April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

By Heather Petersen, Program Support Assistant, Army Community ServiceApril 5, 2011

ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Rock Island, Ill. -- The month of April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. This observance provides us an opportunity to recommit our efforts to eliminate sexual assault in the Armed Forces. The theme for SAAM 2011 is "Hurts one. Affects all. Preventing sexual assault is everyone's duty." The theme emphasizes the ability of each and every service member to prevent sexual assaults from occurring. Sexual assault continues to be the most underreported violent crime in our society.

The Clothesline Project is a program started on Cape Cod, Mass., in 1990, to address the issue of violence against women. It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women. The Quad Cities Rape/Sexual Assault Counseling & Advocacy Program and The Domestic Violence Advocacy Program of Family Resources has nearly 300 shirts made by local Quad Cities and they strive to display the clothesline project as much as possible throughout the year at various locations in the community to raise awareness of the issue of violence against women & children - and to give victims/survivors a voice.

The Family Resources, Inc. Quad Cities Rape Sexual Assault Counseling and Advocacy Program along with RIA Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program SARC will be displaying the Clothesline Project on April 21, Bldg. 60, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. For more information, contact SAPR at (309) 782-3773.

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