April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and groups on campus are holding several events this week to promote women’s rights.
A group of students will table in the New University Union to promote awareness about women’s rights during civil wars for a project assigned in the Causes of Civil War course at Binghamton University.
A friend of one member of the group has a mother who lived through the civil war in Bosnia. After hearing her story, the group was inspired to make others aware of the struggles she went through.
“We really want people on campus to be aware of what’s going on,” said Arielle Sokoloff, a member of the group and a junior majoring in political science. “If people don’t know what is going on, then there is nothing they can do.”
The other members of the five-person group are Alyssa Blask, Gabe Gonzalez, Katie Howard and Jared Kirschenbaum.
To raise awareness, the group is passing out candy with facts about women’s rights during civil wars. The group is also set to table today, and students will have the opportunity to trace their hands on a poster and put a related fact inside the outline.
One of the facts is that in Darfur, two million women have been raped and four million people have been uprooted from their homes. Another fact states that a girl in Darfur is more likely to die in childbirth than finish primary school.
“By creating a poster, this way it’s visual and we can target as many people as possible,” Sokoloff said.
They will also be going around getting signatures for a petition to send to the president of Chad to stop sexual abuse of women in Darfur.
The group will wrap up the project Thursday by presenting it to their class and writing a paper on the events of the week.
On Thursday evening the Women’s Student Union will hold an event called Take Back the Night, a national campaign that the WSU has been holding at BU for the past 20 years.
Take Back the Night is a national organization that became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2001. It was started to ease the anxiety women feel walking alone at night and aims at ending sexual violence.
In the past, the WSU has brought in speakers to talk about sexual violence. However, this year’s speakers will be four student survivors.
Bridget Condon, a junior majoring in anthropology and vice president of WSU, is coordinating the event and will be one of the speakers.
“I was raped when I was in high school by one of my friends at a graduation party,” Condon said. “I still haven’t told my family. Thursday will be the first time I tell people in public.”
According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), one in four people will experience sexual assault in their lifetime, and college-age women are four times more likely to experience it.
Condon also said that a significant number of rape cases are not reported. RAINN estimates that 60 percent of sexual assaults go unreported.
“It’s so incredibly personal and very hard to talk about; if you were to go to court you’re put on display and have to explain everything that happened,” Condon said
Even though Condon can relate to the difficulties involved with reporting this type of crime, she is advocating for the available resources and wants people to use them.
“If something were to happen to me now I would report it,” Condon said. “I do feel very strongly for people to report it because that’s part of the problem. People aren’t caught, prosecuted, arrested or charged and it doesn’t get taken care of.”
Take Back the Night will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the fountain in front of Glenn G. Bartle Library.