By Sarah Natchipolsky
Shirts emblazoned with messages of anger, hope, sorrow and healing were strung up around Hornbake Plaza on Wednesday, Oct. 23, as part of the Clothesline Project.
The Clothesline Project is a biannual event sponsored by CARE to Stop Violence at the University of Maryland — an organization through the Health Center that provides confidential services to survivors of sexual assault and other forms of violence involving assertion of dominance or intimidation, known as power-based violence.
The project hangs up t-shirts decorated by survivors of sexual abuse and relationship violence, and their loved ones to visually represent and raise awareness for this highly stigmatized issue. The shirts can be privately decorated and sent in prior to the presentation.
The event arrived on Maryland’s campus in the late 90’s, according to Rajan Parikh, the education coordinator in the CARE To Stop Violence office. The project is held biannually in October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month and in April for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Parikh explained that the project has persisted for so long because of its ability to represent the prevalence of these forms of violence, despite the fact that they are often difficult for people to discuss.
“When I come on to Hornbake Plaza and I see these shirts, I see a community that I’m part of that’s been impacted by something that we can do something to change,” Parikh said. “So I want everyone to feel empowered, but also understand that this is our responsibility as a community to do something about it.”
The University’s Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct received a record 249 reports of sexual misconduct during the 2017-2018 school year according to its student sexual misconduct report. In the U.S., one in four women and one in seven men report having suffered physical abuse at the hands of a partner, and 15,301 domestic violence-related crimes were reported to police in Maryland during 2016 according to the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence.
“I was raped when I was 9 yrs old,” one of the t-shirts read. “I never told anyone till today.”
Dozens of shirts depicted similar stories, while others bore uplifting words of encouragement or emphasized victims’ bodily autonomy.
“You are strong, you are worth fighting for, you are a survivor.”
CARE volunteers hung up a freshly decorated shirt behind one of its tables.
“My body is not up for grabs,” it said.
Michael Schuyler, a junior public health science major was walking through Hornbake Plaza when the t-shirts caught his eye. Schuyler stopped to read the stories of violence documented on them, and said that he found the display to be an important reminder of the need for resources and advocacy for sexual assault survivors.
“It really just helps to show how we all have to look out for each other and just always be there for people who need to talk about things like this,” Schuyler said. “It just seems like issues like this are brushed under the rug a lot.”
Around Hornbake, CARE set up tables where people could decorate t-shirts, pick up pamphlets about domestic abuse and the services that the organization offers, sign a pledge to end violence and speak with representatives of CARE.
Fatima Koroma, a peer educator with CARE to Stop Violence, handed out pamphlets and spoke with community members who stopped by the display. Koroma’s sister was a victim of power-based violence. Having witnessed the impact of violence firsthand, she wanted to help advocate for victims, and found a way to do so through CARE and the Clothesline Project.
“It’s easy for people to forget the magnitude of how many people are affected,” Koroma said. “This event is super important … It allows survivors and victims to have that power back and share their voices and their stories.”
Members of Cape Cod, Massachusetts’ Women’s Defense Agenda held the first Clothesline Project in 1990, according to the project’s website. The founders were compelled to start the event after hearing the statistic that over the course of the Vietnam war, 58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed, and at the same time, 51,000 U.S. women were killed by their partners.
Elena LeVan, the director of sexual misconduct prevention for the SGA, said that efforts like this one to remind people of power-based violence’s existence are the first step in combating it.
“I think that doing shirts in particular helps humanize it for people,” LeVan said. “That’s one of the issues, I think when it comes to sexual assault awareness and prevention is that it becomes a number, and this helps because it’s a visual representation.”