# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
0 have signed. Let's get to 500,000!

Candice Tso signed this petition...

THE USA ARMY IN FORT HOOD, TX NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR MURDERED SOLDIER VANESSA GUILLEN. THEIR RESPONSIBILTY IS TO MAKE SURE EVERY SOLDIER IS ACCOUNTED FOR! NOT ONLY ONE BODY HAS BEEN FOUND BUT MULTIPLE, IF THEY KNOW THERE IS MORE SOLDIERS MISSING THEIR SEARCH SHOULD HALT. KEEP LOOKING IF PEOPLE ARE MISSING THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS AND THEY WERE ACTIVE YOU SHOULD NEVER STOP LOOKING!!!

This is a disgrace, not only to U.S. families but to these soldiers giving their all for a country that has turned their back on them!!! I SAY NO MORE!!!! FIND ALL MISSING SOLDIERS, GIVE THEIR FAMILIES WHAT THEY DESERVE!

ALSO CHANGE ALL STRUCTURE FOR ANY AND ALL COMPLAINTS MADE BY SOLDIERS. RESTRUCTURE LEADERS, IF NEED BE SELECT NEW ONES! Not only do soldiers need to be safe, but FEEL safe. Find everyone involved in this crime and charge them with whats deserved. JUSTICE FOR SOLDIER VANESSA GUILLEN.

Vanessa Guillen is a 20- year-old Soldier stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. She was last seen on April 22 at 1p.m. in the parking lot of her Regimental Engineer Squadron Headquarters on Fort Hood. She is of Hispanic descent, five feet, two inches tall, 126 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

Vanessa was last seen wearing a black shirt, light purple leggings and black Nike tennis shoes. Vanessa has the tattoo of a cross with a flower on her left arm, another flower also on the left arm, and a mountain with a circle on her upper left shoulder. She has a small mole between her lower mouth, and her chin.

My name is Vanessa Guillen. I knew I wanted to join the US Army to proudly serve my country as soon as I graduated from high school. I loved the US Army until I got to Fort Hood.

I disappeared from Fort Hood, Texas on April 22, 2020.

Three weeks before I disappeared, my mom asked me why I seemed different. My mom knows me better than anyone else. She noticed I had become withdrawn and that I wasn't able to sleep like I used to.

I finally told my mom that I was being sexually harassed by one of my sergeants on Fort Hood. My mom tried tried to convince me to give her the name of the person who was harassing me, but I didn't want to get in trouble. My mom told me that she would report it for me, but I told her that I knew of other female soldiers that had reported sexual harassment and that the US Army didn't believe them. I told my mom how the same sergeant that sexually harassed me would follow me whenever I would run and exercise and how uncomfortable it made me feel. My mom told me she would put a stop to it, but I told her I would take care of it myself. I felt I could put a stop to it myself. All I had to do was do something, say something. I was ready to take care of it.

But I have been missing ever since. I didn't get a chance to give my mom a name. I didn't get a chance to report it to anyone.

Please don't forget about me.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
0 have signed. Let's get to 500,000! Candice Tso signed this petition... THE USA ARMY IN FORT HOOD, TX NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR MURDERED SOLDIER VANESSA GUILLEN. THEIR RESPONSIBILTY IS TO MAKE SURE EVERY SOLDIER IS ACCOUNTED FOR!

# data[].attributes.body
"My sister was too afraid to report the harassment because no one would listen to her," Lupe Guillen said. "They take sexual harassment, sexual assault, as a joke. They don't care."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For months, Spc. Vanessa Guillen's family held out hope that their daughter and sister, last seen at Fort Hood in Texas, was alive.

But this week, remains were found near the Leon River, north of Austin. The FBI is awaiting a positive DNA analysis, but the family believes the body is Guillen's. On Thursday the FBI filed a criminal complaint alleging what her family had feared from the beginning: Guillen had been murdered on the base by a fellow soldier and buried near the river.

The murder suspect, 20-year-old Spc. Aaron David Robinson, killed himself Tuesday as law enforcement was closing in. The FBI has since charged Robinson's girlfriend, 22-year-old Cecily Aguilar, with one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Guillen's family believes her death was linked to sexual harassment she said she was enduring on base. Now they are pushing for congressional legislation to create an independent agency for soldiers who are victims of sexual harassment and assault.

Guillen never reported any sexual harassment. Speaking to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, her sister Lupe Guillen said that's because she didn't think such a report would be taken seriously. "My sister was too afraid to report the harassment because no one would listen to her," Lupe Guillen said. "They take sexual harassment, sexual assault, as a joke. They don't care."

In a statement, Fort Hood officials said the criminal investigation "has not found any connection between sexual harassment and Vanessa's disappearance." Investigators said they plan to further examine the sexual harassment allegations that have come out since Guillen disappeared.

Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt said he has requested an investigation of Fort Hood's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program, which is designed to prevent sexual assault. Efflandt wants to "assess whether the command climate is supportive of Soldiers reporting incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault," and to "identify any potentially systemic issues with the SHARP program at Fort Hood, as well as any resource constraints."

"Those SHARP classes haven't worked at all," Lupe Guillen told NPR.

The criminal complaint lays out the gruesome details of Guillen's murder: Robinson allegedly struck Guillen multiple times in the head with a hammer, killing her. He then allegedly put her inside a box, and then took the box to a remote location near the Leon River in Belton, Texas.

According to the complaint, Robinson picked up Aguilar from work and drove her to where the box was located. Aguilar told investigators she helped Robinson dismember the body using an ax and a machete, removing her limbs and head. After first attempting to burn the body, the two then allegedly buried her remains in three separate holes.

If convicted, Aguilar faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Lupe Guillen tells NPR that her sister wanted to be in the military since she was a little girl. "She used to tell my mom how she wanted to be a soldier because she wanted to protect and serve the nation," Guillen said. "She wanted to be a fighter. She wanted to be a hero. She wanted to be someone in life. ... The military failed her."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
FBI Files Charges In Vanessa Guillen Case

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For months, Spc. Vanessa Guillen's family held out hope that their daughter and sister, last seen at Fort Hood in Texas, was alive. But this week, remains were found near the Leon River, north of Austin. The FBI is awaiting a positive DNA analysis, but the family believes the body is Guillen's.

# data[].attributes.body
Explains the sexism and racism that black women experience.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
http://www.pb-resources.com/ - "The most disrespected person in America is the...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The most disrespected person in America is the Black Woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black Woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black Woman."-Malcolm X...

# data[].attributes.headline
“Landlords Are Asking For Sex From Tenants Who Can’t Afford To Pay Rent Right Now.”

# data[].attributes.subject
“Landlords Are Asking For Sex From Tenants Who Can’t Afford To Pay Rent Right Now.”

# data[].attributes.headline
“Her Landlord Asked To Spend The Night With Her After She Lost Her Job And Couldn’t Afford Rent.”

# data[].attributes.subject
“Her Landlord Asked To Spend The Night With Her After She Lost Her Job And Couldn’t Afford Rent.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why the Coronavirus Outbreak Could Hit Women Hardest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, I got a text message saying my children's school in D.C. would close the next day for a deep cleaning....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today, we come together to launch www.feministcovidresponse.com, a volunteer online data repository of information on feminist principles and actions, as well as policy responses to the COVID crisis.
We find ourselves in a crisis among crises. A global pandemic that does not serve as a great equalizer, but as a great exacerbator, similarly to how climate change magnifies, amplifies, and compounds inequalities. It's a moment that is challenging us to create deep, urgent and systemic change, and that is showing the deep fault lines in how our societies are organized. It's a moment of reckoning, of revaluation of whose labor is essential, of how to create resilient communities able to provide social protection and care.

Working at the intersections of multiple forms of crisis is not a new task for feminist advocates. As the world's consciousness awoke to the devastating scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, it took only a matter of days for global feminist networks to come together to share reflections on the crisis and how we could build together towards collective action.

Many of these networks had spent the months of January and February strategizing together to influence the 64th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) due to take place in New York in early March and to undertake a critical review of the Beijing Platform for Action - signed by Governments in 1995. The CSW was canceled at the end of February, the first major UN conference canceled due to coronavirus. For these groups of feminists, in addition to local and national concerns, a void in multilateral efforts to address the crisis posed a clear risk for the effectiveness of the responses. Bearing in mind the need to hear about different realities on the ground as well as to share personal concerns after building meaningful friendships and alliances through many years of joint activism, a collective response was called for.

In our first call at the end of March, the agenda was quite simple: How are you doing? What are you feeling and experiencing? What do we need to respond to this crisis? Both familiar and unfamiliar voices of the activists who joined were immediate balms of comfort for all of us. It was an intense hour and a half call, with a multiplicity of dimensions laid out: we shared concerning reports of local challenges and started to exert analysis of the current situation from different angles. But most of all, we shared our personal assessments and collective fears.

That first call resulted in a number of key reflections that have framed our work in the short term:

First, that this is a deeply personal and embodied crisis, one being faced by each and every person in their own intersecting ways. It became evident now more than ever we should fully embrace and lift up feminist leadership in promoting self-care, in being kind and compassionate not only to others but to ourselves, in reaching out to each other and finding comfort in feminist solidarity.

Second, that this is a moment that demands re-valuing and centering care. The world is understanding what feminists have been working on for decades: a full scale re-evaluation of what work is "essential". With this, comes an understanding of the gendered nature of this crisis and who is at the frontlines. Even more so, comes a concern about those whose work is already informal and precarious, who may not have access to social protection measures even where such measures are in place.

Next, that this crisis interlinks deeply with migration and migrant justice: the impact of closing borders and implementing punitive and authoritarian measures in the long-term has to be understood in the context of human rights.

The impact on the realization of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) will be devastating. We are already seeing SRHR essential services being deemed "non-essential", all in the context of a public health emergency and strained health infrastructure.

Finally, this pandemic requires solutions that are framed in the context of global justice. We wondered what relief looks like from an equity perspective and what are frameworks for developing and least developed countries for a just response to this crisis.

Cross-cutting and inherent to all these principles is the promotion, protection and fulfillment of human rights and gender equality.
These were the starting points for deciding we wanted to promote collective action. Our first initiative was to develop a set of principles to outline a Feminist Response to COVID-19. We are very proud of launching these principles globally today. They include that, COVID-19 responses:

Must center the well-being of all people in an intersectional manner;

Must ensure the health and safety of all, including ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights;

Must promote a comprehensive paradigm shift, relying on adequate and equitable financing;

Must be based on and strengthen democratic values;

Must promote a just and equitable transition for people and the planet;

Must be guided by cooperation, multilateralism, and global justice.

In addition, as part of our collective reflections we noted that 1) there was a lot of impressive feminist work and analysis already being published in response to COVID-19, 2) there were policy and community responses, both progressive and regressive, that had to be tracked across countries and, 3) that there was a need to support activists with tools in feminist digital organizing.

On parts 1 & 2, the collective embarked on building out a voluntary database to serve as an online repository of the work of feminist activists in response to the COVID crisis. The project became an immense and powerful locus to concentrate the collective effort and promises to be a source for many future actions. The site has four key sections:

1. The Principles for Response, as outlined above.

2. Response Tracker. This marks policies or laws, temporary measures, or observed responses by country and by theme (for example, SRHR or education).

3. Online Dialogues. This is a repository of online dialogues and webinars that have been held discussing the intersections of gender, feminism, care, women's rights and COVID-19.

4. Resources. This section contains a collection of feminist statements and analysis, mutual aid resources and organizing tools.

What do some of these resources look like?
The site is dynamic, with new data and features being added weekly, and fueled currently by a team of over 25 volunteer researchers from around the world. In the coming weeks, a public facing form will allow for individuals to upload information and analysis themselves that has been omitted.

On digital organizing, while we know there are a great many tools and platforms available to host virtual forums and conferences, collectively write and brainstorm digital media, reach broad audiences online, and more, there are also a variety of challenges to accessing these tools. The digital divide, as well as lack of information about how to use various platforms that exist, often limit feminists' (and everyone's) chances to participate in virtual organizing. To respond to this, members of the collective from Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF) planned a series of three teach-ins for organizing virtual meetings, centered around three kinds of skills to grow together, which can be accessed here. The series of teach-ins were a great success, with feminists all around the world exploring new possibilities and sharing technical expertise of tools and best practices on how to navigate current risks and challenges for activists in the digital era.
What's Next?
We have seen collective feminist responses in relation to:

Feminist funding. "A group of philanthropic funders, rooted in feminist funding principles including flexibility and self-determination, are leading the way in providing flexible for their grantees during the COVID-19 pandemic." Read here.

Calls to Action. In early April, thousands of organizations & individuals signed on to the Feminist Alliance for Rights Call for a Feminist COVID-19 Policy, "to demand States to adopt a feminist policy to address the extraordinary challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in a manner that is consistent with human rights standards and principles."

Resourcing. Multiple feminist networks moved quickly to engage in mutual aid. OutRight Action International has launched the COVID-19 LGBTIQ Emergency Fund - to respond to the urgent needs of LGBTIQ people and communities around the world, particularly in the global South. The Urgent Action Fund has launched a COVID Crisis Fund for Feminist Activists to help deploy resources to activists on the frontlines of the COVID-19 outbreak. And beyond traditional feminist funders, collectives such as Women2030 and the Women's Major Group have been reorienting programming and support to urgent responses and building resilience to the crisis.

Localized Responses. FEMNET, the African Women's Development and Communications Network launched a campaign called #Dignified Response and are building out a platform for African stories of response and impacts of the pandemic.

Analysis. One of the key inputs many feminists and organizations have been making is in providing analysis of the crisis, from critical gendered and human rights perspectives, aiming to ensure that we both take into account the vast inequalities in the impacts of this crisis and center feminist solutions and care in building a just recovery.

