Report It on Angela Shelton Day
Happy Angela Shelton Day!
Today is the day where the Report It campaign, a campaign motivating survivors of sexual assault to report their cases via an online form at the Report It website, comes to a close with the biggest rally of unified sexual assault survivors taking place at various courthouses across the country! Today, on Angela Shelton Day, survivors are being asked to go to your local courthouses and say that the silence of sexual assault survivors has went on for far too long.
Sexual assault is the most underreported crime in the world and it is also the least talked about. By being a survivor and living through your abuse and talking about your abuse, you are breaking the silence surrounding this pandemic. One person can change the world, so if you are able, please go to your local court house and speak up for the rights of survivors everywhere.
Here is the statement that is being read at rallies across the country:
“Sexual assault is the most underreported crime in the world. All too often victims do not report the crime to authorities for fear of not being believed, mistrust of the legal system, because they blame themselves for the crime or fear of retaliation. It’s time to address why this happens to sexual violence victims, while victims of other crimes, like robbery, don’t hesitate to seek justice. Victims of sexual violence deserve the equal protection of our laws. They deserve to be heard and validated. The Report IT Campaign is a first of its kind effort on behalf of all victims — an initiative designed to give hope to all victims that we can end the silence surrounding sexual violence. Our loud, unified voice today will be the first step in a multi-year effort to inspire much needed reforms and better access to justice for all victims.”
But this isn’t the end of the collaborative rally from Angela Shelton and PAVE. In fact, PAVE will be collecting reports from survivors for the next year, in 2009 this rally will run again just as it did this year but hopefully with even more people and in 2010, PAVE is taking this rally straight to Washington DC.
If you haven’t already, report your case today on Angela Shelton Day by filling out the online form. I filled mine out this morning and now it’s your turn!
If you need someone to talk to remember that you can always call RAINN. It’s safe and confidential. 1.800.656.HOPE or check out the online hotline.
Watch Searching for Angela Shelton–For Free!
Searching for Angela Shelton is a documentary made by none other than Angela Shelton. It started as a survey of women in America who shared her name, but evolved into a mission to end sexual violence when she found that over half of the women she interviewed for her documentary had been either raped, beaten or molested sometime in their lives. If you haven’t already seen this movie, I cannot urge you enough to buy the DVD, it is absolutely phenomenal. But here’s the best news of all…
During the month of April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, to raise awareness about sexual violence, you can watch Searching for Angela Shelton for free! All you have to do is go to Angela Shelton TV and click on the second tab over on top of the video player, click on “Searching” and the entire movie is the second option down.
I personally love this movie, I’ve seen it no less than 100 times, easy; it’s always the movie I go to when I need to get inspired or motivated to write something inspiring. It brings the comfort needed to survivors to keep going in the fight against sexual violence and it opens the eyes of those who may not know too much about the pandemic that is affecting so many men and women all over the world every day.
Go ahead, Watch the movie!
Some parts may be triggering, so if you find yourself in need of help or support, check out RAINN or the supportive community at After Silence.
Finding Angela Shelton
I’ve written about Angela Shelton before , specifically about her activism efforts regarding the Report It campaign as well as the Report It rallies for victim’s rights, but there is some awesome news that I couldn’t let go by without mentioning and that is that Angela Shelton is now also a novelist, on top of being the superhero of victim rights activism.
Angela Shelton was sexually abused as a young child by her father, which is what she confessed to the world while making her documentary, Searching for Angela Shelton. Since then, she has become a motivating and inspiring woman to countless survivors. On a personal level, after watching her documentary and after some time reading up on her and getting involved myself with activism efforts to raise awareness about sexual abuse, she had given me the motivation to speak up about my own abuse in early 2007.
She has undoubtedly inspired the lives of many people to either confront their own abuse or get involved in raising awareness of just how widespread sexual abuse is. In fact, it is believed that each and every single person knows someone who has been sexually abused, yet the silence surrounding it is overwhelming.
On top of her activism efforts, Angela Shelton’s first book, an autobiography of her life and her abuse, as well as overcoming it and going on to help others, Finding Angela Shelton, is hitting bookstores April 1! You can pre-order the book today or head on down to your local bookstore and pick it up when it’s released!
