Pepsi Refresh Project: Calling All Ideas!

Corporations these days have taken a prominent role in garnering attention for innovative ideas and practices aimed at doing good. Whether at home or abroad, our global world faces issues that all need attention and significant support to entrust a healthy and productive life for every man, woman, and child.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is doing just that. Businesses, nonprofits, and individuals are being solicited by this beloved beverage company to generate innovative ideas making an impact in our world. Accepting 1,000 ideas every month, change-makers of any background can submit a creative idea proposing ways to improve areas of health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods, and education.

The top 10 ideas will win $25K with the help of YOUR VOTE.

Our goal to launch a high school curriculum to raise awareness about sexual exploitation will further our prevention work in educating young people about the sex industry and empower them to take action in combating gender-based violence and exploitative constructs and practices.

Voting ends February 28th, so please help us win this grant by voting here for CAASE: http://www.refresheverything.com/caase. Don’t forget to link your Facebook, Twitter, and all your other social networks to help us get the word out.

Say Vagina, Stop the Violence! By Amanda Richter

This Sunday marks the twelfth year of the V-Day Movement. The V-Day Movement began in 1998 with college campuses across the United States putting on a production of the Vagina Monologues: A Memory, a Rant, and a Prayer, originally written by Eve Ensler. Since that time, the V-Day Movement has grown to include countries such as China, Brazil, and South Africa. V-Day focuses not only on the incidence of rape and sexual assault, but also female genital mutilation and the emergence of women’s rights in third world countries.

In 2009, a new production was featured entitled, Any One of Us: Words from Prison, which reveals the connection between incarcerated women and the violence that usually brings them there. The play is a collection of stories from incarcerated women around the world. The Monologues now also includes stories by transgender women.

I am proud to say I was part of the V-Day movement when I was an undergrad at the University of North Texas. We would spend months preparing the play, as well as spreading awareness throughout the campus. We had a lot of opposition from right-wing conservatives who stated the play was pornographic in nature (even though none of them had ever actually seen it). We even made pussy pillows and had artwork to sell at the event. In 2002, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, UNT Chapter, won an award for raising the most money. All of our proceeds were donated to local women’s shelters.

If you have never taken part or seen the Monologues, I highly recommend it. I make it a point to try and see at least one production every year on Valentine’s Day (I even took my boyfriend to see it with me last year). It is a powerful play and reminds all of us that violence against women happens daily and we cannot stop our work in addressing this problem until it ends….

V stands for Valentine, Victory, and VAGINA!!!!!

To find out where the nearest V-Day event is in your hometown, please go to www.events.vday.org.

Incest: The Private and Unspoken Trauma of Children by Amanda Richter

For anyone who has watched Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew or has read Mackenzie Phillips’ book, “High on Arrival,” you would know she has had a very troubled life that has been plagued by years of substance abuse. What many people did not know, until a recent interview on Oprah, is that Ms. Phillips is a survivor of incest. Although she admitted the abuse was consensual, one must consider the effect that drugs had on her perception of the situation.

Mackenzie’s story is not unlike many others who have grown up with a terrible secret. To cope, many of those suffering abuse turn to drugs and alcohol. As a future clinician and someone who plans to work closely with this population, I feel it is only right to bring their stories to the forefront as well as speak to their treatment needs.

On December 12, 2009, an 11-year-old girl gave birth to a baby. About a month later, DNA results revealed the father to be the 11-year-old’s step-father. The girl admitted to authorities that her step-father had been abusing her since the age of six (story published in the Houston Chronicle on January 29, 2010).

I began volunteering at CAASE in October of 2009. Shortly thereafter, I met Ms. X (name changed to protect identity). Ms. X stated she was a survivor of incest and was looking for resources in her home state of Pennsylvania in order to begin a therapeutic group for incest survivors in her area. I began searching and referred her to many national organizations such as RAINN and the Human Rights Council; however, each agency that Ms. X got in contact with told her they could not do much for her due to her lack of formal training or the absence of “letters” behind her name,.

She then began to contact local news outlets to get her story out, but was again met with resistance. Many of the newspapers did not want to cover a story about incest which lead Ms. X to think the issue of incest is America’s dirty little secret.