Global solidarity is the starting point. To map out possible scenarios, to react in an effective way, to shift them within our capacities, to envision the just and equitable post-pandemic future we want, and to promote collective action to achieve it - these are our drivers. Our means are varied.

Sharing, tracking and building out collective action from all of this work is part of what our collective reflections have aimed to do: first putting in place the infrastructure and methodologies to mark this moment, and now building a collective response. We expect to be able to promote more articulated work towards the urgent challenges at the global level with this pandemic, such as:

Supporting specific campaigns and working to cancel debt globally - an issue that feminists have long known directly impacts the available fiscal space for countries to enact policies for the benefit of gender equality and environmental integrity.

Fighting for redistributive justice by means of promoting progressive taxation, as well as the eradication of corporate tax abuse and tax avoidance; in a larger scale, to denounce the corporate capture of the response at all levels.

Correspondingly, contributing to a joined up approach to strengthening multilateralism in this moment, via inclusive and transparent processes and a renewed commitment to democratic and inclusive initiatives. This would include defying the business-as-usual approaches to immediate reactions: Intellectual Property Rights and trade clauses are being used by corporations to profit from vaccines, medical treatment, technology, even food systems.

We will be mapping collectively the challenges we will address together, and we have no doubt our voices will contribute to a larger global call for a meaningful paradigm shift instead of a return to an unjust "normal."

We continue to hold our calls weekly, finding in inspiring voices the strength to keep on promoting change. To be in collective is a political act. Being in community, with allies, partners, friends, is what drives effective and resilient responses to the current crisis. Feminist organizing, principles and solidarity in the face of COVID-19 can be a powerful driver of transformation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Feminist Solidarity for a Collective Response to COVID-19 - WEDO

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Feminists around the world have come together in a moment of collective organizing to outline key principles for a just and resilient recovery from our current pandemic, as well as to track responses and uplift collective action of feminists around the world. Check out the new website: http://www.feministcovidresponse.com, and read the blog post outlining how ...

# data[].attributes.body
Sexual Education During COVID-19

# data[].attributes.headline
How the COVID-19 pandemic creates obstacles for sexual assault survivors

# data[].attributes.subject
How the COVID-19 pandemic creates obstacles for sexual assault survivors

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In March of last year, forensic nurse examiners in Washington, D.C., had encounters with 42 patients seeking treatment for sexual assault. As the novel coronavirus spread during the same month this year, they saw 24 patients, a 43% decrease from 2019.

Those numbers trouble Erin Pollitt, executive director of the District of Columbia Forensic Nurse Examiners, the only provider of sexual assault forensic exams for adults in the district. Since the outbreak, the crime rate has fallen steeply in many American cities and counties. But like other forensic nurses, Pollitt fears the virus could be preventing sexual assault victims from coming forward to seek medical care and have physical evidence collected.

"There could be a variety of factors" that explain the numbers, Pollitt says. "But I would say that the fear of going to a hospital related to COVID is probably a large contributor."

Experts caution that the risk of intimate partner violence, including sexual assault, could increase as more people are forced inside because of shelter-in-place orders. A forensic exam, or rape kit, allows men and women to get medical attention and collect DNA evidence from their bodies, clothes and belongings. That evidence can be critical as victims enter the justice system.

One in six American women has experienced rape or attempted rape in her lifetime, as has one in 33 men, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Eight out of 10 rapes are perpetrated by someone the victim knows, says the group, citing Bureau of Justice Statistics. The bureau's 2018 survey of households found that out of 100 incidents of rape and sexual assault, 77 were never reported to police.

A March 2016 U.S. Government Accountability Office report concluded there were not enough forensic examiners to meet the demand for exams in the six states it studied, and that victims-most notably in rural areas-might have to travel long distances to find a trained examiner.

A MECHANISM FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

The concern for forensic nurses, advocates and prosecutors is that COVID-19 creates more obstacles for patients seeking medical care and justice against their perpetrators.

Jennifer Pierce-Weeks, CEO of the International Association of Forensic Nurses, says "regardless of when an assault happens," victims should still come forward. She notes the recommended timeframe for evidence collection if the victim is an adolescent or adult is 120 hours, or five days. In child abuse cases it is 72 hours, or three days.

Mariá Balata, director of advocacy services for the Chicago rape crisis center Resilience, says the virus could impact victims who may delay going to hospital because they have other priorities during the crisis, including coping with a job loss or struggling to make their rent. Those priorities are coupled with conflicting messages about avoiding the hospital in an already-overwhelmed health care system.

"Currently, the only mechanism for accountability that we've made available for survivors is the criminal justice system, and as somebody who works very closely with that system, I know how incredibly important evidence collection can be and the role that that plays in prosecution," Balata says.

If the health care system is already inundated, nurses are concerned that victims may not get the exams and medical care they need. Pierce-Weeks says she's heard from forensic examination programs all across the country that patient volume is down. She says because of COVID-19, health care resources in the cities the virus has hit hardest are "absolutely maxed out."

"There's no reason to think that health care is not going to be further taxed," Pierce-Weeks says. "It won't be surprising at all if services end up not as readily available as they previously have been."

Pierce-Weeks adds that the association is currently surveying its members, which includes a handful of programs from outside the United States. So far, roughly 3% of programs have had to halt services because of the virus' spread.

"We consider forensic nursing services essential, though it is important to realize that at the local level, different determinations may be made based on what is happening at the individual community level," Pierce-Weeks says.

Advocacy in a Time of Coronavirus

When victims call advocacy groups, staff members can accompany them to hospitals for a forensic exam. But to protect their staff, some advocacy groups are having to help people remotely, robbing victims of in-person counseling during what could be the most traumatic event of their lives.

Prosecutors play an important role as survivors seek justice, says Sharla Jackson, a domestic violence and sexual assault resource prosecutor at the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia. She says meeting in person helps victims navigate the justice system.

"What we're asking a victim to do is share this incident that happened that was traumatic, that was painful, that was humiliating, to someone that they don't know," Jackson says. "You're not just dealing with a crime that happened, you are dealing with a crime that will impact someone's life forever."

Jackson says prosecutors do not rely on forensic evidence alone, particularly as a large number of sexual assaults may never be recorded, or a victim may not report the assault until long after it happened.

"A sexual assault case is much more comprehensive than just the sexual assault evidence, given we have to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt," Jackson says.

Jackson adds that in the face of the pandemic, prosecutors are giving victims the opportunity to choose when and where they meet with prosecutors, and reaching out to let them know the status of their cases, and if they have been delayed.

"Because a lot of our court systems are only doing emergency functions, we are working closer with our victims' advocates to help victims stay informed," Jackson says.

Forensic nurse programs are doing everything they can to ensure patients seeking medical attention are screened and kept safe from COVID-19. Pierce-Weeks says nurses in some hospitals are conducting exams in areas of the hospital far from emergency departments or moving exam spaces to off-site clinics or smaller community health centers.

Jessica Birbeck is a forensic nurse at a critical access hospital in the rural community of Wellsboro in northern Pennsylvania. She says her program is connecting survivors with a local advocacy group via teleconference at the time of the exam.

"It's still so important to still come in and seek medical care and to seek the exam, and we will take care of them," Birbeck says.

Terri Poore, policy director of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, says close to 40% of the rape crisis centers her group surveyed had seen increased demand for services since the outbreak.

At the same time, there is an urgent need for emergency funding to make sure rape crisis centers can respond to survivors entering the justice system or seeking medical attention. Poore's group says 89% of programs need emergency stimulus funding to respond to requests. Along with other advocates, the group has sent a letter to Congress seeking $100 million for the Department of Justice's Sexual Assault Services Program "to assist rape crisis centers in transitioning to virtual services and meeting the emergency needs of survivors."

Commander Leslie Parsons oversees the District of Columbia's sexual assault unit. He says in March the police department saw fewer calls for service related to sexual assault compared to March 2019 but says the numbers are not significant.

He says police are taking steps to protect themselves and the public when answering service calls. Officers are outfitted with protective gear and are practicing social distancing. While the department has changed the way it responds to certain service calls, its guidelines for sexual assaults remain the same, he adds.

"We're here, we're ready to help and we will be responding," Parsons says. "We're able to conduct our interviews, take our reports, we're able to link them with advocates and we're able to facilitate their forensic nurse examination as normal."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the COVID-19 pandemic creates obstacles for sexual assault survivors

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In March of last year, forensic nurse examiners in Washington, D.C., had encounters with 42 patients seeking treatment for sexual assault. As the novel coronavirus spread during the same month this year, they saw 24 patients, a 43% decrease from 2019.

# data[].attributes.headline
Coronavirus Is Putting Farmworkers and Their Jobs at Risk.

# data[].attributes.subject
Coronavirus Is Putting Farmworkers and Their Jobs at Risk.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Coronavirus Is Putting Farmworkers — and Their Jobs — at Risk

# data[].attributes.headline
Homeless Families Face High Hurdles Home-Schooling Their Kids During COVID-19.

# data[].attributes.subject
Homeless Families Face High Hurdles Home-Schooling Their Kids During COVID-19.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Eight-year-old Mariana Aceves is doing her math homework - subtraction by counting backward - while sitting on the bed she shares with her mom, Lorena Aceves.

They're sitting on the bed because they have nowhere else to go. They live in an 8-foot-by-12-foot room called a tiny house. It's part of Seattle's transitional housing, where people experiencing homelessness can live until they find a job and a place of their own.

There's room for the bed they share, a TV shelf and "a little tiny plastic dresser."

"And then all of our clothing and our food goes underneath our bed," Lorena Aceves says.

Tens of millions of kids are taking classes online at home right now because of the coronavirus pandemic. That's hard enough for most families. But if you're homeless and have no computer, sketchy Wi-Fi and no quiet place to study, it's even more difficult. That's the case for the 1.5 million schoolchildren currently experiencing homelessness across the United States.

When Seattle's schools closed in March, Aceves had to quit her new job because she couldn't find child care. She and her daughter have been holed up in their tiny house ever since.

"It's the boredom," Aceves says, "and me trying to reach out and find resources - work, a car, things like that - while also making sure that she's entertained."

Aceves and her daughter have a tiny amount of private space. Other homeless families have no privacy at all.

Sixteen-year-old Capelle Belij is living with his parents at a shelter, part of a network of family shelters in the Seattle area run by the nonprofit Mary's Place.

The Belijes share a room with two other families, divided only by curtains.

"My friends, like, come up to my bed space and ask if I want to play or something," Belij says. "If we had our own place, I could learn better."

Three-quarters of children and youth considered homeless live doubled-up with another family. That's the situation for the family of 17-year-old Michelle Aguilar. She's part of KUOW's youth reporting program called RadioActive.

"I can't really find a specific space where it's, like, quiet and calm and I can actually have Wi-Fi," Aguilar says.

The longer this goes, the more likely our children are to fall behind.

Since Aguilar's shared bedroom doesn't have Wi-Fi, she ends up in the living room or kitchen with the rest of her family.

"And they just, like, continue their chaotic life of yelling and screaming and, like, playing music and listening to the TV and cooking," she says.

"Whenever I'm, like, in the environment of it being really loud," Aguilar says, "I tend to, like, read over and over and over and over the assignment."

"We're definitely very concerned with there being an achievement gap during this time," says Tisha Tallman, executive director of the National Center for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. "The longer this goes, the more likely our children are to fall behind."

And, Tallman adds, schools provide much more than an education. Many homeless kids get two meals per day there, and they rely on it as a safe and stable place to be.

Back in her tiny house, Lorena Aceves is trying to keep her daughter's education on track with a strict schedule of math, reading and typing.

"Even though this is frustrating," Aceves says, "we are having this time together, and that's something typically that we don't have."

Aceves says it's good to feel close to her daughter during a time that she has to stay far away from nearly everyone else.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Homeless Families Face High Hurdles Home-Schooling Their Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Eight-year-old Mariana Aceves is doing her math homework - subtraction by counting backward - while sitting on the bed she shares with her mom, Lorena Aceves. They're sitting on the bed because they have nowhere else to go. They live in an 8-foot-by-12-foot room called a tiny house.

# data[].attributes.body
The response to the current pandemic is in dire need of feminist perspectives.

# data[].attributes.headline
COVID-19: A Black, Queer, Feminist Grounding and Call for Self and Community Care

# data[].attributes.subject
COVID-19: A Black, Queer, Feminist Grounding and Call for Self and Community Care

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's only March and this year has already proven to be one for the record books.

In only three months, we've found ourselves inundated with 24/7 presidential election year news coverage. We collectively grieved with the family of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and all those who passed away in the horrendous helicopter crash in January. We also all have our own personal goings-on that we're constantly navigating: raising families, changing jobs, moving to new locations or caretaking. We all experience our own personal stressors while also processing cultural moments of unrest and trauma.

And, now, we are facing a more life-threatening, novel and anxiety-inducing worldwide health pandemic: coronavirus or COVID-19.

At times of great uncertainty like these, I remind myself that my Black, LGBTQ+ and female ancestors constantly experienced moments just like the current one that our world is in-and many survived. I lean on my personal strength as a Black bisexual female human walking around in this world.

Plus, I have access to the knowledge passed down to me from the Black foremothers who founded the reproductive justice framework and movement. I can look to the knowledge passed down to me from my queer and trans elders who came-of-age during the United States AIDs epidemic-which we are still fighting-and survived, even when too many of their families and friends did not.

All of us- wherever we are -can contract or transmit this novel virus, though it is imperative to note that social determinants of health, economic injustices, less employment opportunities and exacerbated barriers to accessing to the health industrial complex, especially culturally competent care, all together make queer and trans-particularly queer and trans people of color-susceptible to physical, financial and mental effects of pandemics like COVID-19.