Report It Now!
In addition to the Report IT rally for Victim’s Rights that took place on February 19 and will again on April 29, Angela Shelton, an advocate and speaker on sexual violence and PAVE ( have collaborated to create the Report It Now! campaign.
The Report It Now campaign, as well as the Rally for Victim’s Rights are both about raising awareness about the vast number of people that are victims of sexual assault. It is a national collaborative effort to raise awareness on the vast under-reporting of sexual assault including rape, incest, and abuse.
Sexual assault is a very serious pandemic that is not always treated as seriously as it should be. Over 80% of sexual assault cases go unreported and when these cases are reported, the victims are only revictimized by lawyers and the court system. We have all heard the misogynist comments made when women speak about sexual violence and the excuses that men leech onto and try to throw in our faces. “Well the women that are abused should stop being whores with their short skirts.” “Women are just asking for it.” and etc. etc. What is not understood about sexual violence is that while ’sex’ is in the name, it is almost never about that–Sexual violence is about control and almost never about purely getting into someone’s pants when they don’t want it. Not only are (mostly) men throwing these kinds of excuses in the face of women who are speaking out about this violence, but the court system does the same thing! “Well how many drinks did you have, Miss?” “And what were you wearing?” To quote Tori Amos directly, “Yes I wore a slinky red thing, does that mean I should spread?” (Me and a Gun) And no, it does not.
Every two and a half minutes, someone in America is sexually assaulted and the Report It Now campaign is all about exposing the amount of unreported sexual violence cases. It is a campaign to show these so-called court systems the amount of people that are afraid to report their cases because of them, not because they have something to hide or any other ludicrous assumption. To show these people the nature of the crimes and the numbers of these cases that happen that cannot be denied, there is a Report It Now online form where you can report your abuse for purely survey reasons. The online form is not an actual police report and it is also completely anonymous, so there are absolutely no worries that your name will ever get out.
If you, a loved one or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, I urge you to fill out the online form and report your case. Not only are you aiding the campaign in retrieving accurate results of sexual assault, but it is highly cathartic to fill out the form; it is like the first time you ever told someone about your abuse or even admitted it to yourself–It’s an indescribable feeling.
The online form may be triggering, so if you begin to fill out the form and feel yourself being triggered, please got to RAINN or call your local crisis center and stay safe.
Report IT Rally for Victim’s Rights
I’m a little late in posting this, which I apologize for. I’ve known about this for a little while now and until I received an email from Angela Shelton, I remembered that I needed to write about this.
1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
Angela Shelton, Wendy Murphy, Angela Rose and PAVE have teamed up and created the Report IT campaign.
Sex crimes are the most under-reported crime in the US.
It is widely known that more than 80% of sex crimes go unreported and when they are reported, the victim is re-victimized by the police department as well as the juror or jury if their case makes it to court. In effort to shatter the silence that revolves around sexual assault and raise awareness about the amount of sex crime cases that go unreported, the Rally for Victim’s Rights will give survivors the voice and unity in their neighborhoods to demand justice for survivors of sex crimes.
Gather at your local court house with other survivors, friends of survivors and anyone else you can get to get themselves to their local court houses to say that survivors of sexual assault deserve a voice and justice! Report IT’s Rally for Victim’s Rights will take place in dozens of city court houses across the country on February 19 at noon.
For a list of cities already participating in the rally check after the jump. For a toolkit to hold a rally in your community, email info@pavingtheway.net and they will send you all the tools needed!
Everyone knows someone who has been sexually assaulted.
But February 19 is only the beginning!
While the Rally for Victim’s Rights starts on February 19, this campaign will turn into a nationwide state-to-state protest on April 29, which is Angela Shelton Day!
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My name is Holly, I'm a freelance writer and web designer as well as an obsessive blogger. This site focuses on (mainly) US politics, women's rights and health and society. I also find myself constantly debunking feminist stereotypes that have been ingrained in the minds of the world's population through the last 30 years. Read more...Tags
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