The Associated Students of the University of New Mexico and the Graduate and Professional Student Association proposed Friday that UNM be proclaimed a Start by Believing campus at this month’s Board of Regents meeting.
Start by Believing is a public awareness campaign designed by End Violence Against Women International to change the way people respond to reports of sexual assault and rape.
The training goals of the program are to change campus culture to support and encourage victims who come forward, and to collaborate effectively with existing and future partnerships, said ASUNM Vice President Jenna Hagengruber.
“Most people report at least to a friend or family member, and this initiative is about changing their first responses,” said Amber Dukes, chair of GPSA’s Equity and Inclusion committee. “Instead of asking ‘were you dancing provocatively?’ or ‘what were you wearing?’, it’s to start by listening to them and believing them. And the rest of the process will start to take care of itself.”
The campaign would become one of many UNM already has in place to increase awareness and aid sexual assault victims. Two women from the Women’s Resource Center have trained about 10,000 students and staff members on how to handle sexual assault since July, and the newly created Sexual Misconduct and Assault Response Team has multiple services available to victims, Hagengruber said.
Victims of sexual assault can get help on campus at SHAC and the Women’s Resource Center, but it is recommended that they receive testing and counseling from the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Collaborative located downtown on Silver. SANE nurses are specially trained to deal with those sorts of events, Dukes said.
“‘Start by Believing’ is just really our way of saying, ‘if (sexual assault) does happen, you need to come forward and we believe you. If you don’t come forward the perpetrator could do it again and again and it won’t stop. We need to believe you in order to be able to stop it in the future,’” Hagengruber said.
According to the 2014 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, 11 sexual assaults and 13 acts of domestic violence were reported on campus property in 2013.
At the meeting, Board of Regents President Jack Fortner, who works as an attorney, shared a story about a 26-year-old client with a DWI whom he saw this past week. The girl told Fortner she was sexually assaulted 10 years ago and had not told anyone until his meeting with her, he said.
“Victims often blame themselves. I suspect there are a number of victims who have never told anyone and the idea is to get them to come public,” Fortner said. “It’s not necessarily to file criminal charges, because if it’s years later that won’t do much. At that point it’s people coming forward and talking about it and making people aware and then for someone to say ‘look, it wasn’t your fault.’”
The Regents approved the Start by Believing campaign in principle, but asked to see a fully developed proposal that integrates all programs that have an active role in helping to address this problem. The proposal is expected to be unveiled at the November Board of Regents meeting.
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Marielle Dent is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at mdent@unm.edu or on Twitter @Marielle_Dent.
