Hey all! Today I'm continuing ITTTD (It's Time To Talk Day) which was on December 8th, hosted by Love Is Not Abuse. Posting all of my interviews is taking longer than I'd hoped only because I was caught right in the middle of finals and coming back home! So for that I apologize for the pauses in between posts. Now that I am winding down my schedule a bit, I am completely dedicated!
My fourth and fifth interviews were both about sexual assault, which is interesting since most of my interviews were about domestic abuse. There are two reasons I'm combining the interviews into one post: they are both located in Pennsylvania so it makes sense to connect the resources, and also because of the subject. This blog is mainly about domestic abuse, but I am an advocate for sexual assault awareness and prevention as well. The reason I don't talk about it as much is because I mainly focus on abuse. However, its significance is enormous and should be addressed like any other issue.
The first woman I interviewed regarding sexual violence was Delilah Rumburg. Delilah Rumburg is the CEO of the oldest anti-rape coalition in the country and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. She is a member of the NO MORE steering committee and have worked in collaboration with Liz Claiborne on violence against women issues for more than 10 years. She has been responsible for overseeing PCAR's tremendous growth and outreach to communities not only in Pennsylvania, but throughout the nation.
I asked Delilah what kind of work her coalition does and as you can imagine they do quite a lot! PCAR is the leading advocacy organization in Pennsylvania for centers that provide services for rape and sexual assault victims. They do policy work, training, technical assistance, counseling and healing, and house the only National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Over the past few years, they have been focusing more on prevention. When it comes to prevention education, Delilah explained that they used the public health model. She described how the immediate response when the rape movement started was medical, or criminal justice. She then told me a famous story which Delilah told me is now their model for prevention, and she says that "it is not just a crisis response anymore. Let's find out what causes the perpetration of rape and sexual violence,":
People in a village began to pull bodies out of a river. The number of bodies kept piling up, and the people would pull all of them out. This went on for days until one day someone said, "I'm going to go upstream and find out why all of these people are ending up in the river." - You can find the full story here.
I asked Delilah who most of their clients were at the center, and she said 1/3 of the people they see are children who were sexually assaulted. This of course ignited the conversation about child sexual abuse. In child sexual abuse, the perpetrators over 90% of the time are someone the child knows, and about half the time it's family members. Delilah says that it is not the stranger danger we are teaching to kids, but these are just the ones we hear about the most in the media. However, the majority of children who are being assaulted are being assaulted by someone they know. "People do not want to believe that something that awful is happening. But the message we want to get out there is that if there is sexual violence in their family, there is help. Not only is there help for the victims but there's help for the perpetrators."
I asked her what kind of advice she would give to all of the parents and adults out there, and her response rang true to the theme of why we were there. Talk. Talk to your children and start conversations about good-touch and bad-touch, and tell them it's okay to talk about how they feel. I asked if there was a specific age she suggested to start conversations with children, and she said even before kindergarten is okay to start age-appropriate talks. Even if it starts with "uncomfortable tickling", it's better to start talking than to not. Delilah suggests to give the children permission to say no if they don't feel right. She says most importantly to tell kids to trust their gut. She calls it the "ick" factor to her grandchildren; she tells them to trust their icky feelings and keep their distance from that adult and then feel comfortable enough to talk to adults they trust about it. She also stresses that adults have to trust their gut as well; if they have a bad feeling about an adult that spends time with their child, they have to know how to safely intervene.
So, this begs the question: what can we do going forward? Delilah says the best way to achieve prevention of sexual violence is to get communities involved and to have individuals in those communities work on figuring out how to keep their children safe. She says we must all be willing to start conversations about respect and appropriate behaviors. Her best advice for children is to tell someone they trust, and her best advice for adults is to believe that child. Always believe the child, and bypass the feeling of shame and guilt and skip directly to making sure that child gets the healing they need and deserve. "We need to get rid of shame because it's not your fault if you were raped or sexually assaulted,"
Shortly after my interview with Delilah Rumburg, I interviewed Alison Hall, the Executive Director of PAAR, Pittsburg Action Against Rape. Alison Hall runs a rape crisis center in Pennsylvania associated with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape who serves on the NO MORE project steering committee as well. This year she was honored to be selected by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Association of the Treatment of Sex Abusers as the recipient of the Gail-Burn Smith Award for being the driving force behind establishing the first Sex Offender Court in Pennsylvania. PAAR focuses on treatment and prevention of sexual assault or rape for men, women, and children. They go to court with victims, meet victims in hospitals, and have also developed prevention programs in colleges, high schools, and parent groups.
A key point Alison wanted to discuss was the gigantic correlation between alcohol and sexual violence. She says, "If you can make an impact in your community on reducing sexual violence in young adults ages 21 to 30, then decrease over-consumption of alcohol and you will decrease sexual violence in your community," Alison explains that when people are under the influence, their consent is hazy or a lot of the times non-existent. Consent is the willing agreement to engage in sexual activities, and you must be sober to do so. Alison suggest that we instill the old fashion "buddy system" but modernize it a bit. This means instead of just buddying up, really look out for your friends and know where they are and who they're with. This doesn't mean being a detective, or babysitting by any means. Rather it means being a good friend and being aware of your surroundings. For example, if you see your friend is about to leave with someone very drunk (and unable to give consent), step in and say something to your friend. Tell them to get their number and call them in the morning instead. This is an easy step toward prevention.
This idea of stepping in goes along with the bystander intervention. It is important for us as a society to step in when we see something is not quite right. It is our duty and our neighbors' duty to do so. This goes for you, too, men of the world. Not all men are rapists, so for all of the good men out there, take a stand. You can stop rape, too. Alison brought up a very good point in saying, "If a man sees an elderly women being beaten on the street, I would hope he would jump in to help her. Why is that so much safer than intervening with sexual violence?" Stepping up and speaking up is crucial; "Look at the Penn State case and all of those adults that could have said something, but didn't." This is when it's most important not to be a quiet bystander. An important piece that Alison's work does focuses on bystander intervention in colleges; they help teach students to look out for their friends, and what to do if a friend approaches them about being sexually assaulted. They teach students how to respect the courage for a victim to come forward and disclose such personal information, and to support and encourage them to seek help (and where to find help). They also teach the importance of boundaries; knowing one's personal boundaries within relationships is very important when it comes to accepting behaviors of others and oneself.
Alison told me that the #1 Reason victims do not come forward is because they think they will not be believed, and the #2 Reason is they think to themselves 'What did I do that I could have stopped this?' It is never the victim's fault, but there are ways to reduce the risk of sexual violence. Ultimately it is the perpetrator's choice to assault the victim, and we all want to justify why it happens to make ourselves feel better about it. However, Alison clearly and accurately states, "It should not happen. They should be asking, 'What's wrong with the person who took advantage of that person?' instead of blaming the victim," So, in order to prevent the violence to occur to begin with, we need to start talking.
"The reason we don't talk about it is the reason it's so prevalent,"
Alison suggests as well as stepping in when it is safe to do so, to also educate yourself about the issue. Learn the signs, learn what grooming is and how to intervene safely, and again to know your own boundaries. Understand that sexual violence can occur to virtually anyone, including the LGBTIQQ community. Don't be ignorant and turn your head away. Alison says it should not be kept a secret, and we should throw shame away when talking about it because by talking about it, more victims will come forward. We all need to spread awareness to better our communities.
I want to thank both of these wonderful and powerful women for taking the time to share with me! I am so happy to share it all with you! I hope you found this as motivating and informative as I did, and stay tuned for ITTTD #6: Julie Boak!
Do your part and stop the hurt!
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