In 2008, 3% of all rape/sexual assault offenders were relatives of female victims while 18% were the intimate partner of the victim (US Department of Justice, 2009). In 1992, the Bureau of Justice Statistics conducted a study of child rape victims in twelve states (Langan & Harlow, 1994). The results stated that 46% of children under the age of twelve were raped by a family member. 70% of inmates admitted to raping a family member under the age of twelve (Langan & Harlow, 1994).

I guess my most pressing question is, “why have we not updated this study?” I would think law enforcement agencies would want to see whether or not these numbers have gone down in the past eighteen years. It would be very interesting to see how many of the victims who participated in this study grew up to have any type of drug and/or alcohol abuse issues. Several studies conducted through the years show a correlation between substance abuse and incest (e.g. Dembo, Williams, Schneider, Berry, Wothke, Geteru, Wish, and Christiensen, 1992; Jarvis, Copeland, and Walton, 1998).

Now is the time to step up and help victims of incest, whether children or adults. The resistance Ms. X is receiving is not right and we as clinicians must put an end to this injustice.

For further reading:

Dembo, R., Williams, L., Schneider, J., Berry E., Wothke, W., Getreu, A., Wish, E.D., &
Christensen, C. (1992). A structural model examining the relationship between physical child abuse, sexual victimization, and marijuana/hashish use in delinquent youth: A longitudinal study, Violence and Victims, 7, 41-62.

Jarvis, T.J., Copeland, J., & Walton, L. (1998). Exploring the nature of the relationship
between child sexual abuse and substance abuse among women. Addiction, 93, 865-875.

Langan, P.A., & Harlow, C. (1994). Child rape victims, 1992. US Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics: Washington, DC.


For all Crime Stats, please visit:
bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/

Justice: What Faith and Love Look Like in Public by Karen Beilstein

Many faith traditions around the world are rooted in the concepts of love, compassion, kindness, and charity. These values are the foundation on which the faithful take leadership roles in social justice efforts. With a long history of striving to make the world better for all who live here, we believe that Jewish, Protestant, Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu and so many other faith communities can play a key role in helping to end human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

On January 14, 2010, CAASE partnered with Illinois Rescue and Restore Coalition to present a faith-based Human Trafficking Training to engage faith communities in the Chicago area on issues surrounding human trafficking locally, nationally and internationally, and how faith communities can get involved to end such activity. Representatives from the Salvation Army’s STOP-IT initiative and the International Organization for Adolescents presented information at the gathering as well, making it an especially informative and engaging resource for communities of faith.

Many faith groups have taken up the cause of anti-slavery, becoming advocates for those entrenched in a perverse and exploitative system as modern-day slaves. Christian denominations, Jewish organizations, Catholic sisterhoods and countless others have all made statements against the atrocities involved with human trafficking.

I encourage you to find out what your faith tradition is doing and to consider how you can get involved. While a movement towards heightened awareness and progressive action has increasingly become apparent for many in their places of worship, there is still an urgent need for more of us to make a real difference.

Below are just a few examples of faith traditions that have made statements and begun efforts towards ending modern-day slavery. Please share with us your faith tradition’s efforts. We would love to link to your work.

Temple Committee Against Human Trafficking http://www.templemontreal.ca/
Evangelical Covenant Church http://www.covchurch.org/humantrafficking
Vineyard USA http://www.vineyardusa.org/site/task-forces/justice-response
Evangelical Lutheran Church http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Messages/Commercial-Sexual-Exploitation.aspx

In addition, we offer to faith groups our newly created Communities of Faith Toolkits. We currently have Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant versions. We hope to have more versions soon in order to include and reach as many congregations as possible.

The purpose of the toolkits is to educate congregation members about the harms of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, and work with them to identify ways to take action towards effective change.

The toolkits have information on prostitution and human trafficking and explains how they are related. There are also religious texts with responses and questions that can be used to help explore issues surrounding prostitution in a way that is spiritually relevant to your community, practical action steps that can be taken to eliminate the exploitation of people, a section of specific groups related to your faith that have taken positions against sexual exploitation, lists of related films and books to check out, and lists of organizations—both faith-based and secular—that are involved in working to end sexual harm.

What are some things you can do right now?

