A Call to Activism

Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and First Response Action supporter Laurel Rowse was incensed by Representative Akin's (R-MO) recent comment about 'legitimate rape' in an interview.  Media made the comment into a partisan issue about reproductive health rights.  The following is Laurel's response to the media frenzy surrounding  Rep. Akin's comments.

Disclaimer: the following is an opinion piece written by Laurel Rowse and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of First Response Action.

Ignorant comments about rape and how a woman's body, mind, and spirit should/shouldn't/will/won't respond to rape are NOT a partisan issue.

I would like to demand that people look deeper, beyond the most recent political rhetoric and beyond the targeting of one party as condoning rape—and see that this is our society, people in our society, actions, and speech in our society—that condone rape. Those condoning actions and attitudes would be the best targets for our collective energies and acts of activism against rape.

I see the positive here, don't get me wrong. It's excellent that people are outraged by Representative Akin's words. However, reducing the problem to one person's words or one political party's problem releases all of us from the responsibility of doing something to change the way violence against women is condoned in our society.

Some things that contribute to the rape-condoning attitude in our society are: using words that are demeaning to women, laughing at a sexist joke, not speaking up when we hear a demeaning comment or a misogynistic joke, and not talking to other women and other men about how the violence-against-women-invoking culture of our society affects every one of us and negatively impacts our lives.

I understand that it is much easier said than done to be the first one to speak up in any number of these situations. For that reason, we must be compassionate with ourselves while we are learning to speak up. The point I am focused on here is that each of us wields some amount of power in this fight to end violence against women and to end rape in our society.

Let us denounce the rape-condoning actions of any public figure such as speaking ignorant, misogynistic, and rape-condoning words, but let us not end our acts of activism there. Let us instead continue on to point out that those same ill words are a reflection of the ill rape-condoning attitudes in our society. Let us turn that same rape-condoning picture that is our society upside-down on its head, so that it becomes a rape-condemning society in its place.

The question I have for each of you is: What will you do to contribute to the activism?

Laurel Rowse RPCV and FRA supporter

One way to support an end to sexual violence, particularly against women, is to support the re-authorization of VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act.  Donations to organizations that advocate for an end to sexual violence, such as RAINN, the YWCA and the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, can support this issue as well.

Peace Corps DIrector Williams to Step Down

Today Peace Corps Director Williams announced that he will be stepping down as the director effective September 17th.  The National Peace Corps Association posted the announcement and Peace Corps has the official release on their site. 

Director Williams, who was sworn in as director in August 2009, served as a Volunteer in the Dominican Republic from 1967-70.  In a letter he wrote to President Obama, he said:

“The Peace Corps is a stronger and more vibrant agency because of your global leadership and support of the ideals of service envisioned by our founder, Sargent Shriver. Serving as the Director of the Peace Corps has been the highpoint of my career in public service.  Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to lead such an inspiring and significant mission.”

Director Williams was supportive of safety reforms for survivors of sexual violence.  He testified on the matter of sexual violence and victim blaming at the May 2011 Congressional hearing chaired by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL).  Click the links to video clips of both Chairman Ros-Lehtinen and Representative Ted Poe (TX) questioning Director Williams at that hearing.

In the video, Peace Corps Director Williams says that he and staff are committed to "changing the culture these people have encountered in the past," referring to survivors of sexual violence being blamed for their attacks and not supported by Peace Corps staff.  With Director Williams stepping down, it is First Response Action's hope that the new Peace Corps director is survivor-centered and also committed to changing the culture of the way sexual violence is managed in Peace Corps.  Deputy Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet will be stepping in as Interim Director.

First Response Action Seeks Committee Members

Are you interested to join a grassroots organization to make positive change for survivors of sexual assault? First Response Action, an organization dedicated to advocating for Peace Corps Volunteers who are victims of sexual violence, is seeking to add committee members to it's growing board! Current open positions include: Finance Chair, Marketing Chair, Development Chair, and Victim Services Chair. To read about becoming a committee member, descriptions of open positions or to apply, check out the application on our website.

