Film to showcase reality of abuse against women

by Rachana Dixit, news editor

In an attempt to break the silence of sexual and domestic violence during Virginia’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Citizens Against Sexual Assault will be showing “Searching for Angela Shelton,” Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Court Square Theater.

In the movie, filmmaker Angela Shelton travels around the United States in search of other women named Angela Shelton in an effort to survey women around the country. During her journey, she finds that 24 out of the 40 Angela Sheltons like herself had been victims of rape, domestic violence or child molestation.

“People don’t often realize how big of a problem it is,” said Cory Davies, outreach coordinator for CASA. One out of four women and one out of eight men in Virginia have been victims of such violence, Davies said. Through direct victim services, which includes phone calls and hospital responding, CASA has served 250 people, as well as 3,000 through crisis counseling.

A discussion will be held after the viewing of the film. Gianna Gariglietti, executive director of CASA, said the movie brings out the fact that sexual assault and domestic violence is a target issue at large with the community. Crisis counselors will be present to help facilitate the discussion. “It’s tough to find people who specialize in sexual abuse,” Gariglietti said.

JMU’s Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Women’s Resource Center have collaborated with CASA in a multitude of events as well as other offices on campus. Hillary Wing-Richards, associate director of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and a former director of CASA, said CASA is often used as a resource. The Office of Sexual Assault Prevention has therapists who respond to student crises, including sexual assault, abuse and eating disorders.

“The students are the priority,” Wing-Richards said.

Sexual assault prevention is a prominent issue on JMU’s campus as well as in the Harrisonburg community and Rockingham County.  Sexual Assault Prevention counseled on 24 different occasions involving sexual assault in 2004. However, this does not mean that there were 24 sexual assault cases that occurred at JMU in that year. Counseling has been held for females as well as males, for whom occurrences of sexual violence are often overshadowed by the idea of only females being affected. “Our society has created so many myths [about males being sexually assaulted],” Wing-Richards said. “One in six males will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18,” she added.

April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, during which CASA and the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Women’s Resource Center will hold more events to increase knowledge about victims of such violence and how to prevent it from happening.