1. Continue learning about the issue – read books and websites, watch films, visit learning forums at local events.
2. Host a discussion with a survivor or expert on the issue. To schedule a representative from the Speakers Bureau to come and speak to your faith group, contact Grace Yi at gyi@caase.org.
3. Host a movie screening for your congregation. For film recommendations, visit http://www.caase.org/resources_films.html
4. Address the issue in a sermon or homily.
5. Build a relationship with your local government leaders – alderman, mayor, council members, senators, representatives.
6. Donate to and/or volunteer at your local organization.
7. Pray.
8. Contact us for more ideas (gyi@caase.org) and request our toolkit .

Prostitution and human trafficking are a violation of human rights that occur in neighborhoods all over Chicago and throughout Illinois. As long as people remain unaware of the extent and root cause of sexual exploitation, the violence and harm experienced by victims will continue to grow. Faith communities can be a vehicle for both awareness-raising and advocacy.

From Boyz II Men by Jamie Lynn Johnson

My role at CAASE is to put together a Parent Toolkit to help parents discuss issues surrounding sexual exploitation with their sons. As I research and write I can’t help but think of my own family dynamics. I come from a very small family (eleven members including all cousins, their spouses, and their children) comprised mostly of women. My family is middle to upper class, well educated and currently raising adolescent boys. When writing about positive role-modeling and communicating interpersonal expectations, I often imagine my family members having meaningful conversations with their sons about healthy interactions with girls and boys. I smile when thinking about the possibility of how these boys will grow to be wonderful men who are self-aware of themselves as well as their perception and treatment of women. This, however, is not as I had imagined it to be.

Like many of you, I visited my family over the holidays—unfortunately, I was less than pleased at what I overheard during our time together. Jokes were blithely tossed around by a husband joking with his children about the “girlfriend” he had on the side while a dad enjoyed a disparaging laugh with his son over the absurd image of adult women sitting on Santa’s lap. The young boys, in the same manner as their older counterparts, consistently made references to girls in sexual terms while utilizing language which objectified their bodies. This was happening in a family where I believed everyone to be culturally aware, gender sensitive and, dare, I say, progressive! How was it that demeaning behavior like this was taking place in such a family?

Like it or not, our culture is saturated with denigrating messages about women, violent images of sex and polarizing gender roles. If you’re a parent, it can be very easy to lose sight of what it means to responsibly raise young boys with healthy perceptions of women and girls in such a sexualized climate.

Knowing that our language and behavior towards one another shapes the socio-cultural environment we live in, here a few tips from the Parent Toolkit that I’d like to share when understanding the influence we have on young men in our society:

1. Model responsible behavior. Your interaction with women, the way you expose yourselves to media, and even some of the behaviors you think are secret—are, in reality, being recorded on your son’s mental camcorders. Know that your sons are always watching and are probably catching on to more than you are giving them credit for. For this reason you must always model responsibility and self-control!

2. Love your partner. You're two of the most important people in the world to your son. When sons see one parent yell at, belittle, taunt, or insult the other parent, they may feel torn, hurt, angry, scared, and uncertain about their future. When asked, "Who helps you the most in your parenting?" the most popular answer by far is, "My partner." Nurture that relationship. Also, consider how your marriage looks to your children. Whether you’re seeking to be a cycle-breaker in your family, or you want to faithfully capitalize on the example your parents set for you, it’s important to purposefully set a positive example. Ask your children what qualities they’re looking for in a future mate. Often, their answers will reflect something about your marriage.

3. Shape their identity. A boy's search for self starts with his father and other influential male role models. Influential men can model good character traits like integrity, honesty, courage, restraint, fairness, foresight, and citizenship and teach respectful behaviors such as listening, trust, tolerance, politeness, and understanding limits. By observing these values in action your son can begin to use them in his own life and relationships with women.

The Dallas Response to Streets or Services by CAASE Intern

Fighting crime in an economic climate in which many states cannot afford to house their current prisoners can be challenging. As a result, many law enforcement agencies are seeking help from outside organizations to help reduce not only the number of people being sentenced to prison but also the number of those being arrested. One example of this growing trend can be found in Dallas, Texas.

