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In a continued effort to bring you positive energy in addition to news which is often quite negative due to the nature of our work, we have instituted Monday Motivating Moments, a place to share motivating, refreshing, and/or cheerful things with you to help start your week off right. These moments will come in the form of songs, poetry, art, stories and more, so stay tuned!

I was at Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend and had the treat of seeing some of my favorite artists perform, including Austin’s own Patty Griffin. Seeing Patty Griffin perform “Up to the Mountain” live is always an amazing experience, and I thought I would share it as this week’s motivating moment. The song is based on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered the day before his assassination. I think the song is relevant to anyone who is working for social justice.

Usually I blog about incidents that have aggravated or frustrated me in some way, things that show how our culture is a runaway train headed in the wrong directions hurtling us all to our doom. I’m fairly comfortable in that space of doom and gloom. It’s an easy place to be in. However, today I am both pleased and surprised to bring a positive and inspiring message to you all.

A few weeks ago, Robert Jensen sent me an article he was working on based on an interview he conducted with Ruth Anne Koenick, a woman who had a profound impact on his work in the movement to end violence against women. The idea itself struck me as poignant and profound largely because this has become a time where we are honoring fewer and fewer of the women who have been doing this work long term but telling the stories of and giving voice to almost any man who speaks out against violence and sexism. We have stopped honoring women’s role in social change – both the changes that have happened and those that are still to come as we continue to work to dismantle rape culture. In the interview, Koenick has the following to say about how far the movement has come and the challenges we still face.

I think there are some things that are better, but only at a certain level. Yes, there are rape care programs, and there is state and federal funding for a small piece of those programs. Maybe the prosecutor and I know each other well enough to chat and have lunch, but does that mean that the criminal-justice system is any more likely to treat a survivor well, to take her seriously today than years ago? The language has changed — we can say “rape” out loud and teach about it in courses — but has that changed the underlying belief system? People don’t come out of the womb wanting to be rapists nor believing that they are to blame when they are victims, but that’s where so many end up. What does that say about the culture’s belief systems?

Read more

This new blog feature will honor the myriad of women who have influenced and inspired us over the years, both professionally and personally. Activists, teachers, family, friends, mentors, icons of the movement– all of the powerful women who have shaped our minds, hearts and lives through their courageous work.

This feature is open for submissions, so if you’re interested in honoring a powerful woman who has impacted you, please e-mail me!

The San Antonio Express-News reports:

Austin police discovered four sex offenders among the 1,300-plus Ike evacuees in its shelters last week — and evicted the three they could locate. The fourth they couldn’t find.

“I have no idea where they went (after being put out) but they’re not allowed to come back,” said James Mason, an Austin police detective.

Operation Safe Shelter was launched, as I understand it, to allow shelter staff to provide alternative refuge for sex offender evacuees or to at least monitor them, but not to turn them away completely. The fact that these people were turned away from shelter is appalling. This is a violation of these people’s rights- they have served their sentences, so there is no justification for turning them away from shelter during a natural disaster. Moreover, how is turning sex offenders out into the community who have been displaced from their homes with nowhere to go keeping our communities safe? I don’t understand the logic here.

All of us here at TAASA are keeping our colleagues and their families who were affected by Hurricane Ike in our thoughts.

Currently, we know that the Hardin County Crime Victim’s Assistance Center in Kountze and the SAAFE House in Livingston are closed due to damage from the hurricane, and the Fort Bend County Women’s Center in Richmond has one flooded room, but is open.

We have been unable to reach many of the centers that were in the path of the hurricane, including the centers in Galveston, Dayton, League City, Angleton, The Woodlands, Huntsville, Beaumont, Baytown, Texas City, Beeville, Alice, Kingsville and Sinton. We hope that damage for these centers was minimal, and hope to reach them soon. If you work at a rape crisis center that was affected, please do not hesitate to contact us if there is anything we can do to help during this difficult time.

If you want to help victims of Hurricane Ike, you can donate to the American Red Cross.

The latest Carnival Against Sexual Violence is up at Abbyss2hope, featuring articles on a myriad of topics (including two from our very own blog!), so check it out.