Moreover, according to an open letter that over 100 LGBTQ+ organizations-including the National LGBTQ Task Force-signed on behalf of our communities, we call attention to the reality that the LGBTQ+ community is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 due to three factors:

First, LGBTQ+ people continue to experience discrimination, unwelcoming attitudes and lack of understanding from providers and staff in many health care settings, and as a result, many are reluctant to seek medical care except in situations that feel urgent-and perhaps not even then.

The LGBTQ+ population also has higher rates of HIV and cancer, which means a greater number of us may have compromised immune systems, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infections.

And finally, the LGBTQ+ population uses tobacco at rates that are 50 percent higher than the general population. COVID-19 is a respiratory illness that has proven particularly harmful to smokers.

Furthermore, we implore the health industry to acknowledge that there are "more than 3 million LGBTQ+ older people living in the United States who are already less likely than their heterosexual and cisgender peers to reach out to health and aging providers, like senior centers, meal programs, and other programs designed to ensure their health and wellness, because they fear discrimination and harassment."

The 1980s HIV/AIDs pandemic also reminds us that even though we are engaging in social distancing, we should not stigmatize-or worse, criminalize-those who have contracted coronavirus or those who transmit this virus.

In November 2016, hundreds participated in this silent protest to end violence against women and girls. The protest commemorated the International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women in the context of HIV. (UN Women)

Like HIV/AIDs, COVID-19 is a disease that does not discriminate based on someone's race, ethnicity, class, age, geographic location or any other identity marker.

Instead, this current moment further illuminates the reality that social determinants of health are real, and forced-to-be-marginalized communities are more vulnerable and susceptible to contracting viruses directly due to institutions like white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, classism and systems like capitalism, which work to intentionally oppress Black, brown, queer, trans, female and poor or no-income populations.

Instead of retreating to the neo-liberalistic narrative "everyone for themselves" mentality, we must remember that reproductive justice is a global and human rights-based framework that demands that we consider the global community-which we are a part of-and how our individual actions can affect the collective.

Using reproductive justice as a guidepost, we must center our individual, collective and national response(s) from a place of global borderless community- not one of nation-states, states within the United States, or locality by locality.

Even while experiencing uncertainty, we must not cower in fear or disbelief. Instead we must rise and honor the words of Black feminist poet Lucille Clifton: "Come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed."

Poet Lucille Clifton, author of "won't you celebrate with me." (Poetry Foundation)

I believe in us. I believe in you. I believe in myself. While, I don't know how, and I don't know when; I know-just like my ancestors knew-that we will find a way through: as long as we remember who we are and what we are capable of.

The coronavirus pandemic and the response by federal, state and local authorities is fast-moving.
During this time, Ms. is keeping a focus on aspects of the crisis-especially as it impacts women and their families-often not reported by mainstream media. If you found this article helpful, please consider supporting our independent reporting and truth-telling for as little as $5 per month.
You may also like:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COVID-19: A Black, Queer, Feminist Grounding and Call for Self and Community Care

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'I believe in us. I believe in you. I believe in myself. While, I don't know how, and I don't know when; I know-just like my ancestors knew-that we will find a way through: as long as we remember who we are and what we are capable of.'

# data[].attributes.headline
COVID-19 Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Feminists

# data[].attributes.subject
COVID-19 Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Feminists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Malaysia's Ministry for Women, Family, and Community Development had a vital message for women during the pandemic: Wear makeup and nice clothes while working at home and in the interest of domestic harmony please don't nag your husband about helping out around the house.

The ham-fisted "educational" posters, complete with cartoons depicting what a pleasing wife looks like, would be laughable if they didn't signify the dark reality of life for many women during the coronavirus crisis.

The suffering and vulnerabilities the world's women are experiencing during the pandemic are highly contextual, but there are few common threads. A major source of pain is that millions of women around the world have lost their already meager source of income. In both rich and poor countries, women are overrepresented in low-paid work - jobs that have been quickly lost amid social-distancing efforts, leaving women, many of whom were already living at the poverty line, with no way to buy food or pay their bills.

While millions of women have been thrown out of work, many are still working. Low-paid retail and service jobs have been classified as essential work, and many women who staff them, particularly single mothers, simply can't afford to stay home even for a short time despite the danger of infection and death. These women (and men) are at risk for extra, pandemic-related abuse and safety violations. In India, for example, women make up the vast majority of the low-paid, front-line health care workers who are going house to house check on families, often without basic protective equipment.

Women who are able to work from home are insulated from these dire choices but are now expected to perform unpaid social reproductive work and paid work simultaneously. While men have slowly increased their contribution of housework and child-rearing in recent decades, women still perform substantially more work in the household. With schools and day cares closed women are, based on all previous evidence, likely to be taking on the lion's share of the increased chore and childcare load.

Adding to the pressures of precarity, dangerous working conditions, and an unequal division of labor at home is the surge of violence perpetuated against women worldwide by domestic partners and family members. In country after country officials report spikes in reports of violence against women and children trapped in quarantine with abusive men.

Some countries are making efforts to manage the spike. France, for example, has repurposed vacant hotel rooms as shelters for women fleeing violent partners. But the situation is grim. Many domestic violence shelters have closed due to infection, lack of staffing, or official orders, and women trapped and frightened are often unable to make even a phone call for help. When they do call, police departments are often either unresponsive or overwhelmed and unable to help.

Women's advocates and domestic violence support groups are not the least bit surprised by the spike in violence. It's a depressingly predictable occurrence, they say, whenever families are stuck at home together for extended periods of time such as holidays and summer vacations.

Like clockwork, a few days after countries battling COVID-19 enact stay-at-home measures, domestic violence hotlines and police departments began to receive frantic calls for help from women who feared their partner may kill them before the virus does.

The widespread precarity and abuse suffered by women and girls during the coronavirus pandemic shows how far we have to go in the feminist struggle. Looking at the upticks of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, mushrooming across the globe, the violence of men can feel like a virus too, a force of nature reproducing and mutating, impossible to kill.

This is an understandable feeling in this moment of darkness and uncertainty. But we have to push back against it. Just as we can employ science and political will to corral and kill COVID-19, we can use political struggle and solidarity to empower women, giving them the necessary resources to achieve safety and autonomy. The pandemic has revealed, albeit in a brutal manner, the areas in which feminists need to mobilize and organize moving forward.

Some of the things that feminists need to fight harder for are things we've been demanding for decades. Empowering women means giving them access to the basic necessities of life - food, health care, housing, and a living wage. As we are seeing in the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, women's access to these necessities is often either highly contingent or nonexistent. Medicare for All, free higher education and a living wage, and a housing and job guarantee would go far in giving women the autonomy necessary to protect themselves and their children.

Feminists have long fought for these things, but in the #MeToo moment they have been under-emphasized. This is not to disparage the gains of the recent feminist upsurge which has made great strides in de-normalizing sexism and abuse. But feminists now need to move beyond consciousness-raising to institution-building.

This institution-building should focus on consolidating and growing women's power which, as this pandemic has demonstrated, is sorely lacking. The sad truth is that, even in wealthy countries, women have not been able to depend on elected officials, government institutions, or charities to protect them. In this time of need women have often found themselves alone.

This is an important lesson for feminists. We need to advocate and organize for bread-and-butter gains. But we also need to build robust programs and networks, brick-and-mortar spaces of support and solidarity for all women that can be counted on in times of crisis.

This crisis has been a wake-up call - one that all feminists should answer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COVID-19 Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Feminists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The suffering of women during the coronavirus pandemic illuminates where feminists need to push harder. Medicare for All, free higher education and a living wage, and a housing and job guarantee would go far in giving women the autonomy necessary to protect themselves and their children.

# data[].attributes.body
Websites and Resources Offering Support and Help

# data[].attributes.headline
For sexual trauma survivors, the COVID-19 pandemic can be triggering, calming, and everything in between

# data[].attributes.subject
For sexual trauma survivors, the COVID-19 pandemic can be triggering, calming, and everything in between

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I've spent the last 16 days in my apartment in DC talking with sexual violence survivors around the world about how they're holding up during this covid-19 pandemic and here's what I've learned: Trauma is super complex (you're like umm...hello yes we've known this) and shows up in, different, conflicting and at times surprising ways.

I solicited insights from survivors around the world, and heard from people across the US, Canada, India and the U.K., who shared with us how their trauma is and isn't showing up right now and messages that they'd like to share with fellow survivors during this unprecedented time. I wanted to write this story because I think it's important for all of us to really see that there is no right way to feel and our relationship to our trauma and what's happening in the world is super complicated and that that's okay and normal! Most of all, like everything I write, I want us all to feel less alone and more connected to each other. And as much as I love the sound of my own voice (I really, really do), this felt like the right time to hear from others!

As I read through all the survivors' words who submitted, I found myself relating to so many seemingly different experiences. A lot of people described an unexpected calm or comfort, which I have felt, which for me stems from always feeling like I'm the only one who sees danger everywhere and now that everyone else is on the same page I feel a kind of relief. Many people described this being a very triggering time for a variety of reasons, and I really resonated with that too. I've found it really triggering to see people in leadership, namely 45, deny our reality and pain and try to collectively gaslight the nation. I've felt old voices of old coping mechanisms come back as I find myself going into survival mode and I've felt safe huddled in with Franklin and Charlie in our apartment...and sometimes I feel that all in the same minute. No wonder I am sleeping a tight 14 hours everyday.

There is, however, a specific experience so many survivors are enduring right now that is different from my own, which is that they are trapped in a space that is not safe for them. As we read these words, maybe we could each visualize our hearts expanding and growing full of compassion and love, and then see ourselves sending out all that love, warmth and comfort to all the survivors around the world who need it the most right now.

A content warning note: With permission from the survivors, I've edited some of the responses for brevity and also with a mindfulness of wanting to share with each other while somehow not inadvertently triggering each other. It is impossible to avoid all triggers, but know that I've tried my best with my own biases to make this both honest and hopefully not triggering.

For some sexual trauma survivors, there is a strange sense of calm and familiarity during the COVID-19 pandemic

"I agree with posts saying how weirdly relaxed I feel. When I say relaxed...I do feel anxious but no more than usual. I am deeply saddened by what's happening but feel a strange comfort in the chaos which feels awful to admit! I do feel strange hearing friends and family share that they are not sleeping well or describing symptoms of anxiety. I have experienced this my whole life so hearing others talk about it as something new and unusual makes me frustrated at myself for always seeing it as "not a big deal". - Krista, United Kingdom

"I am a survivor of sexual assault and a survivor of my mother's suicide. The first anniversary of my mom's suicide was St. Patrick's Day and I've felt a sense of impending doom for the last few months leading up to it. So there's this really odd feeling of, "Oh my god it's actually happening." and at first it seemed like it made it worse, but now it feels like i've been preparing my whole life for this. As a trauma survivor, I feel like everyone else wears blinders and can't see the danger that exists in the world. It's weird because this pandemic is now something that has been selectively let through the blinders. I wouldn't say that it means they understand me now. But finally, I'm not the only one who sees danger and I don't feel alone and crazy anymore, and that has almost eased the effects of the pandemic for me. It's also odd because this is how I lived after my mom killed herself. I lived in fear and never left the house. And everyone else's lives just went on like normal and it was invisible. It's a little better that suddenly everyone is so supportive and checking in on people's mental health. There's an all in this together supportive vibe that exists now that didn't exist for me after anything traumatic I'd be through." -anonymous, Chicago

"It is weird...major disruptions in my routine like the current situation usually freak me out-- and I'm definitely freaked out! But in a way, it doesn't feel quite as bad or isolating as it usually does. I think because everyone is freaking out. Usually it feels like it's just me freaking out which leads to the internal voice and trauma response of, "You're overreacting." "What's wrong with you?" and "You're making a big deal out of nothing". I think there are many times when I don't/can't validate my own feelings (which stems from trauma), and I guess at this moment I feel validated in those feelings, because, for those without trauma histories (like my husband for example) are feeling more anxious, scared and frustrated.".- anonymous, Boston

Some sexual trauma survivors are experiencing triggers, the return of traumatic responses, and old coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic

"My trauma is showing up a lot in my dreams and flashbacks/instructive thoughts again. Also I find myself wondering how my abuser is doing during this pandemic and then feeling guilty for thinking of them. In my process of healing and recovery these triggers and thoughts feel like I'm going backwards but then I remember to use all my self-soothing tools, like breathing exercises, speaking kindly to myself, singing my favorite songs, etc. I feel like if I didn't have to learn to regulate my dysregulated nervous system the past 7 months from my recent trauma then I wouldn't have such a well of strength and resilience during this crisis. And now I can offer some of my healing practices to friends and loved ones who are struggling with social distancing and anxiety for the first time. So for me my trauma is showing up which makes it a challenge, but my healing is also showing up in full force which I'm honestly amazed by and so thankful for." - anonymous, New York

"It is scary. They made our hospital the COVID center so we will come in direct contact with patients. It is bringing up my anxiety, and the helplessness of the whole thing is bringing up my trauma. But I am managing, my support system is helping and cooking and managing things around the house helps too."- Aparna, a doctor in Bangalore, India

"I am stuck in the house with two preschoolers and it's difficult. Add in my trauma to mix and the unprecedented instability of society and I'm wiped out by lunch. I'm triggered by other people's selfish decisions, by those who decide not to social distance, and those who decide to hoard supplies. Other people's selfish decisions have already given me so much grief and pain; are they going to give me coronavirus, too? But thankfully, I've been practicing self-care in the midst of anxiety, depression and uncertainty for years." Caitie Sangalis Houston, TX

"The trauma is showing up for me right now in how I feel in my body. The lingering sense of unease/danger within society at this moment brings me back to my little girl body and mind, and how she could never tell if the next room or place she was about to enter would be safe- or if it's just another trap and, subsequently, another opportunity for more hurting."- Lauren, Ontario

For some sexual trauma survivors home is not a safe place and requires going into survival mode

"I'm twenty years old, home from college due to the Coronavirus, and my parents are Facetiming my abuser in the living room. There's no space here, in my childhood home to consider what it means to me that the face of the man who assaulted me graces dozens of framed photos around the house.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a trauma in its own right for so many individuals all over the world. For trauma survivors, being home can be retriggering. The loss of stability and control, the isolation, the uncertainty can be physically exhausting. I'm back in the house where the abuse happened. I'm back with the people who love the man who did it. The scared little girl that is always inside of me, that I try to keep soundly tucked away, is so close to the surface and that feels frightening.

