We’re on a brief hiatus and plan more posts and updates in August.
Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day
From the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Website:
May 18th is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD). This annual observance is a day to recognize and thank the thousands of volunteers, community members, health professionals, and scientists who are working together to find a safe and effective HIV vaccine. It is also a day to educate our communities about the importance of preventive HIV vaccine research.
In recognition of HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, community activities and media events are being held around the country.
Learn more about HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, events, and how to conduct activities in your community:
To learn more about HIV Vaccines, here’s a link to the NIAID Information Page:
Mothers of Lost Children to Hold Silent Vigil at the Whitehouse
Here’s something we got via an Email Tip: The group, Mother’s of Lost Children will hold a silent vigil in front of the Whitehouse on Mother’s Day. From their press release:
MOTHERS OF LOST CHILDREN TO GATHER FOR
WHITE HOUSE VIGIL ON MOTHERS DAY
12 Noon Press Conference with Grieving Moms from Across America
Mothers from across America who have lost their children because family courts ordered them into full custody or unsupervised visitation with their alleged abusers will gather for their first silent vigil at 11:00 am on Mothers’ Day, May 9, 2010 in front of the White House.
“We decided that Mother’s Day was the perfect time to stand vigil in front of the White House with mothers from all over America whose children are either dead or living in harm’s way because of the broken family court system,” said Connie Valentine, the vigil organizer and co-founder of the California Protective Parents Association.
Experts at the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence estimate that more than 58,000 children each year are either placed into dangerous homes or forced to go on unsupervised visits with their alleged abusers by divorce courts that simultaneously deny the children’s safe, protective parents access to their sexually and physically abused children.
The 11am silent vigil and 12noon press conference will take place in front of Lafayette Square, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
Mildred Muhammad, the ex-wife of the Beltway Sniper, will join grieving mothers who recently appeared on the Dr. Phil Show’s Crisis in the Family Courts. California mother Katie Tagle, whose nine-month old baby Wyatt was murdered by his father, and Illinois mother Amy Leichtenberg, whose two school-aged children Duncan and Jack were murdered by their father, will share their tragic stories of desperately trying to keep their children alive. Advocates Kathleen Russell from the Center for Judicial Excellence and Eileen King from Justice for Children, who have been closely monitoring this escalating crisis for years, will discuss their work to expose and remedy the most under-reported human rights scandal in the United States.
These mothers of lost children are soccer moms, kindergarten teachers, physicians, flight attendants, dentists and homemakers. Most of them are middle class, educated and ordinary. They are safe, loving mothers (not addicts or abusers) who have been rendered powerless to protect their children from court-ordered child abuse. Most are battered women who tried to flee domestic abuse to save their children, only to end up mired in our nation’s family courts, unable to protect them at all.
“America’s Moms are coming to the President and First Lady to request a federal investigation into these horrific civil and human rights abuses.I need to make sure that that no parent has to ever go through this incredible pain again, and that my Duncan and Jack’s deaths mean something, ” said Amy Leichtenberg.
A cottage industry of mental health professionals and attorneys with cozy relationships with family court judges routinely bankrupt families with enormous court-ordered fees and often recommend that children be placed with their sexually or physically abusive fathers. Family court judges frequently ignore evidence of abuse, refuse to hear direct testimony from the children, and rubberstamp their cronies’ recommendations. Nurturing mothers are forced to pay costly fees to attend supervised visits with the children they raised, watching helplessly as their children continue to report abuse by their abusers to uncaring visitation monitors. Mothers who speak out about system failure often face judicial retaliation and lose what little time they have with their children. The unregulated cottage industry churns away, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to experts, while some of the worst cases settle only when the children turn 18. This is a national epidemic that is destroying families across America.
Department of Justice: Colleges Part of the Solution to End Sexual Assault
Here’s an interesting article we found on Huffington Post by Tom Perrelli, Associate Attorney General of the United States. He talks about the important role colleges and Universities play in helping end Sexual Assault.