You can find more information about the carnival here.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Shared Hope International recently conducted an assessment evaluating different regions’ ability to recognize and effectively aid sex trafficking victims. The assessment found that law enforcement in North Texas needs a lot of improvement. In Tarrant County alone, the assessment found that at least 35 minors have faced prostitution or other sex-related charges since 2000. The minors in question were between the ages of 12 and 16.

It is ludicrous that girls, some of them not even teenagers yet, are being charged with prostitution. I would have imagined it is pretty clear that a young teen girl working as a prostitute is being exploited by a pimp. I’m glad that Shared Hope is making the effort to increase awareness and provide education about this issue, because it is vital that first responders understand the dynamics of human trafficking so they can help the victims. But how do we prevent these young girls from being victimized in the first place?

One of the causes that sends children (as well as adults) into prostitution is poverty:

That number could be the tip of the iceberg, officials said. North Texas has a large population of homeless youths — in 2004 there estimated to be almost 1,000 in Tarrant County — who are susceptible to sex-ring recruiters.

It is estimated that 70 percent of homeless youths are involved in commercial sex, the assessment reported.

“That is how they survive,” Smith said.

We can’t fully address sex trafficking of minors without addressing the poverty that drives them to it in the first place. Until there are better options for survival for those living in poverty, women and girls will continue to get trapped in the cycle of violence and abuse that is prostitution.

Feministing reports on a terrible MSNBC headline “Court: Cops illegally taped nursing home sex, Judges says husband of woman in coma had expectation of privacy.”

The story is about a man in Madison, Wisconsin, who was charged with sexually assaulting (not having “sex” with) his comatose wife. The staff at the nursing home where the woman was staying notified police that they suspected the patient’s husband was raping her and a hidden camera was installed in her room. The court ruled that the hidden camera constitutes an illegal search because the man had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his wife’s room.

Ann at Feministing asks why a rape kit wasn’t performed on the woman if sexual abuse was suspected, and I wonder if she cannot consent to the exam since she is comatose. This seems unlikely, though, because I assume consent for medical treatment is implied. The article makes no mention of a rape kit or why it wasn’t used in lieu of the camera. Another possibility is that the police felt like a camera would be less invasive for the victim and just didn’t forsee the court ruling it an illegal search.

Unfortunately, it looks like charges will be dropped now that the videotape cannot be submitted as evidence, though it is clear that a comatose person cannot give consent to sexual activity. Kudos to the police and the nursing home for taking the situation seriously and recognizing the situation as sexual assault, even though MSNBC doesn’t seem to.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today launched Operation Safe Shelter, a new emergency service that will provide registered sex offender information to evacuation shelter personnel. With Hurricane Ike moving rapidly toward Texas, multiple counties have issued evacuation orders and shelters across the state are expected to provide refuge to thousands of fleeing Gulf Coast residents. To aid emergency shelters, raise awareness and protect evacuees, the Office of Attorney General has established a 24-hour a day, toll-free emergency hotline that will allow shelter personnel to inquire whether evacuees are registered sex offenders.

When evacuation shelters contact the Safe Shelter Hotline at (866) 385-0333, law enforcement officials with the Office of the Attorney General will access and share information from the state’s registered sex offender database. That information will help shelter personnel determine whether any of their evacuees are included on the Department of Public Safety’s sex offender registry. To ensure thorough database searches, callers need to provide evacuees’ names, addresses and dates of birth. Shelter managers can use this information as necessary to coordinate specialized housing arrangements or take other action as appropriate.

Effective immediately, the Safe Shelter Hotline will be operational 24 hours a day and will continue until emergency conditions subside. In addition to the telephone number listed above, emergency shelters will be provided an e-mail address and fax line that they can use to submit evacuee information to the OAG. Operation Safe Shelter reflects a cooperative effort between the OAG, Department of Public Safety, State Operations Center and Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw. More information can be found at www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/hurricane.

Child Trends released a report last month that found nearly one in five women between the ages of 18-24 have experienced forced sex.

Other key findings of the report:

• Whether or not the women had experienced forced sex did not vary by race or ethnicity.
• Neither did it vary by socioeconomic status.
• Rates did increase with certain high risk behaviors, including HIV risk factors and other high-risk sexual activity.
• Sixty-one percent of the women who experienced forced sex were coerced through words or actions without threats.

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