National Sexual Assault Awareness Month activities at UH Mānoa

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
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Posted: Apr 1, 2011

The UH Mānoa Women’s Center and PAU Violence Program are bringing attention to National Sexual Assault Awareness Month with two events on campus.
 
 
“Denim Day at Mānoa” is an effort to eliminate persistent harmful attitudes regarding why, where and how women are raped. The Denim Day movement is an international protest sparked in 1999, when Italy’s Supreme Court overturned a rape conviction because the victim was wearing jeans. The court dismissed the case, stating that it would have been too difficult for the perpetrator to remove the victim’s jeans without her help and that, therefore, it was not rape but consensual sex. Italian women protested the verdict by wearing jeans in front of that country’s high court.
 
On Tuesday, April 26, the Mānoa campus community is encouraged to make a statement against sexual assault and to participate in Denim Day by wearing denim. There will be a resource table with information about the Denim Day Movement and sexual assault, including on- and off-campus resources for survivors of sexual assault. The event also will feature a denim quilt project, inviting individuals to make a personal pledge against sexual violence. Donations of unwanted, used denim will be accepted at the Women’s Center in QLC 211.
 
DATE:            Tuesday, April 26
TIME:             11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
WHERE:        Campus Center Mall
 
 
One in four college women have survived rape or attempted rape. UH Mānoa has 11,200 women students, and the startling reality is that 2,820 of them will be or have been assaulted.  A total of 2,820 teal flags will be placed around Varney Circle to represent these women. There will also be an informational table on the Queen Lili‘uokalani Center (QLC) lanai to explain the purpose of the flags, and to provide more information about sexual assault, including resources for on- and off-campus assistance. 
 
DATE:            Tuesday and Wednesday, April 5-6
TIME:             11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
WHERE:        Varney Circle and QLC lanai