Stop Milwaukee Hospitals From Turning Away Rape Survivors

The Milwaukee area has two hospitals that provide services for sexual assault victims. If you are unfortunate enough to go to one of the hospitals that does not provide that service, you will be sent away. Or worse, you may wait. Perhaps you will wait for over an hour before leaving, angry and frustrated -- not knowing that after such a long wait, when someone finally came to see you, you would have been sent away anyway. This was my story. This story was in many ways why the SlutWalk movement appealed to me, why I began SlutWalk Milwaukee, and why I am pushing a Change.org petition to fix this situation; a petition that most are shocked to sign because most believe that they, or their daughters, their mothers, their friends, would be treated at any medical center were they the victim of a sexual assault.

A few years ago, I was working with a group of underprivileged youth. Many of the girls in this program had a history that included sexual violence. Some believe this to be the product of poverty. It is not. That these girls shared their stories with me was based on my position, but high school classrooms all over the United States have the same issue. One in four girls will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18. During my time at this program, one of the girls came to me to say that she had been raped the day before. I did what I thought was the most responsible thing to do: I immediately drove her to the nearest medical center. We were sent away. This was a small clinic that did not have the resources to aid a sexual assault victim. Before we were sent away, a nurse thought it would be a good idea to talk to us anyway. She asked a teenage victim of sexual assault very intimate and personal questions about her body, and then when she giggled out of nervousness, the nurse told her that it didn't sound to her as though she had been raped.

Once we left, we were told to go to the city, where a hospital there could care for us. And that is where my story started. Waiting in an emergency room with a teenage girl who became more agitated with every minute that were not seen, until she eventually begged me to leave.

The entire time we attempted to get services, she attempted to explain herself. She wanted me to know that she didn't "ask for it." She wanted to me know that she was sorry. She wanted to convince that she was "not a slut." Those were her words. She asked me to forgive her for being raped.

I wish I could say that I know where she is now. I do not. I know that afterwards, while she would come to see me on occasion, her attendance became less and less frequent. Her behavior around her friends changed. They did not know why. They did not know what had happened, and there was no way that I could tell them in an effort to encourage support. I tried to get her counseling, but it did not happen. She faced this alone. She faced this alone and she shouldn't have.

What happened to her was the failure of a society to care for its youth, to care for its women, and to care for its victims and survivors of sexual assault. We live in a society where we convince teens that they need to apologize for being raped, because only sluts get raped. We have labeled sexual assault as the victimization of the deserving.

In the course of their lifetime one and three women will be sexually assaulted, one and six men. Most will not report because we have labeled victims as sluts, we have labeled them as deserving, and few want to fight an accusation of asking for their body to be robbed.

I began SlutWalk Milwaukee for this reason. We cannot create better services for victims and survivors of sexual assault until we, as a society, can illuminate the pervasive power words like slut have had in how we treat victims and how we encourage them to treat themselves. We cannot create better services until we come understand the social reality of sexual assault, and until we can first always say that we believe you, we do not blame you, if you have been the victim of sexual violence.

The petition is an effort to change services for sexual assault victims. SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners) responders provide vital services to victims. Not just a rape kit and STI testing, but initial counseling and a knowledge of resources for agencies of support. By making immediate services accessible to our population, we may be able to encourage more to report and get whatever services they need to aid them in their healing journey.

The lack of services we have right now is emblematic of a society that is not considerate of victims of sexual assault. Demanding this change is not only a demand that we make necessary medical services available to victims of sexual violence, it is a demand that we begin to consider the victims of sexual violence, and a statement that their fight is our fight. You are not alone.