Indeed, although Texas is the home of the largest prison system in the United States, the Dallas Police Department has pioneered a new response to prostitution offers people an alternative to prison. Rather than arresting and incarcerating people who are involved in the sex trade industry, Dallas police have developed the Prostitution Diversion Initiative (PDI). The PDI addresses the problem of prostitution through a new lens in which prostituted people are viewed as victims rather than criminals. By taking this perspective, the Dallas police officers are able to identify and address the needs of the people they encounter during prostitution sweeps and offer services that can ultimately help them to leave prostitution.

Developed in 2007, the PDI is a collaboration of law enforcement agencies, mental health and substance abuse agencies, medical practitioners, faith-based service providers, and other supportive services. Once a month, social service providers set up tables and chairs in vacant lots near truck stops where prostitution activity is believed to be heavy, and they are surrounded by four command trucks and a mobile health clinic. Police officers then sweep the area and individuals who are believed to be in prostitution are assessed by social service providers and offered STD testing and other medical health services in the mobile health clinic before setting foot into one of the mobile courtrooms. Individuals without felony warrants and who demonstrate a desire to leave prostitution are offered an opportunity to enter a rehabilitation program rather than prison. Once they complete the program, they receive help with services such as education, housing and childcare.

Even with this new innovative program, not everyone picked up by the police will qualify for services, and of those who do, only about half will opt to receive help. However, preliminary results are good. Ninety percent of those who had completed the initial recovery phase had not returned to prostitution (based on data published for the first year of operations). Compared to the 80% recidivism rate estimated for people who have been arrested and incarcerated for prostitution, the PDI appears to hold promising results for helping people to escape the sex trade industry.

In light of the promising results of the PDI, an unsettling question is raised: what happens when we begin to rely on the criminal justice system as a primary funding source for addressing social problems? Given the ever-tightening budget constraints of social service organizations, it seems likely that the day will soon come when people will be more likely to gain access to support services for help with issues such as housing, mental health, and substance abuse through their involvement with the criminal justice system than through their own desire to get help. Rather than putting law enforcement agencies in the role as gatekeepers to social services, wouldn’t it be far more cost-effective for state governments to redirect some of the money that now goes into funding law enforcement agencies’ collaboration with social service providers directly into the hands of the organizations that provide the services?

Such is the dream of End Demand, Illinois (EDI). The End Demand, Illinois campaign was launched in 2009 to transform the way Illinois responds to prostitution: by prioritizing the arrests of “johns” and offering relevant social services to prostituted people. While on the surface this may sound similar to the goals of the PDI, one major difference exists between the two. Whereas the PDI makes engagement with the criminal justice system a requirement for services, EDI seeks to ensure that services are made available to all survivors of prostitution, regardless of whether or not they have been identified as such by the criminal justice system. Though still in its infancy, End Demand, Illinois is already building a great deal of momentum that will hopefully spread beyond the borders of the state and into the rest of the country.

In Response to the Death of Shaniya Davis by Grace Yi

The death of 5-year old Shaniya Davis has most recently called to attention the heinous acts surrounding the issue of child prostitution and sex trafficking in public media. Her mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, accused of selling her daughter into prostitution, faces numerous charges, including human trafficking, child abuse, felony and prostitution.  

While this may be one of the rarer instances that the public has heard of abuse and sexual exploitation of a child this young, many of us working to prevent and end prostitution and trafficking know how prevalent and widespread these acts of violence have and continue to affect young women and children. 

Such is the case with Dalencia, a former prostituted child from Texas whom Dick Gordon, of American Public Radio, (http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_907_Delencia.mp3/view) covered in his interview on the subject of teen prostitution. There are an estimated 300,000 children lured and coerced into prostitution each year, with a large number of them having experienced violent, abusive backgrounds. When understanding the enormity of such perpetration, we must then consider the implications of those girls and children being forced into a life of isolation, trauma, and shame. How then do we intervene? At what age and in what form? 

Public assistance and resources, alongside political will and community support, are in essence, necessary forms of intervention that will produce change in the way that permanently combats this cycle of exploitation. The focus, as CAASE and supporters see it, then, relies heavily on the prosecution and conviction of those consuming and selling sex, which ultimately hurts and destroys the lives of these young, innocent children.