is 2 Many campian is specifically trying to reducing violence against women specifically on teens, students, and young women ages 16-24. The Vice President pushed for the inclusion of vulnerable groups in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and he remains committed to supporting all survivors.

Vice President Biden also joined President Obama when he created the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, co-chaired by the Office of the Vice President and the Council of Women and Girls. The Task Force is releasing a new initiative, Not Alone, which provides resources to students, advocates, and universities. By targeting the importance of changing attitudes that lead to violence and educating the public on the realities of abuse, the Vice President is leading the way in an effort to stop this violence before it begins.

The upside to this video is it “It does emphasize the vital role men play in preventing sexual violence…The video clearly condemns victim blaming while emphasizing affirmative consent and bystander intervention.”

The major downside though is the video “utterly neglects male victims of sexual assault and violence — a sorely missed opportunity for meaningful inclusion of a group too often left out of these discussions.”

Overall though I am very excited the White House is making a visuable effort to do something, anything at all about sexual abuse.

Reclaiming Rape and Men Stats

Can good come from a horrible crime? Yes, yes it can.

In a new article When Men Are Raped, by Hanna Rosin, the National Crime Victimization Survey discovered 38% of rape and sexual violence were against men. The only explanation officials could over was the “publicity surrounding former football coach Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State sex abuse scandal.”

In 2010 the Centers for Disease Control invented a category of sexual violence called “being made to penetrate.” This definition includes victims who were forced to penetrate someone else with their own body parts, either by physical force or coercion, or when the victim was drunk or high or otherwise unable to consent. When those cases were taken into account, the rates of nonconsensual sexual contact basically equalized, with 1.270 million women and 1.267 million men claiming to be victims of sexual violence.

Millions guys. MILLIONS. Think on that a second. It’s not 5 people, 10 people in your local neighborhood, it’s M-I-L-L-I-O-N-S.

Let’s look at some more stats to blow your mind.

Recent analysis of BJS data, for example, turned up that 46 percent of male victims reported a female perpetrator.
2010 Chicago reported 86,767 cases of rape but used its own broader definition, so the FBI left out the Chicago stats.
Of juveniles reporting staff sexual misconduct, 89 percent were boys reporting abuse by a female staff member.
Inmates aren’t counted in the general statistics at all. In total, inmates reported an astronomical 900,000 incidents of sexual abuse.
Women were more likely to be abused by fellow female inmates, and men by guards, and many of those guards were female.

900,000 in prisons alone? And it doesn’t even count towards the 1.267 million reported in survey by the CDC?

As Stemple sees it, feminism has fought long and hard to fight rape myths—that if a woman gets raped it’s somehow her fault, that she welcomed it in some way. But the same conversation needs to happen for men. By portraying sexual violence against men as aberrant, we prevent justice and compound the shame.

One of the most powerful points in the article though for both men and women was about the terminology of rape.

Feminists claimed the more legalistic term of sexual assault to put it squarely in the camp of violent crime. Bazelon argues in her story for reclaiming the term rape because of its harsh unflinching sound and its nonlegalistic shock value. But she also allows that rape does not help us grasp crimes outside our limited imagination, particularly crimes against men. She quotes a painful passage from screenwriter and novelist Rafael Yglesias, which is precisely the kind of crime Stemple worries is too foreign and uncomfortable to contemplate.

I used to say, when some part of me was still ashamed of what had been done to me, that I was “molested” because the man who played skillfully with my 8-year-old penis, who put it in his mouth, who put his lips on mine and tried to push his tongue in as deep as it would go, did not anally rape me. … Instead of delineating what he had done, I chose “molestation” hoping that would convey what had happened to me.

Of course it doesn’t. For listeners to appreciate and understand what I had endured, I needed to risk that they will gag or rush out of the room. I needed to be particular and clear as to the details so that when I say I was raped people will understand what I truly mean.

I think this can be very, very powerful. I know when I was first dealing with consuelors I would say I was touched, or molested and it filled me with shame and I would shy away from facing it. When I got to the point I could say rape, my attitude changed. I grew more angry and I could face it more unflinchingly. It finally helped me heal faster because I no longer was sugarcoating it for myself. Words can make all the difference to people, but mostly to one’s self.

It’s a very interesting article I total suggest you read the whole story here and broaden your mind:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_rape_in_america_a_new_study_reveals_that_men_are_sexually_assaulted.html

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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Girl's Gone Wild in the Red Light District. - Video

I could explain this, but it's more powerful if you watch it first.

