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After 3 years and $1.5 million devoted to testing rape kits, Alaska made one new arrest

Kyle Hopkins

December 30, 2020 |

Anchorage Daily News |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Alaska

Despite hopes that testing a backlog of rape kits would reveal many new serial-rape suspects, Alaska's three-year push to test 568 kits under the federally funded Sexual Assault Kit Initiative led to only one new prosecution. The reasons the program fell short of expectations include a lack of usable DNA samples, errors by investigators, cases in which victims and suspects had died or victims no longer wished to proceed, or the kits revealed no evidence that wasn't previously known. Alaska is now footing the bill to test more kits, which contain physical evidence collected after a rape.

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The child trafficking survivors training to prosecute sex crimes

Neha Bhatt

December 16, 2020 |

Al Jazeera |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: India, Kolkata

The School for Justice provides an education in law or advocacy to young women who have survived sex trafficking. The program started in Kolkata in 2017 and has expanded to Mumbai and Katmandu. Forty students receive housing, counseling, and free tuition to the local university of their choice, where they can study to be lawyers, paralegals, social workers, police officers, or journalists. The goal is to equip them with the tools they need to protect others from child sexual exploitation and to bring perpetrators to justice. Along the way, they begin to heal through empowerment and peer support.

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NYPD Cops Cash In on Sex Trade Arrests With Little Evidence, While Black and Brown New Yorkers Pay the Price

Joshua Kaplan Joaquin Sapien

December 07, 2020 |

ProPublica |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

New York Police Department sex-crimes enforcement officially shifted away from arresting people selling sex to those buying it and those in the large-scale trafficking business. At the same time, the Human Trafficking Intervention Court was created to divert sex workers' criminal cases away from conviction and toward social services. The reality, however, is that police officers' overtime income gives them incentives to make high volumes of arrests of sex workers and buyers in flimsy, low-level cases that get plea-bargained down, but which skew heavily against people of color.

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How a Spanish project keeps migrant mothers away from trafficking networks

Mar Segura

November 26, 2020 |

The Local |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Spain, Córdoba, Andalucía

Women migrating to Spain from Sub-Saharan often fall prey to traffickers of sex workers and forced laborers, but gaps in aid to them exist because most migrants are young men traveling alone. Since 2018, the Ödos Project has provided shelter and counseling to women traveling with children, to give them a stable entry point in the country to lessen the risk of trafficking. The young women at Ödos often come with histories of gender-based discrimination and violence in their home countries, typically Ivory Coast and Guinea Conakry. Workshops include how to seek asylum.

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The Courage to Listen

Meg Daly

October 15, 2020 |

Jackson Hole Community Radio (KHOL) |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Jackson, Wyoming

Following a series of public controversies over sexual assault, Jackson's Community Safety Network convened a series of training seminars to foster a response that no amount of legislation or criminal prosecutions could offer: to cultivate culture change based on greater understanding and empathy about what survivors go through. The seminars capitalized on a surge in public interest, and misunderstandings, surrounding sexual assault allegations against a public official and other public officials' behavior. One survivor who was encouraged to go public praised the community effort.

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Feminists Paper Paris With Stark Posters Decrying Domestic Abuse

Constant Méheut

September 13, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: France, Paris

The feminist group Les Colleuses (The Gluers) has attracted about 1,500 activists and spread from Paris to other French cities, plus Belgium and Italy, with a message of empowerment that counters weak government responses to domestic violence and femicide. They use posters in public places decrying the abuse. The simple, inexpensive, yet illegal protest – using such messages as "Dad Killed Mom" and "She leaves him, he kills her" – emboldens women to reclaim public spaces where they have felt threatened. In 2019, 146 French women were killed by their current or former partners, a 21% increase from 2018.

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Why Haven't Sexual-Assault Statistics Improved?

Emily Kelleher

July 13, 2020 |

The 61% Project |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Colleges and universities, required to educate students and staff about sexual assault prevention, use thousands of courses and programs, hardly any of which have been shown to be effective. Campus sexual assaults have continued to rise while the education industry flourishes. While there is no single gold-standard program, one with the best evidence of effectiveness is Flip the Script, or Enhanced Assess Acknowledge Act. It is based on teaching women to overcome mental barriers to recognizing risk posed by acquaintances. High costs and time commitments have kept enrollment low, despite proof it works.

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How Sweden's new consent law led to a 75% rise in rape convictions

Catherine Edwards

June 16, 2020 |

The Local |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Sweden

In the nearly two years since Sweden broadened the definition of rape offenses to include cases in which a victim fails to signal consent, both the reports of alleged rapes and convictions have risen. During that time, 76 convictions were in cases that previously would not have been classified as rape because they lacked evidence of force, threat, or sex with an incapacitated victim. Rapes still go largely unreported to police and there's still no evidence that the new law will achieve the ultimate goal of reducing the incidence of rape.

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Tackling Rape Culture and Sexual Violence Amid Societal and Systemic Limitations in Nigeria

Hadassah Egbedi

May 18, 2020 |

Ventures Africa |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: Nigeria

Stand To End Rape (STER) is a youth-led Nigerian NGO that works with sexual and gender abuse survivors by providing services, including psychosocial support and advocacy to address cultural norms of victim-blaming, shaming, and skepticism that keep sexual assault survivors from getting help. 173 cases were reported to STER in 2019 and they provided legal support to 55 individuals from those cases. STER also works with the Women at Risk International Foundation for medical care and a 24-hour confidential helpline that took 230 calls in the last 2 years, an important but small fraction of national cases.

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Not just another statistic

Janice Cantieri

May 06, 2020 |

National Observer |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Lekungen Traditional Territory, Canada, Victoria, British Columbia

The number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada is high, so a group of Indigenous women formed an organization called Power Our Women (POW) to teach other Indigenous women across the country self-defense skills. Participants talk about their cultures, learn physical self-defense, build confidence, and learn situational awareness. Participants describe the program as healing but difficult. POW has now reached more than 5,000 women across Canada, including remote areas in northern Manitoba.

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