Category: Sexual Assault

NDAA just published a couple new bulletins, including one co-authored by Joanne Archambault, Kim Lonsway (both of EVAW), and David Lisak (who you may know from his research on undetected rapists). False Reports: Moving Beyond the Issue to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Non-Stranger Sexual Assaults (PDF) is probably another one of those items to share at your next SART or MDT meeting. Honestly, though, the sheer amount of misinformation circulating in our professional circles about the rates of false reports makes this a must-read regardless of your profession.

UNICEF/UN Radio produced a podcast on maternal health last fall, Delivering on the Front Lines: Maternal Health in Conflict, Post-Conflict and Emergency Situations. The podcast features a panel of experts who examine the impact war and other emergent situations have on pregnant women and new mothers. “During armed conflict, the well-being of women is threatened by physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and vital maternal care services are typically disrupted by the devastation of health infrastructure.” You can listen to the 23 minute podcast here.

On the Diane Rehm Show yesterday, Diane interviewed the authors of the new book Picking Cotton, about the circumstances that led to the writing of the book:

A rape victim mistakenly accused Ronald Cotton of being her attacker. He served eleven years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him. They both join Diane [Rehm] to present their joint memoir of injustice and forgiveness.

Brown Medical School, along with several other organizations, put together an online tutorial for emergency healthcare providers on human trafficking. I’m unsure when the tutorial was created (if someone knows, please pass that along), but it appears to be no older than 2005 based on the materials cited, so info is relatively current. Much of it is text-based, but it is well-linked in many places.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, has a free PTSD101 program for healthcare professionals. The courses contained in the program (and there are many), are divided into 6 different categories and include topics such as vicarious traumatization, PTSD and sexual assault, combat stress injuries, and cultural dimensions of PTSD. The list is pretty extensive. Best of all? CEs available for everyone.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has released their report, Shattered Lives: Immediate Medical Care Vital for Sexual Violence Victims. “Based on MSF’s work in Liberia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Africa, Colombia, and other countries, the report, titled “Shattered Lives,” highlights the need for emergency medical care to be made available to people who have been raped. MSF also stresses that such services need to be truly accessible, with guarantees for confidentiality and an offer of comprehensive care.”

You can read an overview of the report here, or download the full report (PDF).

Have you seen Very Young Girls on Showtime? If you haven’t it’s still possible to see it On Demand through March 3rd and it’s well worth your time. We don’t often think about trafficking victims as being young American teens and pre-teens, but as this documentary clearly shows, the problem is rampant right here in the US.

My friend Cathy, over at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, sent me a video she made for the Bandana Project. If you aren’t familiar with the Bandana Project it’s a a public awareness campaign aimed at addressing the issue of workplace sexual violence against migrant farmworker women in the United States. Esperanza: The Immigrant Women’s Legal Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center launched this campaign in 2007.

You can view the short video after the jump.

Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, discusses social and economic vulnerability in women around the world in this podcast on HIV and sexual violence. “The stark lack of empowerment of women in many parts of the world indicates the need for men to help protect their gender counterparts from the scourge of HIV.” The Spread of HIV Through Sexual Violence Against Women, is approximately 13 minutes and can be accessed free of charge.

Like all ReachMD programming, it requires site registration, which can be done here.

Spending the night at the hospital seeing patients gives me a lot of time to think, and plenty of time to surf. In the course of putting some information together for a teaching project, I stumbled across a little hidden gem on the CDC website: STI Picture Cards. I know I often get requests from people looking for photos to use for teaching purposes; here the CDC provides 19 images meant for use by educators. For those of you teaching this content as part of a SANE course, here’s a way to integrate some new images into your slide presentations. Or use them as a tool for some staff continuing education.