Aduol and her mother face several barriers while attempting to seek justice for the Aduol’s sexual assault. As can be seen from the drawing above, the majority of their time is spent travelling to a new referral, seeing someone they’ve seen before, or waiting for a representative to be available. In post-disaster settings, establishing a sense of normalcy and creating policies between existing and new systems can be difficult since multiple representatives have individual interests and goals. In the span of a few days, Aduol and her mother see 11 people; some of whom they see multiple times. A more established pathway must be developed to increase coordination while addressing the needs of the individual in the context of the community. It is evident that most representatives know what is needed to do their jobs but do not understand the big picture beyond the next step of who can help Aduol. Therefore, to synthesize the process in order to reduce wait and referral times, each representative should have an understanding of the process in its entirety. This begins with the block leader, who is a respected member of society, and should play a critical role in guiding each individual through this process. While each case is different and needs to be treated as such, it is vital that the block leader can explain the general path and what representatives will need to be involved. By educating and encouraging the block leader to play a role in the case, it can create more trust
During the 20th century, the estimated 50 million children were in out-of-home care in Australia. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (The Royal Commission) was founded in by the Australian government in 2013 to investigate how institutions like out-of-home care and school responded to allegations of child sexual abuse. Whereas the research of the Royal Commission focused on child sexual abuse, they were also interested in how recordkeeping practices can promote transparency and accountability and released a consultation paper Records and recordkeeping practices (consultation paper) which was advocated by professionals of records.
Start blaming the system, not the victim. Sexual assault is a crime that is very common, yet the punishment perpetrators receive is not as harsh as it needs to be to reduce the occurrence of these crimes. Laws concerning sexual crimes have been edited over decades to be stricter however, sex offenders typically receive little or no punishment. Sexual Assault is defined as any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient (“Sexual Assault”). Victims of sexual assault are often blamed as the reason for the crime being committed while the blame is taken away from the offender. Harsher punishment must be enacted on sex offenders because the victims suffer conflict from the crime throughout their
For example, beginning in 1992, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, required that all accredited hospitals implement policies and procedures for identifying, treating and referring victims of abuse (Mason, 1993). This included in-service training programs for staff members of their emergency departments and ambulatory care facilities (Mason, 1993). In 1994, 83 organizations, including the American Nurses’ Association and the American Bar Association, met to identify gaps and barriers between the health care delivery and criminal justice systems in dealing with family violence cases. Among their recommendations were the following: a mechanism for community professional coordination in assessment to maximize family safety; the creation of community-based family violence coordination councils; and the need to establish, in every community, a comprehensive, culturally sensitive, and accessible intervention system for family violence that links health, justice, mental health, social service, and educational systems (Stanley, 1994). In addition, the American Medical Association (AMA) published guidelines for Health care professionals to use in identifying domestic violence victims. Violent families are easy to describe
University of Tennessee Knoxville was recently involved in a lawsuit for enabling athletes to sexually assault women by silencing the victims and failing to provide disciplinary actions or even investigation onto the accused. While this is a recent case, this is not the first time this sort of behavior involving a school has been brought into light. One in four women will be sexually assaulted by the end of their undergraduate career (Posluszny). Sexual assault happens throughout society no matter what the gender or age, seeming to be in increasing epidemic over the last few years. While the idea of sexual assault is largely met with public hostility in theory, actions often contradict this. This contradiction lies heavily in a culture that is unwelcoming to the victims and often leads to the perpetrators being tolerated. The existence of rape culture in western society occurs due to the preservation of violent media, patriarchal standards, and the state of the criminal justice system. This culture cannot be improved until we confront each of these problems to their roots.
Of all of the subjects that we’ve discussed in class so far, I think the one that received the most feedback was the topic of sexual harassment/assault. We of course talked about the various forms of harassment/assault, and how public discussion of this topic raises awareness of the issue. Many consequences rise based on sexual harassment/assault; beginning with the victim on a personal basis. My personal reaction to this subject is one of familiarity due to my training in the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response & Prevention Program (SHARP). Over the years there have been numerous incidents of harassment/assault in the Military which is why the (SHARP) program was implemented. With all the means of technology people currently use, they are informed of most incidents, which occur in this world. It is noticeable
I interviewed two women and one man about the University of Iowa’s efforts with respect to sexual assault on campus. The first person I interviewed was a twenty-one year old woman from England named Gina. Michaela, an eighteen year old female from a small-town Southern Baptist high school, was the second female I interviewed. The only man I interviewed was Matt, a 19 year old male from a mid-sized town.