Like the description said, This video was an awareness campaign created by Duval Guillaume Modem and produced by monodot in support of STOP THE TRAFFIK. (Visit http://www.stopthetraffik.org/ to get involved.and the music was A-shja by Raveyards vs. DJ Uinkxxx.)

STOP THE TRAFFIK was started when Phil Lane worked at a day centre for vulnerable children in Mumbai, India.

“Phil was concerned about a 7 and 9 year old brother and sister who lived with their parents on Thane station, having attended the centre for a few months they suddenly stopped attending. Phil went to ask the father if the children were alright. Their father told Phil the two children had been sold to a man who offered them work for the equivalent of $20.

The children have never been seen since. Nobody knows for sure what happened to them. In that area of Mumbai children often disappear. They are kidnapped, sold and trafficked into sexual exploitation, forced labor, adoption and even child sacrifice. Phil was deeply affected by what happened and knew he had to do something to prevent it happening to others. At the same time a number of UK organisations with a global reach wanted to work together to commemorate the 2007 Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Stories and passions from around the world merged together andSTOP THE TRAFFIK was born.”

It’s such a sad, yet touching story. It’s something small, that happens every day all over the world. Many of you will remember our past blog about Demi and Ashton’s DNA Foundation (Here - http://avoiceforheather.blogspot.com/2011/11/sex-trafficking-demi-and-ashtons-dna.html) I'm so excited to see such new, creative, and powerful ways of reaching out and touching people.

STOP THE TRAFFIK site is VERY informative, artistic, and informational without being overwhelming. It even has real life stories you can read, or listen too. You can really feel the impact their campaign is having on the world and the hope real survivors have on the people who join.

Sophie - UK

SOPHIE - UK

"Two years ago everything changed. I was trafficked. I was fooled. I was deceived by a man who said that he loved me. The tragedy is that I believed him. Now I know that love is not shown by forcing me to work on the streets, beating me up, force feeding me and turning me into someone with no mind of my own. I had become like a frightened rabbit. I was terrified that he would kill me. Death too often felt like my only way to escape.

People are product. I was one of them. But I am a survivor.

I have a new life but I am haunted by the faces of those who used me, those whom I did not choose, those for whom I was nothing more than a ten-minute thing.

Please join STOP THE TRAFFIK and make a difference to people's lives... ... people like me."

So what are their plans for the future? Just to keep reaching out.

At the end of the two years momentum through the support of 1.5 million activists had been gained. It was clear this was the beginning of something rather than the end. STOP THE TRAFFIK became an independent charity, and it's founder Steve Chalke became a United Nations Special Advisor on Community Action Against Trafficking.

With your help STOP THE TRAFFIK will continue to grow and reach those at risk as well as inspire people to become voices against trafficking.

Read more at: http://www.stopthetraffik.org/

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Did you know? – Victim Restitution is in the Supreme Court?

Did you know if you were a victim of being forced to be in child porn, you can actually sue your abuser? The Violence Against Women Act provides that people whose images are used in child pornography can sue the viewers of the pictures and videos—the people who are convicted for possessing them. They can also sue the distributors and the producers.

A woman, only known as Amy Unknown, is filing with the Supreme Court to make it easier for victims of child pornography to collect restitution from people who view their images on their computers.

It all started when Doyle Randall Paroline, 48, was arrested in 2009 after an employee at a computer company found sexually explicit images of minors on his computer.

“Of the 150-300 incriminating images found on Paroline's computer, just two were of Amy. Paroline pleaded guilty and received a 24-month prison sentence. Amy, now her early 20s and living in Pennsylvania, was a child when her uncle sexually abused her and widely circulated images of the abuse, according to court records.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said it has found at least 35,000 images of Amy's abuse in more than 3,200 child pornography cases since 1998.
In at least 174 cases, Amy has been awarded restitution in amounts ranging from $100 to more than $3.5 million.”

In Paroline’s case, he is appealing an order holding him responsible for the full amount of losses, nearly $3.4 million. This amount was calculated by a psychologist working for James Marsh, an attorney for Amy. Though this seems like a ridiculous sum, the money is intended to cover the cost of psychological care, lost income and attorneys' fees.

“Advocates for child pornography victims say that holding defendants liable for the entire amount of losses better reflects the ongoing harm that victims suffer each time someone views the images online.
Last year, the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said in a 10-5 decision that victims do not have to show a link between the crime and their injuries.

The threat of a large financial judgment, coupled with a prison term, also might deter some people from looking at the images in the first place, the advocates say.
'The threat that a person in the child pornography market may well bear the entire cost of the harm done to the victim, even if they are a ''minor player'', is likely to be a large deterrent, especially when the harm done typically runs into the millions for a victim's lifetime of care,' said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University. Hamilton wrote a brief in the case on behalf of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.

