April is more than the beginning of Spring; it represents a month of teal ribbons, solidarity, awareness, and a call to action in support of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAPM).
In support of SAAPM, Military Sealift Command (MSC) hosted an event at the Vista Point Center onboard Naval Station Norfolk, April 27, encouraging members to advocate for change in preventing and responding to sexual violence.
This year’s SAAPM campaign theme is “STEP FORWARD: Prevent. Report. Advocate.” and focuses on bringing awareness to sexual assault with a goal of elimination by striving to change harmful behaviors, provide victim support and encourage sexual assault prevention initiatives year-round.
“Sexual Assault has no place in Military Sealift Command or our Navy; it simply does not align with our values,” said Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson, commander, Military Sealift Command. “And we should all hold ourselves to the highest standard and demand anyone witnessing someone going down that path to interject and prevent a potential sexual assault.”
Tina Carter, MSC Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program manager, spoke about sexual assault and the daily effects it has on Americans.
“Every 68 seconds someone is sexual assaulted. So, by the time you’re done brushing your teeth, one person has been assaulted. By the time you’re finished with breakfast, 13 more assaults have occurred. And by the time you get dressed, there have been 26 more victims,” Carter said. “If these numbers alarm you, good, it should, because this must stop.”
In attendance was keynote speaker Tracey Redfearn Matheson, CEO of “Project Beloved: The Molly Jane Mission,” a non-profit organization focused on sexual assault victim advocacy, who shared the story of the sexual assault and death of her only daughter, Molly, which drove her motivation to help advocate for sexual assault survivors.
“We launched Project Beloved: The Molly Jane Mission on the one-year anniversary of Molly’s death in 2018,” Matheson said. “Our mission statement is that we strive to educate, advocate and collaborate to change the conversation about sexual assault and to empower survivors to find their voices.”
Matheson said it was important that the monetary donations made to the organization were used in a way that spoke to the mission, so her team created two initiatives designed to assist victims when coming forward to report sexual assault: Beloved Bundles and Soft Interview Rooms.
“When a victim goes to the hospital for a forensic medical exam or rape kit, and law enforcement needs their clothing as evidence, the victim is provided a Beloved Bundle,” Matheson said. “The Bundle has clothing, undergarments, a hygiene kit, a stress ball, socks, and a coloring book.”
Matheson said they have donated more than 30,000 Beloved Bundles throughout the country and use volunteers to help assemble the Bundles as a strategy to bring people together to encourage conversations about sexual assault.
Additionally, her team creates Soft Interview Rooms for various agencies who interview sexual assault victims. The rooms are intended to resemble a living room, designed with comfortable chairs, rugs, side tables and lamps, and special artwork specifically created by a sexual assault victim, Megan, whose life was taken five days after Molly’s.
“We’re asking someone to come to a place they don’t want to be, to have a conversation they don’t really want to have with a person they don’t want to talk to,” said Matheson. “And if we could make that environment a little less intimidating and a little warmer and inviting, it allows the victim to feel physically and emotionally safe.”
Since her daughter’s death, Matheson has had two Texas House Bills approved, HB 3106 (Molly Jane’s Law), mandating law enforcement to use the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program to input offender details during an assault investigation, and HB 4628, enforcing the duties of agencies to provide survivor notification of any DNA matches from the same offender.
The event concluded with the traditional “walk-a-lap” in the Vista Point Center parking lot with those in attendance, led by MSC leadership, SAPR command coordinators, and Matheson, in honor of survivors of sexual assault.
“We have a commitment here at MSC and that is zero tolerance for sexual assault, but that starts before the assault happens,” Nicholson said. “That starts by intervention, it starts by looking across at the people that you work with, the people that you spend time with, and if people are trending toward one way or another, stepping in to make sure that intervention happens.”
MSC exists to support the joint warfighter across the full spectrum of military operations, with a workforce that includes approximately 6,000 Civil Service Mariners and 1,100 contract mariners, supported by 1,500 shore staff and 1,400 active duty and reserve military personnel.