In 2015, more women in Alaska entered adulthood without a traumatic sexual assault lingering in their past than years prior.<\/p>\n
A survey funded by Alaska\u2019s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault and analyzed by the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center showed that in five years, violence against women decreased by 8.3 percent. The 2015 survey revealed 58.6 percent of women statewide were victims of some form of violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does show that we\u2019re moving in the right direction and that our efforts are working,\u201d Andr\u00e9 Rosay, director of the Justice Center, said. \u201cOverall, we are moving in the right direction and we are making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the numbers are still atrocious, they\u2019re still unacceptable,\u201d he added, \u201cbut there is a lot of hope in knowing that we are starting to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosay presented an in-depth breakdown of the findings during a meeting Thursday with the council at the Goldbelt Building. The survey is conducted every five years, with 2010 being the first one. More women participated in the 2015 survey than in 2010 (3,027 in 2015 compared to 871 in 2010), and the results indicated fewer women were experiencing violence both throughout their lifetime and within the past year.<\/p>\n
Seven percent fewer women statewide experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime and 4 percent fewer women experienced other sexual assaults. Those percentage drops still add up to more than half of all Alaska women \u2014 130,000 \u2014 experiencing violence in their lifetime. Intimate partner violence, sexual violence or both affected 21,401 women last year alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing that some have experienced multiple forms of sexual violence, these numbers show how far we still have to go,\u201d Rosay said, adding that these figures don\u2019t align with law enforcement figures statewide because physical violence is \u201cthe most\u201d underreported crime. \u201cWe still have a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survey also has several limitations that mean the figures reported are only conservative guesses at best. Rosay said the surveyed women are only asked questions in English and only if they had access to a cell phone or private residence phone line. Non-English speakers, women experiencing homelessness, women living in abuse shelters and those not allowed to use phones by their perpetrators still are unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (excludes) women who are likely to have a higher victimization history than the ones who are included in the survey,\u201d Rosay said.<\/p>\n
The survey also does not give geographical or ethnic breakdowns that Rosay said could prove beneficial.<\/p>\n
CDVSA member L. Diane Casto suggested the Justice Center research why these numbers are on the decline in general.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne question I would love to know the answer to is are we making a difference in the minds of men so that they are not perpetrating as often or are we making more of a difference in the minds of women who are saying, \u2018No way, back off,\u2019\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Casto also wanted to know if statewide efforts by the council, such as the Coaching Boys into Men high school program that\u2019s a few years old, are helping to lower the instances of violence against women.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has got to make a difference in how they treat women as they get older, I think, I hope,\u201d Casto said.<\/p>\n
Rosay will present the statewide victimization results to the Senate Judiciary Committee March 14.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Paula Ann Solis at 523-2272 or at paula.solis@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2015, more women in Alaska entered adulthood without a traumatic sexual assault lingering in their past than years prior. A survey funded by Alaska\u2019s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault and analyzed by the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center showed that in five years, violence against women decreased by 8.3 percent. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":13035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13034"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}