While I was away at college, I had the privilege of distance, where I could take all the time I needed to understand the resurfacing trauma. Now that I'm home I just have to survive. Life feels so out of control right now, and at the center of it all is this big ugly secret that has the power to rip my family to pieces. I have to get through every day. Sometimes that means forcing a smile when his name comes up in conversation. Honestly, it means unhealthy coping mechanisms, like disordered eating habits.

This is what being a trauma survivor in the face of the COVID epidemic looks like for me. Check on your friends with child abuse and sexual abuse histories. Go on social distance walks with them and tell them you want to listen. If you have a story like mine, care for yourself. I nurture the little girl in me that feels all around me. I let her bring her favorite stuffed animals to bed, even though it feels silly. I crawl into my mom's bed sometimes and lay on her lap, even though I'm taller than her. Every single one of us is fighting to get by these days, and the only way we will is with community and self-care." -BNL from New York

What is a message you'd like to share with fellow sexual trauma survivors right now?

"If I want to say anything to other survivors, it's that it's totally okay and normal to have complex/conflicting feelings about this. It can change from day to day, and that's a community. I know we are going to get through this." -anonymous, Chicago

"My message to other survivors would be to keep reaching out to your support networks, even if every bone in your body is telling you to retreat father into yourself. You do not have to do this by yourself." - Lauren, Ontario

"For the first time in many people's lives, the world isn't safe. But we, as survivors, have known this for years. We've been on the journey of learning how to live as fragile people in a dangerous world for a long time. Healing from sexual trauma looks different for everyone, but it's hall marks are all the same: resiliency, courage and perseverance amid an uncertain future. None of us know if/when/how relief for our pain and fear is coming, but we know that we cycle through the ups and downs of it and that what is right now isn't forever. Because our trauma happened in relational contexts, we've learned to practice measures of social distancing for our mental health. We know how to hold our boundaries strong while being flexible and creative in pursuing safe connection with others. We're used to naming our overwhelming emotions and sitting together in the unspeakable depths and tenisons. We are resilient and resourceful in just the ways those around us need our unique strengths. We know that admitting and accepting our fragility makes us stronger." -Caitie Sangalas, Houston, Texas

"If it's not triggering for fellow survivors, now is a good time as any to share your healing knowledge with others. The whole world is experiencing a collective trauma." - Anonymous, New York

"We will get through this. One day at time. Protect yourself and your loved ones. STAY HOME."- Aparna, a doctor in Bangalore, India

"Find something that makes you laugh every day. If nothing has presented itself to you, seek it out in others, get them to tell you ridiculous stories or bad jokes. This always makes things feel a little brighter for me." - Krista, United Kingdom

"To fellow survivors I want to say you are not alone! It is understandable that things might be harder for us right now."- Anonymous, Boston

A note from me, Alisa!

I just want to say thank you to every person who shared with all of us in this story. I am so grateful for all of you. I echo everyone's words of offering kindness to yourself and validation of however you may be feeling right now. Know that wherever you are that I see you, I know your pain is real and it matters, and no matter how hard and triggering this gets it will not erase all the work you've done in your healing. It's all still there, even if it doesn't feel accessible right now. For now, we must take care of each other and that starts with taking care of ourselves. Sending you all my whole heart full of compassion, warmth and resilency.

For support right now

For extra support, here is a list of resources for survivors:

The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 24/7, confidential and free:1-800-799-7233 and through chat.

The National Sexual Assault Hotline is 24/7, confidential and free:800.656.HOPE (4673) and through chat.
We are Her survivor digital meet up Breathwork one on one virtual support with sliding scale List of additional survivor resources that's being regularly update

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
For sexual trauma survivors, the COVID-19 pandemic can be triggering, calming, and everything in between

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hear from sexual trauma survivors around the world about how they're coping and showing up for themselves during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, which includes managing complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), anxiety and depression, as well as finding quiet and calm in knowing everyone around them is in this together.

# data[].attributes.headline
We Are HER provides an outlet for any survivor of sexual or domestic abuse or assault to become HER: healed, empowered, and restored through our online community.

# data[].attributes.subject
We Are HER provides an outlet for any survivor of sexual or domestic abuse or assault to become HER: healed, empowered, and restored through our online community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mission Statement:

We Are HER provides an outlet for any survivor of sexual or domestic abuse or assault to become HER: healed, empowered, and restored through our online community.

A little about how HER started.

Hi! My name's Stevie - I am the founder of We Are HER. After ending my own abusive relationship in April 2016, I realized how lucky I was to have the best support system to fall back on. I learned two things after starting my healing journey: having a loving community to fall back on was priceless and sharing my story helped give me a voice I would have never found on my own. I needed to give other survivors the same opportunity I was given.

What is HER?

HER's goal is simple: to provide a community for survivors of domestic abuse or sexual assault to become healed, empowered, and restored.

HER wants to connect survivors everywhere and become a place survivors come to during their healing process.

The point of HER is for everyone to understand that no matter the caliber of the abuse, each story is valuable. HER is a place of love and understanding for all.

HER's goals:

Inform readers of the prevalence of abuse in our society.

Provide a supportive network for survivors.

Provide opportunities for survivors to heal, feel empowered and become restored.

Facilitate communication and connections.

Inspire healing and empowerment.

How does HER work?

HER operates under three pilars: story sharing, community building, and education.
Story Sharing
Survivors can share their stories with us on our blog, podcast, or social media. Survivors who want to stay anonymous are always welcome to share their stories.
Community Building
HER hosts virtual and in-person events to survivors can connect with other survivors.

We host virtual survivor meetups every other month.

Our social media pages are also bringing survivors from across the globe together.

In 2020, we are working on launching a Survivor Retreat and Survivor Thrive Clubs across the country.
Education
Each month, we ask a survivor expert to host an educational event for the HER family. These experts host events or webinars on topics that help survivors heal after trauma.

Watch HER grow!

To stay in the loop, subscribe to our blog below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We Are HER provides an outlet for any survivor of sexual or domestic abuse or assault to become HER: healed, empowered, and restored through our online community. Hi! My name's Stevie - I am the founder of We Are HER.

# data[].attributes.body
Tinder Lets Known Sex Offenders Use the App. It’s Not the Only One.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article is copublished with Columbia Journalism Investigations and ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.

Susan Deveau saw Mark Papamechail's online dating profile on Plenty of Fish in late 2016. Scrolling through his pictures, she saw a 54-year-old man, balding and broad, dressed in a T-shirt. Papamechail lived near her home in a suburb of Boston and, like Deveau, was divorced. His dating app profile said he wanted "to find someone to marry."

Deveau had used dating websites for years, but she told her adult daughter the men she met were "dorky." She joked about how she could get "catfished" if a date looked nothing like his picture. Still Deveau, 53, wanted to grow old with someone. The two were - in the popular dating platform's jargon - "matched."

A background check would have revealed that Papamechail was a three-time convicted rapist. It would have shown that Massachusetts designated him a dangerous registered sex offender. So how did Plenty of Fish allow such a man to use its service?

Plenty of Fish "does not conduct criminal background or identity verification checks on its users or otherwise inquire into the background of its users," the dating app states in its terms of use. It puts responsibility for policing its users on users themselves. Customers who sign its service agreement promise they haven't committed "a felony or indictable offense (or crime of similar severity), a sex crime, or any crime involving violence," and aren't "required to register as a sex offender with any state, federal or local sex offender registry." Plenty of Fish doesn't attempt to verify whether its users tell the truth, according to the company.

Papamechail didn't scare Deveau at first. They chatted online and eventually arranged a date. They went on a second date and a third. But months after their Plenty of Fish match, Deveau became the second woman to report to police that Papamechail raped her after they had met through a dating app.
If you or someone you know has reported an incident to Match, OkCupid, Tinder, or any other dating app, please fill out our confidential survey.

Plenty of Fish is among 45 online dating brands now owned by Match Group, the Dallas-based corporation that has revenues of $1.7 billion and that dominates the industry in the US. Its top dating app, Tinder, has 5.2 million subscribers, surpassing such popular rivals as Bumble.

For nearly a decade, its flagship website, Match, has issued statements and signed agreements promising to protect users from sexual predators. The site has a policy of screening customers against government sex offender registries. But over this same period, as Match evolved into the publicly traded Match Group and bought its competitors, the company hasn't extended this practice across its platforms - including Plenty of Fish, its second most popular dating app. The lack of a uniform policy allows convicted and accused perpetrators to access Match Group apps and leaves users vulnerable to sexual assault, a 16-month investigation by Columbia Journalism Investigations found.

Match first agreed to screen for registered sex offenders in 2011 after Carole Markin made it her mission to improve its safety practices. The site had connected her with a six-time convicted rapist who, she told police, had raped her on their second date. Markin sued the company to push for regular registry checks. The Harvard-educated entertainment executive held a high-profile press conference to unveil her lawsuit. Within months, Match's lawyers told the judge that "a screening process has been initiated," records show. After the settlement, the company's attorneys declared the site was "checking subscribers against state and national sex offender registries."

The next year, Match made similar assurances to then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris. In a 2012 agreement on best industry practices between the attorney general's office and the dating site, among others, the company again agreed to "identify sexual predators" and examine sex offender registries. It pledged to go further and respond to users' rape complaints with an additional safety tool: "a rapid abuse reporting system."

Today, Match Group checks the information of its paid subscribers on Match against state sex offender lists. But it doesn't take that step on Tinder, OkCupid or Plenty of Fish - or any of its free platforms. A Match Group spokesperson told CJI the company cannot implement a uniform screening protocol because it doesn't collect enough information from its free users - and some paid subscribers - even when they pay for premium features. Acknowledging the limitations, the spokesperson said, "There are definitely registered sex offenders on our free products."

"There are definitely registered sex offenders on our free products."

CJI analyzed more than 150 incidents of sexual assault involving dating apps, culled from a decade of news reports, civil lawsuits, and criminal records. Most incidents occurred in the past five years and during the app users' first in-person meeting, in parking lots, apartments, and dorm rooms. Most victims, almost all women, met their male attackers through Tinder, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, or Match. Match Group owns them all.

In 10% of the incidents, dating platforms matched their users with someone who had been accused or convicted of sexual assault at least once, the analysis found. Only a fraction of these cases involved a registered sex offender. Yet the analysis suggests that Match's screening policy has helped to prevent the problem: Almost all of these cases implicated Match Group's free apps; the only service that scours sex offender registries, Match, had none.

In 2017, Tinder matched Massachusetts registered sex offender Michael Durgin with a woman, and she later told police he had raped her on their first date; Durgin's two rape charges were dropped after the woman "indicated that she does not wish for the Commonwealth to proceed to trial," records show. (Durgin didn't respond to requests for comment.) OkCupid allowed another registered sex offender, Michael Miller, of Colorado, to create a new account after his 2015 conviction for raping a woman he met through the site. For months, Miller remained on the platform despite appearing on the registries Match screens. Even Pennsylvania registered sex offender Seth Mull, whose 17-year history of sex crimes convictions began as a teen, used Match Group's dating sites; in 2017, Plenty of Fish didn't flag his eight-year registry status before matching him with a woman who later accused him of rape. Mull is now serving life in prison for her rape and two more rapes, among other sex crimes.

Asked about the CJI data, Match Group's spokesperson said the 157 cases "need to be put in perspective with the tens of millions of people that have used our dating products."

The company declined multiple requests to interview executives and other key employees familiar with its protocols for addressing online dating sexual assault. The spokesperson described the steps the company takes to ensure customer safety on its platforms - from blocking users accused of sexual assault to checking across its apps for accused users' accounts and flagging them on a companywide distribution list. Other response protocols aren't standardized across Match Group apps.

In a brief statement, the company said it "takes the safety, security and well-being of our users very seriously." Match Group said "a relatively small amount of the tens of millions of people using one of our dating services have fallen victim to criminal activity by predators." It added, "We believe any incident of misconduct or criminal behavior is one too many."

Interviews with more than a dozen former Match Group employees - from customer service representatives and security managers at OkCupid to senior executives at Tinder - paint a different picture. Most left on good terms; indeed, many told CJI they're proud of the successful relationships their platforms have facilitated. But they criticize the lack of companywide protocols. Some voice frustration over the scant training and support they received for handling users' rape complaints. Others describe having to devise their own ad hoc procedures. Often, the company's response fails to prevent further harm, according to CJI interviews with more than 100 dating app users, lawmakers, industry experts, former employees, and police officers; reviews of hundreds of records; and a survey of app users.

Even the screening policy on the one site that checks registries, Match, is limited. The company's spokesperson acknowledges that the website doesn't screen all paid subscribers. The site has argued in court for years that it has no legal obligation to conduct background checks, and it fought state legislation that would require it to disclose whether it does so.