Applications for the first selection round are due by June 15 to Meg Long, Operations Chair, at operations@firstresponseaction.org.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month: Wear Jeans to Support Survivors

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. First Response Action is encouraging survivors and people who support victims of sexual assault to wear jeans today, Wednesday, April 25th as part of a national Denim Day USA education campaign about sexual violence.


History of Denim Day


Denim Day began in 1998 after an Italian Supreme Court judge threw out a conviction of a driver’s education instructor who raped a 16-year-old student. Because the victim’s jeans were tight, the judge felt she must have helped remove them so rape was not possible. In protest, women of the Italian Parliament wore jeans. After that incident Los Angeles began an annual Denim Day in LA, which later expanded to Denim Day USA.


Some Facts about Sexual Violence


• Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.


• One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape.


• According to the Los Angeles Police Department, there were 1,117 rapes during the year 2003, with only 260 rape suspects arrested.


• 82.8% of rapes committed by an intimate are not reported to the police.


• 35% of college men who voluntarily participated in psychological research conducted at several universities indicated they might commit a rape if they knew they could get away with it.


• Two million children around the world are forced into prostitution every year.


• Law enforcement arrests for internet sex crimes against minors are on the rise.


• 15,000 to 19,000 people with developmental disabilities are raped each year in North America.

ABC News reports: Military Trial in Peace Corps Rape Case Begins

Military Trial in Peace Corps Rape Case Begins

By BROCK VERGAKIS Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. February 28, 2012 (AP)

A former Peace Corps worker who taught at a girl's school in rural Uganda told a military jury in Virginia on Monday that a special warfare sailor who does construction work for Navy SEALs raped her multiple times in his hotel room in the East African country's capital.

The trial comes months after Congress responded to complaints that the Peace Corps hasn't done enough to protect its volunteers from sexual assaults with legislation requiring the agency to better train participants in how to avoid such attacks.

The 27-year-old woman, who was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and now lives in Washington, testified in a courtroom at Naval Station Norfolk that her sexual encounter with Petty Officer 2nd Class Camaren Walker in November 2010 started out as consensual.

But after his condom came off twice, she said she wanted him to stop.

She said she tried to push Walker off her, but that he grabbed her throat and held her against the bed. She said he later raped her in the shower when he put her in a choke hold and that she feared she might drown. She said he didn't have to force himself on her the next two times — including once when his roommate was in the next bed — because she was afraid for her life.

Walker's military attorney said the case was simply about a woman who regretted her decision to have sex because she was embarrassed by her behavior. As part of her job, the woman, who graduated from Indiana University, taught girls to avoid peer pressure and to use condoms.

"This is not a case about rape. This is a case about regret," said Lt. Lauren Mayo

The accuser said that she and Walker had met an Irish pub in Kampala while she was out with three other Peace Corps volunteers who were in town for a conference. She said she voluntarily went back to his hotel room with him and that she had no idea he was in the Navy at the time. She said he didn't learn more about him until after she had been assaulted and she had mentioned that she wasn't on birth control. That's when he told her his full name so she could find him on Facebook because he wanted to keep the child if she was pregnant, according to her courtroom testimony.

Mayo said she didn't mention to any of her friends the next day that she had been assaulted. One of her friends said she thought it was "kinky" that the sex was rough and that he had choked her.

"That was my night of hell," the woman later recalled thinking during the exchange.

The Associated Press does not generally identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

It wasn't until days later when she saw a medical worker about emergency contraception that the word rape came up, and only when the medical worker mentioned it, according to courtroom testimony.

Mayo also said that the woman didn't do anything to stop Walker, such as scream, slap him or try to leave the hotel room.

"You didn't do anything to stop him, did you?" Mayo said to the woman, who simply responded "No."

At other times during her testimony, the woman said she didn't scream because it was too difficult to breathe while she was being choked. She also said she didn't leave the hotel room until the morning because Uganda is too dangerous of a country for a foreign woman to wander alone during the early morning hours.

In April, during a procedure that is similar to a preliminary hearing in civilian court, Walker's attorneys had suggested that charges were only being brought forward due to political pressure. The Peace Corps had been under criticism for not doing enough to protect is volunteers from crime, particularly sexual assault. In May, Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams appeared before a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing to apologize for the agency's shortcomings on volunteer safety issues

In November, Congress passed a bill requiring the Peace Corps to develop sexual assault risk-education and response training. The legislation also requires the agency to establish a victim's support office.

