The sounds of monitors beeping and the occasional sneaker squeaking on the floor of the hallway in the local emergency department offer subtle background noise. In a small, private room, a sexual assault forensic nurse examiner has finished collecting evidence. Law-enforcement has come and gone to take statements. The patient in a thin hospital gown has turned over every piece of clothing they were wearing, their phone, and a vulnerable piece of themselves as they try to seek help after a sexual assault.
How is this person getting home? Do they even try to tell their friends and family members? How do they make sense of what happened? Where do you go to get the rest of your preventative medication whose first dose was prescribed tonight at the hospital? How do you breathe in the next three minutes?
All of these questions are the questions that sexual assault advocates help to answer when everyone else leaves the room and a survivor is left behind to pick up the pieces and begin moving on. Sexual assault is more common than any of us care to know. In Pennsylvania, 47 rape crisis centers provide the advocacy and support that victims of this form of violence have right to.
When there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute, advocates are there to help survivors discern their path forward. What a mother of a child sexual abuse has no idea how she will figure out childcare so that she can go to work and put food on the table, advocates are making the phone calls to help her figure it out. When an abuser finds ways to contact their victim months or even years after the assault, advocates understand and can relate the person right under protect protection order laws in Pennsylvania.
Survivors of sexual assault, abuse, harassment, and trafficking rely on victim advocacy support as a crucial safety net in their healing process. Unfortunately, state and federal legislators had consistently cut funding for sexual assault victims as well as advocacy programs in PA. Demand for services rises while funding for services falls. Most recently, Governor Shapiro had released a budget that flat funds sexual assault services once again.
Sexual assault services are a crucial public safety investment. They increase local capacity for offender accountability, provide ongoing and holistic support to victims as they heal, and creatively assist survivors in navigating complex systems. Our values show up in the budget. If PA values prevention, families, stability, public, safety, and the rights and needs of victims of violent crimes, we need to put our money where our values lie. Advocates are the people who are left in the room with survivors when all of the other parts of the system have failed them. If we keep cutting funding for Victim Services in PA, there won’t be any advocates left to help.
