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

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  • How a Spanish project keeps migrant mothers away from trafficking networks

    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

    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

    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?

    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

    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

    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

    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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