September 2009 marked the 15 year anniversary of President Bill Clinton signing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) into law. As the date approached, it became clear that we needed to do more than a press release or event. This was a moment in time for the Department of Justice to send a clear signal that the issue of violence against women is a priority.
That is why we at the department launched a year-long initiative to raise public awareness, build stronger coalitions among federal, state, local and tribal communities, and redouble efforts to end sexual assault, domestic and dating violence, and stalking for men, women and children across the country.
Far too many communities in the United States and around the world are affected by this issue and it must stop. One of the messages that we have sought to carry throughout the 15th anniversary of VAWA is that sexual and domestic violence are not just issues for the victim, or his or her family. They are everyone’s problem. And anyone dealing with sexual violence on a college campus today knows that this is a reality.
Read the rest of the story here
Proposal for Facebook “Panic Button”
Here’s a story we found via NPR, about the making the Facebook experience safer for young people:
The head of Britain’s online child protection agency met with Facebook executives Monday in Washington to try to convince them to embed his agency’s “panic button” on the site’s pages, so children can report any disturbing contacts with a single click.
Several other social networking sites, including Bebo, have installed the button, but Facebook says it already has a “robust” monitoring system.
The meeting follows controversy over the way Facebook handles abuse reporting, which arose during the trial of a serial sex offender. Last month, a British judge sentenced Peter Chapman to 35 years in prison for the murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall. But at times, it seemed like Facebook was on trial.
Read the rest of the story on the NPR Website.
Washington, DC: Survivor Denied Rape Kit
We found this story via Care2.Com about a Washington , DC sexual assault survivor who was denied use of a rape kit by both the hospital and police.
For years women who have been sexually assaulted have had to deal with people who believe that is they didn’t say no, then a rape did not really happen. Usually, due to drinking, drugs, or other influences a woman who finds herself unable to say no is unable to consent as well, something society is now much more likely to consider rape.
But in Washington D.C, the same argument — that a woman couldn’t consent so the sex was an assault, is being used to block one means for documenting and prosecuting her attacker.
Read the entire story here
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Click the image to visit the website of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center for more information about Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
NNEDV: Domestic Violence 2009 Census
Here’s an excellent resource from the National Network to End Domestic Violence for information about states and their response to domestic violence.
The Danger of “Huffing”
We found this interesting article on the Care2.Com website about the growing problem of inhalant abuse by young people:
The aerosol cleaner used to clean your computer, hairspray, paint solvents, gasoline, and that old standby, glue, can all be inhaled (huffed) to get a high. Kids have been taking advantage of this method of getting high for generations because it’s accessible, the price is right, and it is fairly easy to avoid arousing suspicion. Yet, many are still unaware of the serious health risks.
A report from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reveals that almost seven percent of 12 year-olds report sniffing inhalants. In contrast, only 1.4 percent admit using marijuana, 0.7 percent hallucinogens, and 0.1 percent cocaine.
Link to complete care2.com story
Breaking the Silence: Sexual Assault on Campus
We have previously posted about the inadequacies of many college and university justice systems when it comes to the issue of sexual assault.
We found this very interesting article by Jaclyn Friedman, who talks about the issue and recounts her personal experience as a sexual assault survivor:
I’d heard horror stories about victims being grilled in excruciating detail about their sexual histories, as if anything a woman may have done in her past made her fair game to be raped in the present. But I got lucky on that front: My assailant agreed to plead no contest to the charges if I agreed to hear him out. So I spent a dark hour and a half in a dean’s office, barely breathing while the guy who’d violated me wept about his family history of alcoholism. A few days later, the dean of students called me to say that the guy had been expelled for a year (the amount of time I had left at school) but that I mustn’t speak of the case — or the punishment — to anybody.
Grateful that I would no longer have to see my attacker around campus, I didn’t think to question the sentence or the muzzle at the time. But as I began to heal, I encountered survivors of on-campus sexual violence who had been taken even less seriously than I had by the system. Gag order or no, I began to speak out about my experience and advocate for change. And then, without warning, my assailant reappeared on campus, turning my last semester into a haze of fear, hiding and post-traumatic stress.
Read the complete Washington Post story.