The real question is whether a court must impose all of Amy's aggregate losses on each defendant. Regardless of the outcome of the court case, Congress could change the law. The U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended that lawmakers consider doing just that to eliminate confusion among federal judges about the right way to calculate restitution.”

However, the laws in that involve calculating restitution are not steady across the board. In another case involving Amy, The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out a restitution order because it found there was not a sufficient link between a man convicted of possessing child pornography and the women.

Author Emily Bazelon said “I wrote about Amy and a second victim, who goes by Nicole, for the New York Times Magazine a year ago, and they both felt nervous about being the first to come forward and ask for restitution. It’s a hard role to play when your biggest fear is being exposed. But they’ve also taken increasing pride about paving the way for other victims to win compensation, especially to pay for counseling, which has helped both of them overcome their experiences of trauma. Both Amy and Nicole attended the argument on Wednesday. Afterward, Amy told me she was thrilled. And Nicole texted me to say, “I felt like the judges really grasped the issues and tried to hash them out.”

That’s what it’s really about, the money is secondary, but paving the way for healing is the most important part.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Rapex – The Anti-Rape Condom

Believe it or not a South African inventor has created a condom to help prevent rape. Yes you read that correctly, a condom.

"Nothing has ever been done to help a woman so that she does not get raped and I thought it was high time," Sonette Ehlers.

The “Rapex” is a device worn like a tampon, but made of latex like a real condom. When the rapist tries to enter the woman’s vagina he is held firmly in place by shafts of sharp barbs that latch onto the perpetrators penis and can only be removed from the man through surgery.

"He will obviously be too preoccupied at this stage…I promise you he is going to be too sore. He will go straight to hospital.”

The condom is made of latex and this allows time for the victim to escape and help identify the perpetrators. It also reduces the chances of a woman falling pregnant or contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases from the attacker.

Elhers goal is to cut down one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world.

“Police statistics show more than 50,000 rapes are reported every year, while experts say the real figure could be four times that as they say most rapes of acquaintances or children are never reported. South Africa has more people with HIV/AIDS than any other country, with one in nine of its 45 million population infected.”

So what’s the down side?

"If a victim is wearing such a device it may enrage the attacker further and possibly result in more harm being caused," said Sam Waterhouse, advocacy co-ordinator for Rape Crisis.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. All in all I’m just glad someone is doing something about rape, and it is still the woman’s choice if she wants to use this method. This however does not stop molestation, or other forms of abuse.

Elher’s did say that "this is not about vengeance ... but the deed, that is what I hate," she said.

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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Making Rape Victims Pay for Rape Kits?

I recently had a friend raped and go through the rape kit process. Today they got the bill. A $5000 bill. Ridiculous. My case happens to be in Texas, but this is not only a state problem.

“A rape kit is a set of items that specially trained medial staff use to gather and preserve evidence of a sexual assault. A woman can decline the process, which can take up to four hours, but going to an emergency room and undergoing this additional intrusion helps document the attack and gives law enforcement evidence it needs to investigate the crime and prosecute the rapist.”

A disabled woman in North Dakota who was brutally raped by an acquaintance. While this woman was recovering from surgery required to repair her internal organs after the rape she received a bill from her hospital for the cost of her rape kit. She was eventually able to get her state's victim compensation board to pay the hospital, but in the meantime she kept receiving notices from the hospital's bill collector.

"I could not believe this was happening to me, after all this," she told me. "It got resolved, thank God, but not before I started to worry that my inability to come up with the money to pay the hospital would jeopardize my case. They tell me it wouldn't have, but it was so much worry that I didn't need."

This is just one example of what victim’s go through. No crime victim should be asked to pay to collect evidence and it is even more horrifying that this would be asked of survivors of a heinous crime like sexual violence who have already demonstrated enormous courage and commitment to justice in submitting to the examination. A victim agrees to the collection of a rape kit in the hope that DNA testing will help police apprehend her (and sometimes his) assailant. Charging the victim to collect the evidence is so foreign to our sense of justice and basic compassion that it is comforting to believe is limited to these few places.

No one explains this problem better then Sarah Tofte, US Program researcher:

"The federal Violence Against Women Act prohibits states from charging victims for rape kit collection, or risk losing federal funding, and every state has passed a law to implement this requirement. This is a significant and necessary reform, but its effect is limited by weak state laws and the way hospitals, the police, prosecutors, and victim compensation funds interpret and carry out their obligation to assume the cost of rape kit collection."