Walker's trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday.

ABC Investigative Team Honored for Peace Corps Sexual Assault Mismanagement Piece

The winners of George Polk Awards in Journalism for 2011 were announced on Sunday by Long Island University, according to the New York Times. Among the winners was the team of reporters from ABC News who covered the Kate Puzey story as well as mismanaged sexual assault cases in Peace Corps which aired last January. Here is the snippet from the New York Times:

The award for television reporting went to Brian Ross and Anna Schecter of ABC News for an investigation of the murder of Kate Puzey, a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, in 2009. The Polk judges said they “uncovered a systemic failure to protect Peace Corps volunteers who were victims of sexual assault and the whistle-blowers who tried to report the incidents.”

Ebony opinion article: Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped

A supporter of First Response Action and also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer passed along this opinion piece from Ebony Magazine, Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped: Our Victim Blaming Tactics Do Little to Prevent Sexual Assault. The author, Zerlina Maxwell, makes several poignant remarks.

There are some voices in the conversation about men and boys' involvement in anti-rape campaigns but those voices aren't nearly as loud as the messages that tell women to travel in packs, keep pepper spray in their purses, not to go out at night, to avoid downtown areas (especially alleys) and to stop dressing provocatively. These are all victim blaming messages. The U.S. (and the world) are in need of more men as advocates and messages targeting potential rapists.

Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped

Our Victim Blaming Tactics Do Little to Prevent Sexual Assault

Ebony Magazine

January 14, 2012

Zerlina Maxwell

New rule for 2012: No more ad campaigns and public service announcements targeted at women to teach them how to avoid rape. It’s not effective, it’s offensive, and it’s also a lie. Telling women that they can behave in a certain way to avoid rape creates a false sense of security and it isn’t the most effective way to lower the horrible statistics which show that 1 in 5 women will become victims of a completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. The numbers for African American women are even higher at nearly 1 in 4.

We need anti-rape campaigns that target young men and boys. Campaigns that teach them from a young age how to respect women, and ultimately themselves, and to never ever be rapists. In addition, we should implore our men and boys to call out their friends, relatives, and classmates for inappropriate behavior and create systems of accountability amongst them.

There are a number of men who do not understand what constitutes a “rape”, which is a consequence of the “stranger in the alley” falsehood presented in movies and popular culture. You don’t need a mask and a gun to sexually violate a woman. The truth is that rape can happen with a woman you are dating whom you’ve had sex with previously, in a monogamous relationship, and even in marriage. If one party withdraws consent at any time then it’s rape. Consent can be withdrawn by the words “no “or “stop” and in many states, a woman doesn’t have to say no at all. Consumption of alcohol can prevent a woman from being able to legally offer consent. Therefore, it is important for men and women alike to be very clear about their intentions and prioritize consent over the excitement of getting some.

Our community, much like society-at-large, needs a paradigm shift as it relates to our sexual assault prevention efforts. For so long all of our energy has been directed at women, teaching them to be more “ladylike” and to not be “promiscuous” to not drink too much or to not wear a skirt. Newsflash: men don’t decide to become rapists because they spot a woman dressed like a video vixen or because a girl has been sexually assertive.

How about we teach young men when a woman says stop, they stop? How about we teach young men that when a woman has too much to drink that they should not have sex with her, if for no other reason but to protect themselves from being accused of a crime? How about we teach young men that when they see their friends doing something inappropriate to intervene or to stop being friends? The culture that allows men to violate women will continue to flourish so long as there is no great social consequence for men who do so. And while many men punished for sexual assaults each year, countless others are able to commit rape and other crimes against women because we so often blame the victim instead of the guilty party.

Holding women and girls accountable for preventing sexual assault hasn’t worked and so long as men commit the majority of rapes, men need to be at the heart of our tactics for preventing them. Let’s stop teaching ‘how to avoid being a victim’ and instead, attack the culture that creates predators in the first place.

‪Zerlina Maxwell is a political analyst and staff writer for The Loop 21.