Markin, whose civil suit led to the registry policy, cannot help but feel the company has failed to deliver. Calling registry screenings "the easiest kind of cross-checking," she said she had expected Match Group to embrace the practice.

"I did something to help other women," she told CJI. "It's disappointing to see Match did not."

Susan Flaherty grew up in the 1960s outside Hoboken, New Jersey, where she developed a style that her daughter describes simply as "Jersey": "big-haired, blonde, blue-eyed and loud." With a head for numbers, she got a degree in finance and spent most of her adult life working as a mortgage broker.

In the mid-1990s, she walked into a bar near Naples, Maine, and came face to face with Denie Deveau, a bartender. They got married and had two children. Seven years later, they divorced. Susan kept her husband's last name. She bounced from relationship to relationship after that. She always thought she "needed a man to come take care of her," her 24-year-old daughter, Jackie, said.

Papamechail grew up in the 1960s in Peabody, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. He came from a prominent family that owns a construction company. Since the late 1980s, Papamechail has built a rap sheet consisting of eight criminal convictions, four of them sex crimes. He has pleaded guilty to three separate rapes.

His first rape conviction in 1987 involved a neighbor and resulted in an eight-year prison sentence and a 10-year probationary period "with special conditions to undergo sex offender treatment." Court records show Papamechail served one year in prison and later violated his probation. Within four years, he was convicted of rape again for two more incidents. During that case, he told police he had a "problem" and needed "help," court records show. He spent another four years behind bars. By 1994, he had spent yet another year in prison after his second conviction for indecent assault and battery, a sex crime in Massachusetts. Court records show Papamechail has served a total of at least eight years in prison. The state officially designated him a sex offender.

Papamechail declined to comment for this article. He told a CJI reporter over Facebook that "if you ever contact me or my family again I will reach out to the Massachusetts courts."

In 2014, Papamechail became familiar to sex crimes detectives again. This time, a woman he met through Plenty of Fish accused him of raping her on their first date. The claim put him in county jail without bail for two years; he was eventually acquitted after a weeklong jury trial. Still, law enforcement officials raised his sex offender status to the state's most dangerous category, Level III, deeming him highly likely to offend again.

By the time Plenty of Fish matched him with Deveau, Papamechail's heightened status meant he would have already appeared on the state's sex offender registry - something that Plenty of Fish didn't check, the company confirms. At the time, Deveau, a recovering alcoholic, was living in a sober house near Papamechail's home. Over the ensuing months, the pair chatted online. They texted and spoke on the phone. They met in person; she went to his apartment twice.

Then, in October 2017, Papamechail picked up Deveau for what would be their final date, court records show. They went for dinner and returned to his home. She "expected to just hang out together," court records note she told the grand jury, but he had "other plans." They got into a fight. "He wanted her in the bedroom," according to her testimony, "but she said no." Around 7:40 p.m., court records show, she called the Peabody emergency dispatch service for help.

Deveau told the 911 dispatcher "a man was trying to rape her and had threatened her," the court records state. "He's coming," she told the dispatcher, dropping the phone.

Susan Deveau is among the users in CJI's data who reported being victimized by someone they met through a dating platform. The analysis suggests the problem has grown as the popularity of online dating has soared - in 2015, 12% of American adults were on a dating site, compared with 3% in 2008. Other studies reinforce this trend. In 2016, the UK National Crime Agency reviewed police reports over a five-year period and found online-dating sexual assault had increased as much as 450% - from 33 to 184 cases.

Because no one collects official statistics on online dating sexual assault in the US, CJI surveyed more than 1,200 women who said they had used a dating platform in the past 15 years. It is a non-scientific questionnaire about an underreported crime, and the results represent only CJI's specific group. They are not generalizable and cannot be extrapolated to all online dating subscribers (You'll find the survey's methodology below). Among this small group, more than a third of the women said they were sexually assaulted by someone they had met through a dating app. Of these women, more than half said they were raped.

If such results are confirmed by further studies, the numbers would be alarming, said Bethany Backes, an assistant professor in the Violence Against Women Faculty Cluster Initiative at the University of Central Florida. Backes, who reviewed CJI's questionnaire, noted that this one group of dating app users reported a higher rate of sexual assault than women in the general population do. Backes speculated that's because the users sampled were actively dating. The results, she added, suggest a need for the platforms to protect their users not just online but offline as well.

"I think anyone has a moral responsibility to do something about it," Backes said, "whether they think they have a legal or business responsibility."

Match Group declined to comment on CJI's survey. Its spokesperson noted that Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg has prioritized customer safety. "I'm a woman and a mom of a 20-year-old who uses dating apps," the executive said in an interview in 2018 with the Wall Street Journal. "I think a lot about the safety and security, in particular, of our female users."

"Our checks of the sex offender registry can only be as good as the information we receive."

In 2018, Ginsberg launched a safety council made up of leading victim advocates and other experts. Interviews with its members show that the council has focused on getting users to take action themselves rather than having the company act.

Match has long argued that such checks were too incomplete or costly for its users. Markham Erickson, a lawyer specializing in internet law who worked with Match to lobby against background checks, told CJI it was "incredibly hard" to screen online dating users. "It's not like you're getting the fingerprint of an individual," he said. All a sex offender "had to do was give a false name."

A Match Group spokesperson contends that background checks do little more than create what she calls "a false sense of security" among users. "Our checks of the sex offender registry can only be as good as the information we receive," she said, explaining that the government databases can lack data, have old pictures or include partial information on sex offenders.

But some in the industry have argued that the onus should be on the dating app companies to check users' backgrounds to protect their customers from predators. Herb Vest, a Texas entrepreneur who made a legislative crusade out of the issue in the 2000s, launched his own dating platform in 2003. Dubbed True.com, the company's name reflected its policy of screening users for sex crimes and other felonies, Vest said. It paid approximately $1 million a year for third-party services like rapsheets.com and backgroundchecks.com, partly because public registries were scattershot at first, and partly because the vendors could do a more comprehensive check.

The contracts allowed the company to screen an unlimited number of subscribers each month, former True president Ruben Buell said, an expense it incorporated into membership fees totaling $50 a month. By contrast, Match charged a similar monthly rate - $60 at the time - without conducting any form of background check.

True even warned subscribers that the company would sue if they misrepresented their pasts. "If you are a felon, sex offender or married, DO NOT use our website," it stated on its site. In 2005, the company took one registered sex offender to court after discovering he had lied about his status. The lawsuit settled. According to Vest, the man agreed to stop using dating platforms. True ultimately folded in 2013.

Another Match Group rival, a free dating app called Gatsby that operated from 2017 until this year, used government databases to screen its 20,000 users. Gatsby's founder, Joseph Penora, told CJI in an email he was inspired to create what he calls "a creepy guy filter" after reading about a woman who was assaulted by a sex offender she had met through Match. "Our users are the backbone of our success," Penora wrote. "Let's do something proactive to keep them safe."

Even former Match Group insiders agree the registries are more accessible and have fewer blind spots today. Several former security executives told CJI that such screenings would be a feasible way to help prevent online dating sexual assault - if the company invested the resources. For example, they and other experts say Match Group, which expects to make around $800 million in profits this year by one measure, could purchase an application program interface, or API, from a third-party vendor to allow it to check its users against the nearly 900,000 registered sex offenders in the US.

Vest still cannot understand why the industry has resisted such measures. He insists the cost of doing background checks didn't play a role in his company's closing. True's bankruptcy records blame its subscription losses on banking reforms after the recession that left consumers with limited or no credit.

The company's background-checking policy wasn't mentioned in the thousands of pages of filings. Nor did True report owing money to its screening vendors.

"People can't rely 100% on the sites," Vest said. "But as an industry, we could have done much better."

Peabody police officers responded to Deveau's 911 call on Oct. 28, 2017, arriving at a multifamily complex with a purple door. The officers found her and Papamechail outside, court records show. There, she told the police that he had demanded sex. When she refused, she said, he pushed her against the wall and yelled, "I am going to have you one way or another."

Peabody police had come there before. In March 2014, Janine Dunphy reported that Papamechail had raped her at his home after the two had met through Plenty of Fish, which Match Group would buy within the year.

Dunphy's allegations sounded strikingly similar to those of Deveau, court records show. Both said he invited them to his home after a date. When they refused his sexual advances, their victim testimonies state, Papamechail - he is 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 260 pounds, according to the state sex offender registry - threw them on the floor or the bed, restrained them with his arms and raped them.

Papamechail pleaded not guilty to Dunphy's rape charge; at the 2016 trial, his defense attorney claimed the incident was consensual and questioned the influence of her medical prescriptions and financial motivations. "Her story changes," his lawyer said at the time. "And the truth never changes."

Dunphy never knew Papamechail was a registered sex offender when Plenty of Fish had matched them, she said. During the criminal case, she told a detective that Papamechail had confided that he was kicked off the Match dating site but didn't say why, the police report shows. Match Group declined to confirm or deny whether its flagship platform has ever blocked Papamechail. Prosecutors tried to subpoena Plenty of Fish for records of his correspondence with her. Dunphy remembers that the company, which is based in Canada, refused, saying it didn't have to comply with US subpoenas.

By 2016, the registry board had raised Papamechail's sex offender status to the highest level, indicating what the board considers "a high degree of danger to the public." Papamechail's listing, including a photo, appeared on the registry's public website, where it remains today. The Massachusetts board declined to comment on Papamechail's sex offender history, citing state laws.

"He's going to do it over and over again."

"He's going to do it over and over again," said Dunphy, who has a lifetime restraining order barring Papamechail from contacting or abusing her. In the winter of 2016, she remembers seeing him back on Plenty of Fish, which by then was owned by Match Group.

Ten months later, the Peabody detective responded to the 911 call at Papamechail's house. Deveau reported he had raped her in a follow-up interview. "She did not tell police on the date of the incident because she stated she was afraid and she wanted to leave," court records note. By January 2018, a grand jury had found enough evidence to indict him for rape. Papamechail pleaded not guilty. He told police that he and Deveau had been in an off-and-on sexual relationship. He maintained that he didn't try to have sex with Deveau, and that she "woke up abruptly and was screaming at him, calling him a sex offender and a rapist," the police report states.

In a February 2018 decision ordering his temporary detention as a "habitual offender," Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley ruled that Papamechail's "propensity for sexual violence against women is uncontrollable." The judge found that "even house arrest would not in this court's view protect future potential victims of Papamechail's sexual violence." One of the reasons Feeley cited was Papamechail's online activities.

Papamechail stands out among the convicted and alleged perpetrators in CJI's data. Most dating app users accused of assaulting another user weren't registered sex offenders at the time. Some had past sex crime convictions. Others were subjects of prior police complaints. But most of the time checking users' criminal backgrounds alone would not have prevented the problem, the analysis found.

Match Group presents its rapid abuse reporting system as crucial for protecting customers from sexual assault. "Our brands also depend on our users to report any profiles engaged in concerning behavior so that we can investigate and take appropriate action," the company states on its website. Any user can log a complaint online or through its apps. Moderators and security agents try to identify the accused user and block his account, according to the company. They check across platforms for other associated accounts.

"If there's bad behavior on one app," Match Group CEO Ginsberg has said, describing the company's response protocols, "we can identify that user, we'll kick him off all the apps."

But some users who reported their rape claims to the company describe a different outcome. Brittney Westphal, 31, who lives outside Aspen, Colorado, said she informed Tinder in 2015 that another user had raped her on their first date. She asked the dating app how she could get a record of her conversations with the accused when he "unmatched" her - which instantly deletes the history of communication between two users - leaving her unable to give his information or a record of their conversations to police.

Tinder never replied, she said, and local authorities declined to press charges. "I made it clear to them [Tinder] like how serious this was," Westphal said, "and then I never heard anything." Within months, she said she spotted her alleged attacker on the app again.

A Utah college student, Madeline MacDonald, told Tinder in a December 2014 email that she "was sexually assaulted (or something very similar)," records show. She provided the app with pertinent information, including the accused's name, age and physical description. The next day, their email correspondence shows, a Tinder employee asked for screenshots of his app profile, adding that a link to the accused's Facebook profile "could help as well." MacDonald offered screenshots of his Facebook page, which included his employer, town, high school, and phone number. An employee responded by asking for a link to the Facebook page. MacDonald said she gave up. Eventually, she said she saw her alleged assailant back on Tinder.

Three years later, according to Dixie State University Police Chief Blair Barfuss, a detective in his unit informed MacDonald that the man she had accused had allegedly assaulted three other women he met through dating apps. Two were Match Group platforms.

And then there's Kerry Gaude, 31, of Golden, Colorado, whose experience after Michael Miller raped her on their first date illustrates the shortcomings of Match Group's protocols. When OkCupid matched the two in May 2014, Miller, then 28 and using the handle mike22486, was not yet a registered sex offender. Two women who had met him online told police he sexually assaulted them, but their claims didn't lead to criminal charges. Gaude reported her rape to police, and then she emailed OkCupid and Plenty of Fish. She remembers warning the platforms that a rapist was using their services to meet women.

The following year, Miller pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation and assault charges stemming from Gaude's claim. He got 10 years' probation with sex offender stipulations prohibiting him from using "any applications to communicate with women in any way about sex," court records state. He also appeared on the state's public sex offender registry two days after his sentencing in May 2015, state officials confirm.

Yet Gaude said she frequently saw Miller on OkCupid after the sentencing. Within three months, in fact, he was charged with probation violations after admitting to using an unapproved cellphone to access the app, records show. The violations put him in a Cañon City, Colorado, prison for four years.

During the proceedings, Gaude went on local TV and warned people that Miller could victimize other OkCupid users.