Some state laws are simply inadequate. For example, Oklahoma's law caps compensation for rape victims at $450. This covers barely one-third of the estimated cost of collecting a rape kit in that state. Maine's law caps compensation at $500.The laws in North Dakota, Oregon, and the District of Columbia allow the victim to seek compensation for any cost she incurs for the collection of her rape kit. This means that the victim may first have to pay the bill herself, and then apply for compensation. In Montana, the victim is supposed to be compensated as long as the victim compensation fund does not run out and as long as she cooperates with the investigation.

Other states, like Texas, have laws that appear adequate but can be poorly executed. Texas's statute seems clear: law enforcement must pay the cost of a rape kit. In practice, the payment process is far from simple. In February 2009, I spoke with a rape victim in Texas who received a notice from the hospital that the police had paid $700 toward the cost of the exam, leaving her responsible for the remaining $800. She didn't know about the victim compensation fund, and made two payments of $50 each before a victim's advocate helped her to apply to the fund, which eventually paid the remainder.

The woman told Human Rights Watch: "I don't understand why they had to involve me at all. Why couldn't [the victim compensation fund] and the police and the hospital have worked it out on their own? The payment of my rape kit seemed like a big hassle."

If rape kits are to be treated like fingerprints collected at a robbery - in fact like every other kind of forensic evidence - then states should assume the full cost, in every case, regardless of the circumstances. States also need to prohibit the parties responsible for payment, such as hospitals, from billing the rape victim or pressing her to pay the bill and seek compensation later.

Women should never have to file an insurance claim in connection with a rape kit. A rape kit isn't treatment. It is part of a criminal investigation, and neither they nor their insurance carrier should in any way be forced to bear even temporary cost of this procedure.

For more information see:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/05/13/making-rape-victims-pay

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-cutbirth/how-can-texas-force-women_b_201289.html

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Madonna Comes Out About Rape

Pop Icon Madonna recently revealed in Harper’s Bazaar Magazine that she too was a victim of rape. She describes how her rough start in NYC motivated her and inspired her work, making her one of the most recognizable names in the U.S.

She described her younger years as being seen as “strange,” keeping her from making many friends.

“But it all turned out good in the end, because when you aren’t popular and you don’t have a social life, it gives you more time to focus on your future.”

She moved to New York City to make herself famous, but it wasn’t all flashing lights and parties.

“My apartment (was) broken into three times. I don’t know why; I had nothing of value after they took my radio the first time,” the “Vogue” singer wrote. “The first year, I was held up at gunpoint. Raped on the roof of a building I was dragged up to with a knife in my back.”

On that roof she was brutally raped. Though Madonna does not specify how old she was, the Michigan native arrived in the Big Apple in 1978 — meaning she would be around 20 at the time of the attack.

The budding star did not report the sex assault to cops, Lucy O’Brien wrote in her 2007 biography, “Madonna: Like an Icon.” Instead, she “internalized” the brutality that left her “crying and shaking on the roof.” The incident became a crucial moment not only personally, but also in Madonna’s artistic development.

“Her anger at the attack came out afterward in a need for complete sexual control,” O’Brien said. “Sex became a mask, a way of psychologically turning the tables on her attacker.”

The assault became a source of endless motivation for the Material Girl. “She encountered her own worst possible scenario, becoming a victim of male violence, and thereafter turned that full-tilt into her work, reversing the equation at every opportunity,” O’Brien wrote.

Throughout the essay Madonna returns to a theme she’s certainly familiar with: Daring.

“If I can’t be daring in my work or the way I live my life, then I don’t really see the point of being on this planet,” she wrote.

At the age of 35 she decided fearlessness meant something much different than it did when she was 25. “I needed to be more than a girl with gold teeth and gangster boyfriends,” Madonna wrote. “More than a sexual provocateur imploring girls not to go for second-best baby.”

Instead, she found stimulation in Kaballah, “a mystical interpretation of the Old Testament.” The controversy over her spiritual awakening baffled her. “Was I doing something dangerous? It forced me to ask myself, Is trying to have a relationship with God daring? Maybe it is,” she wrote.

Ten years later, she would reinvent herself again, this time by moving to England and adopting two children from Malawi.

Props to Madonna for sharing her story. I think the more celebrities come out about what they've been through the more they inspire the new generation to not be afraid and to do something good with what they've experienced. End the silence and RISE.

For more information see:http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/madonna-raped-knifepoint-article-1.1476599

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