The following article is the fourth article of a five-week series focusing on raising awareness about sexual assault and child abuse. April is both Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Awareness month and it is our hope to educate our local community on these two very serious issues. Two in 5 women and 1 in 5 men will experience a form of sexual assault in their lifetime. Locally, the Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center has been serving victims of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault and child abuse since 1978. Last year, HCWC served 2,111 victims of abuse (face-to-face) from Hays and Caldwell counties. Of those, 749 were adult victims of sexual assault and 545 were victims of child abuse. Listen – Believe – Support is our theme for the month and we encourage our community to help in listening, believing and supporting local survivors.
#MeToo - On October 15, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” This tweet started a ripple effect of an infinite number of survivors and victims of sexual assault coming forward and sharing that they too had experienced sexual violence. Since then, the #MeToo movement has continuously grown and awareness has spread. While this is all positive and should be celebrated, sexual violence has still not ended. There is still much work to be done and one way to start is by getting yourself educated and informed.
Listen - The Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center has been listening to and serving victims of abuse for 41 years. In the last year alone, the number of victims of sexual abuse we have served increased from 444 five years ago to 749 this past year. Sexual violence is a crime and sadly it is very present in our community. The people we serve range from having been recently victimized to having been sexually assaulted years ago. As a sexual assault counselor at HCWC, I have heard many victims of sexual assault share that the #MeToo movement inspired them to come forward and work towards their own healing. They realized that they deserved to take the power and control of their lives back into their hands. Some of the individuals reported their assault while others had not.