After interviewing Raana Simmons, I learned so much more about Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CCASA) and how advocating for a specific group of individuals makes a large difference. Some of the questions she directed me to their website because she stated that the information on the website was going to be more precise than how she would exactly word it. CCASA is a membership organization that promotes safety, justice, and healing for survivors of sexual assault while working to eliminate sexual violence (CCASA, 2016). CCASA services Colorado communities only and have a vision that Colorado communities believe and support survivors, hold perpetrators accountable, and take action to end sexual violence (CCASA, 2016). CCASA has a list of core values that are followed that help to advocate for the survivors of sexual violence, these core values include anti-oppression and Social justice/change, a survivor focus, collaborating and engaging the community, advocacy and education to prevent sexual violence, safety and freedom for victims of sexual violence, holding offenders accountable for their actions, and ethical communication and practice (CCASA, 2016).
Sexual assault policy in the United States as it stands is clearly inadequate for protecting the physical wellbeing of men and women from sexual assault. Layering of policy serves a s a Band-Aid on a social wound much too large to be contained and the rise of sexual assault as a public problem reiterates the need for greater legislation and policy to protect everyone from becoming prey to the crime of sexual assault. While eyes focus on the (disproven) rise of violence in the United States, and turn to gun control, other violent crimes are forgotten. Sexual Assault has seen several cases of policy failure that actors have tried to salvage through the act of policy layering and have not significantly resolved the problem.
I am a campus sexual assault response advocate (SARA) through a partnership between Simpson College and Crisis Intervention Services (CIS). After attending 30 hours of training I have Victim Counselor Privilege as found in the Iowa Code 915.20A. SARA provides 24/7 advocacy services on the Simpson College campus, when classes are in session, to anyone in need of support and/or assistance due to sexual assault. The goal of SARA is to educate and assist members of the Simpson community in dealing with sexual assault and sexual responsibility. SARA is also a student-run organization which provides educational programming designed to educate the campus about issues related to dating violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and being conscientious
According to the National Defense Research Institute, policies and programs should be improved to increase reporting of the full range of sexual assaults, including those not perceived as sexual acts. They should expand sexual harassment and gender discrimination monitoring, prevention, and accountability practices and equip commanders with data and guidance to take effective actions. Prevention and enforcement efforts should target bullying, hazing, and other demeaning behaviors. The factors contributing to risk and prevention of sexual assault and sexual harassment should be identified. Lastly, current sexual assault training that service members receive should be assessed (Morral, Gore & Schell, 2014). There needs
Collaboration between programs and advocates can help ensure that victims are aware of all of the options that are available to them. For example, in the area around Fresno State, Marjaree Mason Center, a shelter for abused women, refers women to the Living Room, a center where community members can get tested for HIV/AIDS, and vise versa. With these two programs working together, victims can get the help that they need. Inclusion policy can also provide a way for organizations to work together for the interest of others as they work together with a set of shared understanding (Muscat, 2015). Many victims are not aware of the vast resources available to them. It is essential that programs, organizations, and other institutions exist to inform victims of the rights that they have so that they can overcome their struggles. In another example, the Coalition of Victim Attorneys and Consultants helps victims that want to pursue civil lawsuits (Muscat, 2015). This nationwide service can help victims find quality attorneys so that they can get the best settlement offer possible. Compensation can lift a large burden off of victim’s financial struggle to
I was absolutely mortified by the administrators response to victims of sexual assault. I just couldn’t believe that they would rather uphold the prestige of a college campus than to do right by a victim of sexual assault. I honestly thought that administrators would be more supporting, it was really difficult to see how administrators are supposed to guide us in the right path but they spoke down to all the women that were rape survivors, it truly disgusted me. The structural issues that influenced the reactions survivors received were the issues from the administrators and even police officers, basically every institution where rape survivors are supposed to be able to turn to turned out to be a big let down to them. It’s terrible because sexual assault survivors don’t feel comfortable to turn to their own parents so they turn to powerful institutions like police officers and administrators but it was just a let down.
It is the mission of Sexual Assault Service Center to offer victims of sexual assault support, to help them regain a sense of control over their lives and heal from a violent crime. The center addresses the systemic and structural issues that underlie violence, by using institutional/community advocacy and prevention education.
The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program (SHARP) is not reinforced by several army leaders to prevent crimes of sexual harassment and assault on awareness, education, confidential reporting, and accountability for individuals who commit the crime. The Army has a fantasy policy to promote medical services and confidential reporting for victims of sexual harassment and assault
The Human Services Organization I analyzed is New Beginnings. New Beginnings is an agency that provides sexual assault support services in Daviess, Hancock, Henderson, McLean, Ohio, Union, and Webster counties. The clients of this organization have all been affected by sexual assault or child sexual abuse. Issues within clients are best described as acute trauma responses or chronic trauma, such as sexual difficulties or loss of trust. In order to analyze this agency as efficiently as possible, I interviewed Terri Crowe, the Advocacy Coordinator, from New Beginnings. Terri was able to provide very useful information regarding this organization and how it ticks. Although New Beginnings provides services to seven different counties, there are