Three women contacted police about their exchanges with Miller on the dating app throughout 2015. Police records show one 25-year-old got a message on OkCupid from a man with the handle lucky4me123. On his profile, the man presented himself as an "independent yet naturally caring" person who lived alone and hoped to "find that special someone." He was, OkCupid said, a "67% match" in compatibility for the woman. She recognized Miller's mugshot from a news article about Gaude's warnings.

By then, Miller had been listed in the state's online sex offender database for almost seven months. The Colorado bureau that administers the registry had no record of Match Group employees requesting information about individuals on its offender list during this time. A Match Group spokesperson confirms OkCupid never checked his registry status.

"How is that not aiding and abetting?"

"It's the after the fact that bothers me," Gaude said of Miller's ability to keep using OkCupid. "How is that not aiding and abetting?"

Match Group's spokesperson said the company uses "industry-leading automated and manual moderation and review tools," and spends millions every year to "prevent, monitor and remove people who engage in inappropriate behavior from our apps."

Several former OkCupid employees familiar with the company's complaint process say it is easy for banned individuals, like Miller, to get back on the app. The company's moderators adopt a general "ban first" mentality for any accused user, the employees said, but once blocked, they have little ability to stop the accused from using different identifying information or signing up for new accounts. Some say they complained about this issue to OkCupid supervisors, only to be ignored. Others say they found themselves searching public offender lists on their own.

Match Group, for its part, declined to comment.

Miller didn't respond to repeated interview requests, and nobody answered the door when a CJI reporter visited his house. While on probation, Miller wrote to one woman on OkCupid, apologizing for his crime and pleading for "the opportunity to prove myself that im not a bad indiviual."

Now on parole, he is subject to intensive supervision. One condition prohibits him from using online dating sites.

Some time after Deveau had reported her rape allegation to police, her daughter, Jackie, remembers being on a lunch break when she got a phone call from the assistant district attorney handling the Papamechail criminal case. Her mother had returned to drinking by then, Jackie said, and shut herself off from family.

Jackie knew her mother had experienced something bad with a date, but she didn't know anything more until a prosecutor told her. She recalls hearing Papamechail's litany of sex crime convictions. Still on the phone, Jackie looked him up on the internet and scrolled through news articles on Dunphy's case. She learned about his registry status. "It was just horrifying," Jackie said.

Jackie dialed her mother right away. Deveau sounded drunk and incoherent, so Jackie didn't broach the criminal case. Her mother's behavior seemed to be unraveling from the ordeal, Jackie said.

In April 2018, Jackie got another phone call about her mother. This time, she learned Deveau was in the hospital, admitted after a drinking binge, her vitals unstable. Jackie arrived at the hospital; within days, doctors were putting her mother on life support.

Deveau died on April 27, 2018, from "acute kidney failure," her death certificate states.

By May, the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office was forced to drop the criminal case it was building against Papamechail. It filed a formal notice ceasing prosecution on two counts of rape, citing Deveau's death. "Without the testimony of the alleged victim in this sexual assault case," it stated in its filing, "the Commonwealth is unable to meet its burden at trial to prove the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt."

Papamechail was released from jail again but remained on the state's registry. Once again, he would be spotted on a Match Group app.

When Jackie learned her mother had met Papamechail through Plenty of Fish, she considered suing. The dating app could have prevented what happened, she said, especially considering "how severe he is as a sex offender." Intimidated by the well-resourced company, she never did file a civil lawsuit.

Even if Jackie had gone to court, though, the Communications Decency Act would have rendered legal action practically futile. The act, passed in 1996, when internet companies were nascent and viewed as needing protection, contains a provision, known as CDA Section 230, that was originally intended to protect websites from being held liable for their users' speech.

Companies, including Match Group, have successfully invoked CDA 230 to shield themselves from liability in incidents involving users harmed by other users, including victims of sexual assault. Internet regulation experts say the measure effectively allows online dating companies to avoid legal repercussions. In the few civil suits accusing Match Group platforms of negligence for online dating sexual assaults, its lawyers have cited CDA 230 to try to dismiss nearly every one, records show.

Olivier Sylvain, a Fordham University law professor who specializes in the ethics of media and technology, believes judges have been so overly generous in interpreting CDA 230 that they dismiss cases before an aggrieved party can even obtain information about the company's response. "That speaks to how these companies are held unaccountable," he said.

Only one civil suit, filed against Match in an Illinois county courthouse in 2011, has gotten around CDA 230. The case ended in an undisclosed settlement in April 2016. Over its five-year history, it pried open internal Match documents shedding light on how the site has handled online dating sexual assault.

The case dates back to December 2009, when Match connected Ryan Logan, then 33, a Chicago technology consultant, with a 31-year-old baker identified as Jane Doe. The woman, whose name has never been made public, asked to remain anonymous for this article. She told police Logan had raped her on their first date, spurring a chain of events that would lead him to be convicted of sexual assault in 2011. Around the time of his criminal trial, she learned another woman had previously accused Logan of rape and had alerted Match.

Logan "proceeded to date rape me," the woman wrote the site in a 2007 complaint. She warned Match he could use its service to attack others.

Logan didn't respond to multiple requests for comment for this article. Currently an Illinois registered sex offender, he was ordered to pay more than $6 million in damages to Doe as a result of her civil suit. The judge in his criminal case barred Logan from using online dating services.

Company documents obtained during the discovery process show Match's customer service team treated the sex assault complaint as it would any other at the time: It sent the complaint to a security agent, who created an incident case file. But Match's response ended there. "The employee who was to handle the case did not follow internal procedure and closed the case without taking action," the documents state. The site didn't take down Logan's profile at the time, nor did it acknowledge the woman's complaint.

During the civil proceedings, Match attempted to dismiss the negligence claims, citing CDA 230. In December 2013 - a year after it promised to implement registry screenings and response protocols - the dating site used the law to argue against any obligation to remove users who become subjects of sex assault complaints.

"Whatever Match does, whether they leave the profile on or take it off, even if they had knowledge, is a protected act," James Gardner, its lawyer, claimed in court. He maintained the site shouldn't be responsible for taking action against accused users even if it failed to remove a user after being warned about him. "Why shouldn't they be responsible for that?" Gardner asked rhetorically. "The law says they are not. And the reason the law says they are not is because we understand that the larger purpose of internet commerce is more important."

Circuit Court Judge Moira Johnson rejected that argument, finding "the allegations do not support conduct that is immune" under CDA 230, which covers third-party content, a hearing transcript states.

Discovery documents offered a rare window into Match's response system. As of November 2007, court filings show, the site was keeping track of users accused of sexual assault in a spreadsheet detailing their identification numbers, handles and full names. The site handed over nearly 1,300 complaints of physical and sexual violence filed by users against other users during the two years preceding Doe's rape. The judge ruled the spreadsheet's contents could be redacted and the complaints sealed, making it impossible to glean whether or not Match could identify repeat offenders among its subscribers and, if so, how it responded.

Match Group declined to comment on the redacted spreadsheet's numbers or to release its own numbers of sex assault complaints filed with its apps.

Doe thought Match executives would be outraged that an accused rapist had been allowed back on their site, she said, but she soon learned otherwise. The site discouraged her from speaking publicly about her case, and it has yet to implement her policy recommendation for a user assault hotline. The Match Group spokesperson notes the company's safety pages list support services for sex assault victims. But the company doesn't sponsor its own hotline for its users.

"You are not a victim. You are enemy No. 1."

Its lawyers pointed out in court records that Match's "common sense recommendations" for offline user conduct advise never meeting in a private location. "We're not going to say, 'Oh my gosh, it was her fault that he raped her," Gardner said during a hearing, "but she has to take some responsibility."

Doe still tears up when she remembers how Match treated her in court. "You are not a victim," she told CJI. "You are enemy No. 1."

Janine Dunphy had learned, through a local newspaper article in early 2018, that Papamechail had allegedly assaulted another woman whom he met through a dating app. Then, in May last year, Dunphy got a phone call from an assistant district attorney, the same one who had handled the case involving Papamechail and Dunphy. "I have some really bad news," she recalls the prosecutor saying. The woman had died. The rape charges had been dropped.

The news sent Dunphy on a quest to find Papamechail on Plenty of Fish. She had made fake profiles to try to track him down on the platform before. She created a male profile once and posted some of his photos alongside warnings of his sex-offender status to see if the website would react. Another time she used a fake female profile without pictures to see if the app would connect them. Sometimes, she searched for his dating profiles for hours.

"I lost so much of my life," said Dunphy, whose health has deteriorated in the years since her rape claim. Doctors have diagnosed her with blood clots from stress, therapists have treated her for post-traumatic stress disorder. Of her Papamechail date, she said, "It's in my head every day."

Dunphy recalls finding his profile on Plenty of Fish less than a month after she had heard about Deveau's death. She recognized Papamechail's pictures - a photo of himself in a car, another of an orange cat. His username was Deadbolt56. He described himself as a "coffee snob." She took screenshots of his profile, she said, and notified Plenty of Fish. She never heard back.

Match Group would not confirm or deny whether Plenty of Fish ever received a complaint about Papamechail. Its spokesperson said the company's team of security agents removed him from its platforms more than a year ago - around the time Dunphy would have filed her complaint - but didn't answer questions about why he was barred, how many times he's been barred or how often he's gotten back on the apps. According to Match Group, there are no accounts associated with Papamechail on its platforms.

Dunphy said she continued to see him on Plenty of Fish until she stopped searching last fall. She got tired of trying to keep Papamechail off the site, she says. She felt like she was doing the work the app should've been doing.

Over the past 15 years, as online dating has emerged as the most popular matchmaker among Americans, state legislators have tried to address its potential for real-world harm. The earliest proposals would have required platforms to conduct full background checks. But since online dating companies do business nationwide, and only the federal government can regulate interstate operations, they went nowhere.

State lawmakers then took a different tack and pushed to mandate that apps disclose whether or not they conduct background checks. These laws, typically enforced by state attorneys general or consumer affairs departments, fine companies if they don't disclose. These measures explain why Match Group platforms adopted the no-check warnings buried in its terms of use in the first place.

In 2005, legislators - from Virginia to California, and Michigan to Florida - were debating disclosure bills championed by True.com. Vest, True's founder, considered the company's legislative campaign a form of marketing that would inspire brand loyalty. Generally opposed to government intervention, he saw an exception in this case. "We have a legislative branch intended to protect the citizenry," Vest said.

Among the most vocal critics of the bills was Match. In Michigan, for example, Marshall Dye, then-assistant general counsel for the website, testified at a hearing on that state's bill. Match opposed the bill, Dye testified, on the grounds that it would give users a false sense of security. Consumers might assume that everyone on the platform had a spotless record, she argued. But no one convicted of a crime would give his real name. (Dye declined a request to comment on her testimony.)

"It's just a buyer beware statement," said Alan Cropsey, a Michigan state senator at the time who sponsored the failed bill because he figured industry support would be a no-brainer. Of the platforms, he said, "They don't want the buyer to beware."

New Jersey became the first state in 2008 to pass an online dating disclosure statute, which also required the platforms to publish safety tips - such as "Tell friends and family about your plans," and "Meet in public and stay in public." Legislatures in Illinois, New York, and Texas soon followed suit. At times, Match lobbyists led the industry opposition in the debates.

Match Group didn't soften its stance until 2017, when the company helped to push a measure that would lead to California's first - albeit limited - online dating rules. State lawmakers say the #MeToo movement's momentum drove passage of provisions that require dating platforms to offer California users the same safety tips and reporting processes already required elsewhere. The regulations don't mandate any form of background check.

Today, just five states have regulations aimed at improving online dating customer safety.

Today, just five states have regulations aimed at improving online dating customer safety. Records requests filed in those states have yielded hundreds of complaints about the industry involving contract disputes or romance scams. None involve online dating sexual assault. No state regulators have taken action against a platform for violating disclosure rules.

Former Texas state senator Leticia Van de Putte, who sponsored that state's 2011 legislation, said states can only do so much to protect dating app users. "We really do need to have some sort of national framework," she said.

Last May, Jackie sat in a conference room at her employer's office in Portland, Maine, taking in a photograph of Deveau. It was three weeks after the first anniversary of her mother's death, and her grief was palpable. "I need my Mom more than anything," she wrote on her Facebook page weeks earlier. The photograph in her hand depicts Jackie as an infant, sitting in Deveau's lap. Jackie, sucking on her mother's finger, wears an oversized floppy pink hat. Deveau wears a wide grin.

Jackie remembers small moments growing up with her mother: a look the two would share when a snack craving overcame them. Deveau would drive Jackie to a local convenience store to order big salted pretzels. Or the pool parties her mother hosted at their home, where she always put out a good spread and welcomed everyone with open arms.

Deveau spoke constantly on the phone with Jackie as an adult - until she stopped.

Jackie wore a V-neck striped shirt, a tattoo peeking out from underneath. It depicts the jagged line of a heart monitor before Deveau's last heartbeat. Jackie got it etched over her own heart to commemorate her mother.

Reflecting on her mother's last months, Jackie portrayed Deveau like so many women who use online dating apps: vulnerable, at risk of assault. She doubted Deveau would have thought about registry screenings and response protocols. She finds it "disgusting" that online dating companies like Match Group would expect its female users to check sex offender lists themselves.

They may be looking for the man of their dreams on these dating apps, Jackie said, but they "can't do that if these predators are on there." ●

We want to learn more about what actions dating platforms are and are not taking when users report episodes of sexual violence. We need to collect as many stories as possible for further reporting.

If you or someone you know has reported an incident to Match, OkCupid, Tinder, or any other dating app, please fill out our confidential survey.

If you or someone you care about has been affected by sexual assault and would like confidential help and support, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 to talk to a trained staff member from a nearby sexual assault service provider.

