Sexual, domestic violence victims speak out

Erica Terrini

News Editor

Hundreds of passersby stopped to read messages written by sexual and domestic violence victims, or by their friends and family, Wednesday in the University Student Commons Plaza.

The Clothesline Project is a national event to raise sexual and domestic assault awareness. The written messages display emotions of the participants in regard to their cases of assault.

Tammy McKeown, the coordinator of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Services at University Counseling Services, works with the Sexual Assault and Dating Violence Education by Students organization to host the event.

“We always get very positive feedback about the Clothesline Project. People find it very moving,” McKeown said. “We had people comment on how powerful the shirts are–how incredible they are.”

Participants will write on T-shirts, which are then hung on a clothesline for public display. The T-shirts vary in color and may represent different types of violence.

Stasia Rapp, a senior nursing and women’s studies double major, is the campus outreach officer for SAVES. She said about half the T-shirts were provided by students and the rest are donations from previous years.

“It’s a way for survivors to tell their story and get their message out to hundreds of people,” Rapp said. “This is something that happens at lots of universities and college campuses around the United States.”

Rapp said prospective participants are able make T-shirts at The Wellness Resource Center at any time during the year.

David Shafer, a graduate student for the VCU Certificate in Gender Violence Intervention, said this is the fourth year he has attended the event.

“It’s really, really powerful–a very sombering event to see all of these stories and everything,” said Shafer, a SAVES member. “People don’t want to talk about these issues so it’s really nice to see events like this that sort of give voice to the voiceless.”

SAVES hosts the Clothesline Project twice a year: once in April for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and once in October for Domestic Abuse Awareness Month.

For more information visit www.clotheslineproject.org.

Sidebar: T-shirt colors

According to The Clothesline Project Web site, the T-shirt colors can represent different forms of abuse. The shirts are color coded to represent the form of abuse and whether the victim survived the abuse they experienced.

White — women who died because of violence

Yellow or beige — battered or assaulted women

Red, pink and orange — for survivors of rape and sexual assault

Blue and green — survivors of incest and sexual abuse

Purple or lavender — women attacked because of their sexual orientation

Black — women attacked for political reasons.