by Survivors Ally
Wednesday, May. 28, 2008 at 9:55 AM
The UCLA Clothesline Project is a student organization that aims to stop sexual violence. The project strives to take that first most difficult step: to break the silence surrounding sexual violence and raise awareness about a crime where it’s the victims that are made to feel guilty and ashamed.
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Rape survivors are invited to make t-shirts about their experience and hang the shirts on a clothesline. For many it is a brave step they take toward speaking out about their histories with sexual violence. Families and friends of victims are also welcome to create t-shirts.
Most sexual assaults go unreported and the problem is more widespread than many realize. Even when the crime is reported the victim is often blamed for instigating the attack.
Rape is also systematically used as a weapon of war by governments around the world. And the so called developed nations like the US are no exception to this.
The statistics on sexual violence provided by the Clothesline Project are startling:
- Every 2.5 minutes someone in the US is sexually assaulted.
- One third of girls in the world are forced into their first sexual experience.
- Only 1 in 16 rapists will ever spend a day in jail.
- One in four women, from age 14 upwards, experiences sexual violence by an intimate partner.
- In 2003 one in every ten rape victims were male.
