Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Not just another statistic

    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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  • Sweden's male-only supper clubs...for feminists

    Private dinners for only men to discuss notions of feminism and toxic masculinity have been picking up in interest across Sweden. What started in earnest following a string of assaults against women in 2016 has now become more commonplace after the #MeToo movement. Male participants testify to how comforting it is to be able to talk these issues out amongst men and figure out the best ways to act with people that they don't know as well as their own group of friends. The program now has served thousands of men across Sweden and is also publishing online guides for anyone to set up similar conversations.

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  • Our Bodies, Our Wen-Do

    A Belarus women’s-empowerment support group using the Wen-Do method ends each session with the students breaking a piece of wood with a chop of their hand, a literal show of strength that communicates how defending against men’s harassment and physical attacks may require physical force as well as assertiveness. In Canada, where the method began, the training -- a mix of martial arts lessons and support-group dialog -- is associated with a 46% reduction in rape and 64% drop in attempted sexual assault.

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  • After #MeToo, This Group Has Nearly Erased Sexual Harassment in Farm Fields

    The Fair Food Program, which educates and empowers farmworkers to report on-the-job sexual harassment, has all but eliminated sexual assaults at participating farms in an industry that otherwise is known for vast power imbalances between migrant labor and labor contractors. By giving employers key business incentives to participate and by cracking the code of silence among workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers-run FFP has protected employees by educating tens of thousands of them while enforcing standards through a rigorous investigation and hearings process.

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  • A Wait Too Long

    Sarah’s Place, a clinic based in Albany General Hospital focused on helping those who have been sexually assaulted, has proven to be the "gold-standard" for other hospitals in neighboring cities. Whereas most victims have to report to the emergency room where they often face long waiting periods, Sarah's Place focuses on minimizing further trauma by creating a welcoming environment and always having a sexual assault nurse examiner available.

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  • Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

    The passage of the 2018 Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act was meant to hold accountable the online platforms where sex trafficking and sex work took place, but a year into its existence, it has shown negative, unintended consequences. The legislation has effectively shown an impact in moving sex trafficking offline, but experts now say it has moved onto the street, making it harder to track and catch.

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  • She reported college football players for gang rape. Now she's on a mission.

    A new college athletic policy called the “Tracy Rule” is gaining traction as more colleges are held accountable for the behavior of their student athletes. The Tracy Rule, which has been adopted by 12 NCAA schools so far, requires the self-reporting of pending and closed criminal investigations – including sexual assault. While broad in scope, it’s intended to put more pressure on colleges who have often let Title IX offenses go unnoticed or ignored.

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  • Prosecution Declined

    The way in which Kentucky’s Louisville Metro Police Department handles rape cases has come into question. The department’s low level of cases being brought to trial is because of the extra step police officers take: checking with prosecutors to see if they’ll take the case to court. If prosecutors won’t, the police don’t make arrests. The policy is justified as victim-centered. But experts say this, combined with other problematic practices by the LMPD, can leave survivors feeling as though they aren’t believed and alone with their trauma.

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  • The boys learning anti-sexism in India

    A program launched by the Equal Community Foundation (ECF) in 2011 called Action for Equality (AFE) educates more than 5,000 teenage boys in Pune, India about violence against women. They spend 43 weeks learning curriculum designed to help them spot gender-based violence, how to intervene and be a model for change, and how to disrupt gender norms. The program is especially effective, because it is coordinated by young men in their 20s whom the teenage boys look up to. About 80% of participants graduate, and many families testify to their son/brother/nephew's changed behavior.

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  • How women in India demanded—and are getting—safer streets

    Thanks to the Nirbhaya Fund, named for the victim in a notorious case of rape and murder, the Indian government poured $145 million into new women’s safety initiatives that have enabled women to go about their lives in public without fearing harassment or attacks by men. Danger as an everyday reality for women is no longer taken as a given. Among the initiatives the growing program has paid for: self-defense training, all-female police units, special rickshaws for female passengers, all-female public transit. Can it also change men's behavior? That's harder, but not impossible.

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