Hillary Flynn, Keith Cousins and Elizabeth Naismith Picciani are reporting fellows for Columbia Journalism Investigations, an investigative reporting unit at the Columbia Journalism School. CJI research assistant Andrea Salcedo contributed reporting to this story. Funding for CJI is provided by the school's Investigative Reporting Resource and the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up here to get their next investigation.

Methodology:

Columbia Journalism Investigations worked with subject matter experts primarily at Columbia University - from public health researchers to sociologists and statisticians - to craft and vet our questionnaire for dating app users. No government agency in the United States has data on online dating sexual violence, and the questionnaire was meant to initiate a larger reporting effort, bringing us leads and directions to follow. It is not a formal survey. Respondents were not selected at random from a population but instead volunteered to fill in the questionnaire. For that reason, we do not claim that our results represent the general experience of dating app users.

We relied on the online survey platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to distribute an initial questionnaire to identify women living in the US who had used an online dating site over the past 15 years. Some researchers have used this platform to ask participants - who receive compensation for their time - about traumatic events and experiences. Following MTurk's guidelines, we made our questionnaire available to potential respondents in all regions of the country, and we screened out anyone who had a poor record of taking questionnaires.

In all, 2,151 women responded to the initial questions establishing that they live in the US and have used dating apps. Of these, 1,244 volunteered to complete our full questionnaire. Our questions included general inquiries into demographic information, online dating experiences and consensual sexual behavior. Respondents also answered five questions meant to describe acts of sexual assault and rape. These questions, developed in consultation with our experts, followed professional standards for sexual violence surveys. We eliminated results that could be classified as "bad data," such as those from people who started but did not finish the questionnaire.

Overall, 31% of the women in the survey reported being sexually assaulted or raped by someone they had met through an online dating site.

Our database of incidents of sexual assault involving online dating platforms was created from a web scrape of a decade of news reports and civil lawsuits that CJI reporters vetted and analyzed. Most of the 157 cases took place during the past five years. We then corroborated these cases through court and police records, as well as interviews with officials and additional media reports.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tinder Lets Known Sex Offenders Use the App. It's Not the Only One.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article is copublished with Columbia Journalism Investigations and ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Susan Deveau saw Mark Papamechail's online dating profile on Plenty of Fish in late 2016. Scrolling through his pictures, she saw a 54-year-old man, balding and broad, dressed in a T-shirt.

# data[].attributes.headline
U.S. and Mexico are blocking kids from asking for asylum because of COVID-19.

# data[].attributes.subject
U.S. and Mexico are blocking kids from asking for asylum because of COVID-19.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"If one of you gets infected, you could all die," Pablo recalled a doctor telling hundreds of asylum-seekers at a tent city in Matamoros, Mexico, as the novel coronavirus spread around the world.

Pablo, who is from Ecuador, has been living in the overpacked camp with his 7-year-old daughter since December, waiting for a U.S. judge to decide their case. The conditions were already perilous - a few dozen toilets shared by around 2,000 people, constant sickness, scarce drinking water - but the global pandemic hit like a death sentence.

Two days after the doctor's warning, in mid-March, Pablo sent his daughter, Heidy, to cross the border without him, in a frantic attempt to get her to safety before the virus struck the tent camp. Heidy and three other girls - who had also been sent by their parents - walked by themselves up the bridge that separates Matamoros from Brownsville, Texas. The youngest was three; the oldest just eight.

But before Heidy and the other girls could present themselves to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, Mexican authorities grabbed the girls. "They took them and didn't want to return them," Pablo told The Intercept (the full names of asylum-seekers interviewed for this story are being withheld to protect them from retaliation).

As the coronavirus crisis sweeps across the U.S., asylum-seekers stuck in Mexico have grown increasingly desperate, terrified for themselves and for the children they have in tow. An untold number have decided their children's best hope is to try and enter the U.S. alone, even if that means never seeing them again.

Under the Trump administration's so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as "Remain in Mexico," tens of thousands of asylum-seekers arriving at the southern U.S. border since early 2019 have been returned to Mexico for the duration of their asylum process. As a result, many families have sent their kids to cross alone, since the U.S. has a decades-old policy of granting protection to unaccompanied minors.

But even that door has closed. On March 21, citing the coronavirus, the U.S. began summarily expelling children from the country.

On March 21, citing the coronavirus, the U.S. began summarily expelling children from the country.

Since then, U.S. immigration officials have expelled at least 299 minors traveling alone or without legal guardians, according to CBP. Reuters put the number at 377 children, and reported that around 120 of them were sent on planes to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. It's not clear what criteria CBP uses to decide who gets sent to Mexico, and who gets returned to their home country.

An unknown number of migrant children have also been apprehended by Mexican immigration authorities as they sought to enter the U.S. and sent to government shelters in Mexico.

CBP officials deny that U.S. and Mexican immigration authorities are coordinating to prevent minors traveling alone from reaching the U.S. But it's clear they aren't welcome.

"This disease doesn't know age. In fact, what we've heard from the medical providers is that the younger children can actually be carriers," CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said on a March 9 call with reporters. "When they come across the border, they pose an absolutely concrete public health risk to this country, and everybody that they come in contact with."

Before the pandemic, unaccompanied minors were sent to shelters overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Most were eventually reunited with a family member or guardian in the United Sates. President Donald Trump has railed against the practice, describing it as a "glaring loophole" that allowed criminal teenage gang members into the country.

Immigrant rights advocates say the Trump administration is now using the pandemic as a pretext to block all asylum-seekers, including children.

"This is part of the Trump administration's war to prevent people from coming over by any means necessary," said Richard Newman, managing attorney for the San Antonio Region Justice for Our Neighbors Border Project. "The reason someone sends their children across without them is because they are so desperate."

As the coronavirus spread, some families packed up and returned to the countries they fled. Currently, there are around 1,500 asylum-seekers in the tent camp in Matamoros, and roughly a third of them children, said Valerio Granello, project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Matamoros.

Granello said Mexican immigration officials want to fence in the migrant camp to control movement in and out, and limit possible contagion. There are 13 confirmed cases in Matamoros as of Wednesday.

"The living conditions of migrants at the camp are already precarious, making them more vulnerable to the pandemic," Granello said. The concept of social distancing is meaningless as the asylum-seekers live in a sea of jam-packed tents.

"We are terrified this virus will infect our boy."

"We are terrified this virus will infect our boy," said Daniel, a Honduran asylum-seeker who has lived in the tent camp since June with his 9-year-old son. He asked to withhold his last name because he was scared that speaking out would put him at risk.

On March 22, Daniel sent his son across the bridge to present himself to CBP officers. But it was one day after Trump's new border rules took effect, and the U.S. officers told the boy he had to return to Mexico, Daniel said. They are now awaiting their next asylum hearing.

"We invested everything to come here. We can't return because we don't have anywhere to live," he told The Intercept.

Some parents who sent their children to the U.S. not only saw their hopes dashed, but nearly lost custody of their children - like Pablo, the Ecuadorian father.

After Mexican immigration officials apprehended his daughter and the other girls, Pablo and the other parents slept on the floor of the immigration office, pleading for the return of their children. Instead, the girls were taken to a government-run shelter, and the parents were required to show birth certificates and give urine samples.

"They wanted to see if we were drug addicts or alcoholics - I don't know what," he said.

The government released the girls after two days. For Pablo, it felt like an eternity.

Pablo described his daughter as stoic and quiet. But at night, when they are together in the tent, she cries. Their next court hearing is in May, but it's likely to be delayed because of the outbreak.

"She asks, 'When are we going to get there? Why can't we leave here?'" he said. "I tell her that we have to wait to see what the court says."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Citing Coronavirus, U.S. and Mexico Block Kids From Asylum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"If one of you gets infected, you could all die," Pablo recalled a doctor telling hundreds of asylum-seekers at a tent city in Matamoros, Mexico, as the novel coronavirus spread around the world. Pablo, who is from Ecuador, has been living in the overpacked camp with his 7-year-old daughter since December, waiting for a U.S.

# data[].attributes.headline
College Closures Have Forced Many Trans Students To Hide Their Identity Again.

# data[].attributes.subject
College Closures Have Forced Many Trans Students To Hide Their Identity Again.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Outbreak Today.

Nora didn't want to come home.

When Michigan State University, where she is a senior, shut down because of the coronavirus, Nora's panicked parents brought her home. Back to rural Michigan, to an isolated house surrounded by woods and cornfields on all sides.

It's a house where 21-year-old Nora, who is transgender, can't be herself: where every day, her parents call her by the wrong name, use the wrong pronouns. Where she can't dress the way she wants. Where she can't leave the house - not even to go to the pharmacy to get the medications she needs for her gender affirmation, which her parents don't know she's taking.

Nora, who asked that her name not be used in this story, isn't out to her parents. "I've got a strong feeling that if I were to come out," she said, "I would be swiftly disowned."

It's "dehumanizing," Nora said, not to be able to be herself, to be called every day by a name that isn't hers. "Even if it comes from a place of ignorance."

Students across the country have had to grapple with enormous loss as colleges shuttered their campuses last month: missed graduations and rituals; communities splintered across the country in a matter of days; uncertainty around grades, housing, financial aid, and nearly every other aspect of college life.

But for transgender students, the loss was often even more profound and complicating. For many, it meant a loss of safety and dignity, of access to vital health care and, fundamentally, a space - any space - where they could be themselves.

Those safe spaces are incredibly important right now. Trans kids are far more likely to report having attempted suicide than their cisgender peers and are more likely to have depression and anxiety. For many, access to medical transition services has been abruptly cut off, and some have lost access to mental health care, too. All of this means the coronavirus pandemic has put the mental and physical health of an already vulnerable group at far greater risk.

In interviews with BuzzFeed News, trans students described the experience of being trapped in a pandemic with families who do not accept them - a whiplash change from a college campus where they are openly trans, most for the first time in their lives, to a house where they are misgendered and called by deadnames.

Others who had the option made painful decisions to spend months living alone in their dorm rooms rather than going back to houses where they felt unsafe or unwelcome.

In the midst of the pandemic, trans students have done what they always have: found a safe space in each other. They've learned to cope, many said, by leaning on classmates over text messages, Discord, and Zoom, talking to one another through medical challenges, homelessness, and isolation. They've found housing for each other, even mailed medications.

Many experienced a similar isolation in high school, before they were openly trans - without the community they've found in college to lean on. But that hasn't made the experience of going back home, and back into hiding, easy.

"Do I want to spend the next however many months being not myself - versus if it goes wrong, I have nowhere else to go?"

"Being misgendered hurts physically a little bit sometimes," one nonbinary student said. "It's like you're constantly wearing a costume, being someone that you're not. It would be different if it's a one-time thing, but if it's all the time..."

Taking the costume off can be frightening and dangerous. As the weeks tick by, students said, they are coping with the fear of being outed, or coming out, to families who might throw them out of their homes in the midst of a pandemic.

One student living at home weighed what felt like the necessity of coming out as trans and nonbinary against their own safety, their voice kept to a low whisper during an interview to prevent their parents from overhearing.

"Do I want to spend the next however many months being not myself - versus if it goes wrong, I have nowhere else to go?"

At Michigan State, many of the students in a tight-knit group called TransAction have decided not to go home at all.

Elijah, a first-year student who is trans and wanted only his first name used in this story, said his life has been mostly confined to his dorm room: two lofted bunk beds, only one of them occupied, two desks, linoleum floors littered with takeout containers from the dining hall where he picks up his meals. He has a microwave, but no kitchen.

It's not an ideal place to self-quarantine, but the option to stay at Michigan State has been vital for Elijah and many of his friends.

At home in Indianapolis, Elijah's parents refuse to call him by his name or refer to him with the right pronouns. He came out to his mom last summer, and she was "worse than I expected." The last time they spoke on the phone, she sent Elijah a text afterward asking if he spelled his name "Alisa," which hurt: It was a feminine spelling, and that felt intentional.

And after they opened his mail and found out he was medically transitioning, his parents pushed back. They were not happy, Elijah said, that he had used their insurance to cover his health care. When his dad called him to talk about the mail he had read, he used words like "woman" and "girl" to refer to him.

"Before I came here, I didn't know how sad I was," Elijah said of Michigan State.

When campus shut down, Elijah navigated a difficult situation with his parents, telling them he didn't want to come home even though the university had written that only students who "need" to remain there could stay. He hasn't really explained to them why, he said, or even talked about it at all, except when he got an angry phone call from his father.

"My parents claim a lot of love for me but in basic ways don't respect me," Elijah said. "That leads to a lot of distrust for the people around you, and it's really isolating, especially when they're the only people around you."

Elijah has cataloged all the ways, some big, some smaller, that he and his trans friends have been affected by the pandemic.

Take handwashing: "When people encourage you to wash your hands more frequently, they expect you have access to a bathroom." On Michigan State's campus, many buildings have only one gender-neutral bathroom, usually with a single stall. That complicates the one task that public health officials have repeatedly stressed as vital to preventing infection.

"As far as virtual classes go, I kind of love it," Elijah said. "They can't see what I look like and judge me because of it. Which is really nice - a lot of trans people gravitate towards the internet for that reason. Being able to be in certain classes where I don't have to show my face can be really refreshing."

Zoom isn't without problems, though. It often automatically populates with trans people's deadnames - their birth names - since it's registered to their emails. And online, Elijah's professors sometimes assume students' genders because of their voices.

"That shit hurts, man," Elijah said.

Summer plans and internships are up in the air for everyone. But for trans students, the simple fact of where they will live this summer is another huge question mark. Campus dorms, if they're open, don't always offer gender-neutral housing in the summer, and some campuses will be closed altogether to students, forcing them to find places to live at the last minute. Finding a sublet means finding a roommate with whom you can be out safely, which is not always an easy task.

