April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), and according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 71 men are raped at some point in their lives, and 63 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to police. In addition, studies show one in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college, with 90 percent of those victims choosing to remain silent.
The Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault kicked off SAAM by dying the downtown canal teal, and organizations around the state — including the Indiana Coalition to Against Domestic Violence (ICADV), A.C.T. OUT Ensemble Against Sexual Assault, The Center for Women and Families and the Survivors of Violent Death Support Group — are also having events to observe the month.
Kate Gasiorowski, coordinator of the Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) program at ICADV, said this SAAM, ICADV is working to involve the entire community.
“This year’s national theme for SAAM is ‘Prevention is Possible,’ and we are working to share that message on Facebook and Twitter with the hash tags #PreventionIsPossible and #TalkAboutIt2016 to promote the work of programs around Indiana working to prevent sexual violence in their communities,” Gasiorowski said.
Each year, the U.S. spends $127 billion on rape — more than any other crime. In 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act that established the RPE program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC awards each state an RPE grant that focuses on primary prevention of sexual violence, such as addressing the root causes of sexual assault and changing social norms.
In 2016, Indiana Office of Women’s Health (OWH) received $650,888 from the CDC to fund RPE programs; $232,500 was given to ICADV, $195,000 to Indiana University (IU) and $112,361 to the Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Assault (MESA).
From those funds, the ICADV works to prevent and eliminate domestic violence by focusing on prevention, legislative advocacy, public awareness, training and legal survivor assistance; IU will host two conferences to train multidisciplinary professionals and students on bystander intervention, program evaluation, coalition-building and responses to sexual assault; and MESA works to organize and mobilize local communities in culturally relevant primary prevention strategies to improve the quality of life for individuals and families. MESA also provides outreach training to community organizations seeking to work cross-culturally in their prevention efforts.
“Training is an essential part of prevention,” said the director of the OWH at the Indiana State Department of Health Laura Chavez.
According to the OWH, recipients of the RPE grant in Indiana hosted 73 professional training sessions between February 2014 and November 2014. The OWH has administered the federally funded RPE program since 2008 to help reduce and eliminate the incidence of sexual violence across the state.
For more information about the Indiana RPE program visit in.gov/isdh/23820.