"As soon as my folks let me leave, I'm headed straight to the pharmacy."

Losses that are big for other college students - parties, rituals, graduation - can be magnified for trans students.

May Isrow, a student at Michigan State, came out as trans only during the beginning of her senior year. She's in a "privileged" place relative to many of her friends. But what she's lost is big too: after three years on campus living as someone else, this was her only real chance to experience college as herself.

"I hadn't really been me very long - it felt like I'd just woken up six months ago."

She'd only just started being able to go to parties, or even wanting to. She'd only recently started being able to go to TransAction meetings presenting as a woman. Even missing out on the chance to wear spring clothes on campus feels like a loss of self.

That college experience was the reason she chose to come out when she did, she said: "I knew in 10 years I would think back on this time, and I would have regretted it. Now, thinking back 10 years, I'm going to appreciate what I did, but I'm still going to be upset that I didn't get to finish that."

Perhaps most importantly for many trans students, there's health care. Many hospitals and clinics have ended all nonessential services, including gender affirmation surgeries and some treatments for people who are medically transitioning.

When it comes to gender-affirming health care, Elijah and other students at Michigan State have struggled to get in touch with their doctors in the midst of the pandemic. Elijah was supposed to get important blood work done after a month of taking drugs for his medical transition, but he hit that mark last month and hasn't heard from his nurse practitioner since.

Elijah is "a little nervous," he said, but his prescription doesn't run out until July - plenty of time, he hopes, to get the necessary blood work done. Unless, he worries, his last-minute summer housing falls through and he has to go home, where his parents "don't want [him] to be taking it in the first place."

Nora, in rural Michigan, is waiting anxiously for her parents to ease restrictions. "There's no way in hell I'm letting anyone know," she said of her family, about the drugs she needs to take as part of her medical transition. So, like she's done before, she's waiting.

"As soon as my folks let me leave, I'm headed straight to the pharmacy," she said.

Nora has been coping by trying just to forget about it - the situation with her medicine, the worries about her parents' finances. Animal Crossing helps a lot, she said: "It's easy to forget everything's gone to shit when you can fill a house with nothing but bugs."

Like many students, she said, she's been relying heavily on the trans community at her school, who have been "incredible."

For Elijah, that meant finding safe summer housing when his original plan fell through. For many others, it's support and connection across separate dorm rooms and from different states.

Group texts and other chat rooms are buzzing all the time. They talk about tough things like dealing with parents or how to get a hold of the doctor's office for blood work. Mostly, though, it's just lighter stuff.

As one student said: "It makes things feel a lot less alone." ●

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
College Closures Have Forced Many Trans Students To Hide Their Identity Again

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Outbreak Today. Nora didn't want to come home.

# data[].attributes.headline
Inside ICE Detention Facilities During The COVID-19 Outbreak.

# data[].attributes.subject
Inside ICE Detention Facilities During The COVID-19 Outbreak.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Inside ICE Detention During the Coronavirus Outbreak

# data[].attributes.headline
How Self-Isolation Threatens Body Positivity. 

# data[].attributes.subject
How Self-Isolation Threatens Body Positivity. 

# data[].attributes.body
Women are targeted by society’s unrealistic beauty standards. While having a home or place to quarantine in is a privilege, mental health issues are still valid throughout this time period. COVID-19 “Stay at Home” orders affect many people especially women who may deal with eating disorders.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Self-Isolation Threatens Body Positivity | Opinions | NowThis

# data[].attributes.headline
COVID-19 can augment violence to Mexican Women.

# data[].attributes.subject
COVID-19 can augment violence to Mexican Women.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On March 8, some 80,000 women in Mexico marched to protest violence against women. A day later, many women stayed home away from work and public places to demand the Mexican government and society take actions to protect women from femicides and domestic violence. Then, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) started sweeping through the United States and Mexico, attention has been diverted to managing the dangerous pandemic. Yet, as evidence from around the world shows, the COVID-19-associated lockdowns and social distancing highly augment the risks of domestic violence and murder. Mexico must start acting now to prevent both immediate brutality toward women and to tackle the underlying causes.

In Spain, domestic abuse reports went up 18% in the first two weeks of COVID-19 lockdown. Similar reports have come from Italy, France, the United Kingdom, China, and the United States.

Domestic violence increases when families spend more time together, such as vacations. Time together exacerbates disagreements without providing the outlet of separation. The coronavirus destabilizes families' financial situations, keeps children from going to schools, and limits access to health care, kids' opportunities for play, and adults' time apart. COVID-19-induced lockdowns and restrictions on accessing public spaces increase both stress at home and the tools of abuse. Egregious domestic abusers seek to control their victims by isolating them from family, friends, and sometimes even employment, maintaining constant surveillance over them, and controlling all aspects of their lives, such as clothing and food.

Isolation, such as that due to COVID-19, also weakens support networks. Police officials may be unavailable to come to a home where violence is reported. They may not be able to remove either the perpetrator or the victim as jails are emptied and shelters shuttered. Close quarters may prevent the privacy of reporting abuse.

Domestic violence and femicides were prevalent in Mexico before COVID-19. Since 2010, at least a thousand women have been murdered annually in Mexico, a country of 130 million. Between January and June 2019 alone, 1774 women were officially registered as murdered in the country - 10 women per day. In contrast, Germany, with the highest absolute record of femicides in the European Union in 2017 and a population of 83 million, registered 189 murders. It also has 7,000 places in shelters for abused a women, a number that is far lower than the demand in Germany but far outstrips Mexico's capacity.

Mexico has had notorious waves of murders of women. In Cuidad Juárez in the 1990s, hundreds of women were tortured, raped, gruesomely slaughtered, and tossed to the side of the road. Surrounded by speculations of serial killers, "snuff" movies, and macabre initiation rites linked to local drug-traffickers, police, and politicians, the murders were never resolved. Between 2016 and 2017, 175 mostly poor women whose age ranged from early teens to over 80 were slaughtered in the oil-rich, highly corrupt, and organized-crime-infiltrated state of Veracruz. The Veracruz government failed to mount investigations, falsely alleging the victims were members of organized crime groups. The 35-year-old female Veracruz prosecutor, Yendi Guadalupe Torres Castellanos, who dedicated herself to compiling a femicide database in the state, was herself gunned down within three days of holding a public conference on the femicides.

Although Mexico has tougher penalties for femicides than for other murders, prosecution rates remain very low - only 1.6% in 2012-2013. With more prosecutors specially dedicated to violence against women, the effective prosecution rate may have inched up in some of Mexico's states. But it still remains an order of magnitude lower than necessary to create deterrence effects.

Immediately, as COVID-19 progresses, the government of Mexico needs to take mitigation measures against domestic violence. It can designate shelters as essential services that do not shut down. But shelters, like all crowded spaces, such as dormitories and prisons, carry a high risk of infection. Better to hire hotel rooms as temporary shelters that allow for social distancing and safety from both abusers and COVID-19 spread, as some European governments have done. In the United States, banning alcohol sales during the pandemic has also been recommended - an unpopular measure but one with strong evidence of effectiveness.

To fundamentally reduce violence against women, Mexico must dedicate more specially-trained prosecutors to murders of women and prioritize those types of murders and other violence against women in prosecution efforts. If impunity for violence against women persists, no amount of public information campaigns and protests will adequately protect Mexico's women.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COVID-19 can augment violence to Mexican women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On March 8, some 80,000 women in Mexico marched to protest violence against women. A day later, many women stayed home away from work and public places to demand the Mexican government and society take actions to protect women from femicides and domestic violence.

# data[].attributes.headline
COVID-19 Death Rates Are a Direct Result of Environmental Racism.

# data[].attributes.subject
COVID-19 Death Rates Are a Direct Result of Environmental Racism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Last week, it became clear that communities of color from coast to coast are disproportionately being infected and dying from complications brought on by COVID-19.

"We've known literally forever that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma are disproportionately afflicting the minority populations, especially the African Americans," said Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He was standing beside Donald Trump at a White House briefing on April 7.

"Unfortunately, when you look at the predisposing conditions that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus-the things that get people into ICUs, that require intubation and lead to death-they are just those very comorbidities that are unfortunately disproportionately prevalent in the African American population."

In Chicago, for example, Black people have accounted for 72 percent of virus-related deaths, though they make up less than a third of the city's population. In New York City, Latinx people are dying from coronavirus at more than double the rate compared to white people. It's not that the diseases Fauci listed simply occur more naturally in people of color. Systemic factors-like modern segregation and racism in healthcare -help account for these outcomes.

A less-discussed but major contributor to the health disparities between people of color and white people in the U.S., one that has become especially glaring in the face of COVID-19, is environmental racism.

What is environmental racism?

Environmental racism refers to the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color. This happens when the government and corporations-through the placement of oil pipelines, forever chemical plants, toxic waste dumps, and polluting factories- expose low income, minority communities to known carcinogens, asthma-inducing pollutants, contaminated water, and other harmful pollutants at a higher rate than white, affluent communities.

This is often due to lax enforcement of environmental laws combined with the placement of undesirable land uses inside or near these communities. The result is a disproportionate rate of harmful and often deadly diseases and conditions within communities of color.

"Communities of color targeted for polluting facilities, waste sites, and the like also have higher rates of cancer, asthma, miscarriages, low birth weight babies-just to name a few adverse health conditions linked to pollution," said Robin Saha, an environmental sociologist at the University of Montana.

States in the U.S. are rife with their own examples of environmental racism. It is the reason why polluting facilities along the Mississippi River are primarily concentrated in Black communities like St James Parish, Louisiana. This area is known as "Cancer Alley," where the risk of developing cancer is 700 times the national average. Another example is the Dakota Access Pipeline that currently runs along the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, despite a large Standing Rock-led protest movement opposing its construction. The original proposed route for the pipeline ran through Bismarck, North Dakota, which is 89 percent white, but was changed after the pipeline was rejected by Bismarck residents. At the time, Jesse Jackson called it "the ripest case of environmental racism I've seen in a long time."

What does environmental racism have to do with COVID-19?

While COVID-19 can be harmful and even deadly to healthy people who contract the virus, as Fauci pointed out, those with predisposing conditions are even more likely to be put in the ICU and even die from the virus. Some of the conditions that make COVID-19 particularly dangerous, like asthma and cancer, can be caused by environmental hazards.

Put simply, if governments and corporations have been exposing a community to toxic hazards, causing a higher rate of disease, coronavirus is an even greater risk to that community.

This is one reason why advocates like Jumaane Williams, New York's elected public advocate, and doctors like Aletha Maybank, chief health equity officer at the American Medical Association, urgently called for COVID-19 race and ethnicity statistics after a Harvard study linked exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality. Since then, some states have released that data showing that from Illinois to New York, Black people and Latinx people are being hit drastically harder by coronavirus than people of other races.

"The underlying social, environmental, economic and health conditions are the clear culprits for these disparate outcomes," wrote a group of Columbia researchers in an article shared with VICE called "The Bronx as a Sentinel for Communities of Color in the Coronavirus Pandemic."

"Environmental racism is a result of broader systemic discrimination that created and maintains structural disadvantage," Saha said. "This shows up in the form of highly segregated, food-insecure communities with substandard and over-crowded housing. These communities are often lacking job opportunities, investment, basic services, and decent health care, especially preventative. This situation adds stress to residents' lives and contributes to those underlying health conditions that make people of color more vulnerable to COVID-19."

Since reports that communities of color are disproportionately affected by coronavirus, some politicians have attempted to address the disparity to no avail so far. "Inequality is a comorbidity," tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in early April. Her district, with working class New Yorkers of color in the Bronx and Queens, are particularly susceptible to interacting with the virus. "COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations."

Saha said he agrees that COVID relief should focus on communities of color that have been disadvantaged in the fight against the virus. "Members of Congress making decisions about aid packages need to hear from affected communities, their leaders, and groups working on the frontlines of the COVID response," he said. "Policy makers need to get a real handle on what our communities of color are currently facing and what they need."
Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Coronavirus Death Rates Are a Direct Result of Environmental Racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Last week, it became clear that communities of color from coast to coast are disproportionately being infected and dying from complications brought on by COVID-19. "We've known literally forever that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma are disproportionately afflicting the minority populations, especially the African Americans," said Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

# data[].attributes.headline
AOC Explains Inequality in Coronavirus Pandemic

# data[].attributes.subject
AOC Explains Inequality in Coronavirus Pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Explains Inequality in Coronavirus Pandemic | NowThis

# data[].attributes.headline
COVID-19 Hits LGBTQIA+ Communities Harder Than Most

# data[].attributes.subject
COVID-19 Hits LGBTQIA+ Communities Harder Than Most

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COVID-19 Hits LGBTQ+ Communities Harder Than Most | NowThis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Native American facts, Indian news and American Indian service, plus Native history and culture.

# data[].attributes.body
Webinar

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
(Pt 3) Under the Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that COVID Lays Bare

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Data on race and the coronavirus is too limited to draw sweeping conclusions, experts say, but disparate rates of sickness - and death - have emerged in some places.

A suspected coronavirus patient was taken into Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx last week. Credit... Desiree Rios for The New York Times

The coronavirus is infecting and killing black people in the United States at disproportionately high rates, according to data released by several states and big cities, highlighting what public health researchers say are entrenched inequalities in resources, health and access to care.

The statistics are preliminary and much remains unknown because most cities and states are not reporting race as they provide numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities. Initial indications from a number of places, though, are alarming enough that policymakers say they must act immediately to stem potential devastation in black communities.

The worrying trend is playing out across the country, among people born in different decades and working far different jobs.

There is Donnie Hoover, a judge from Charlotte, N.C., who could not shake a dry cough that arrived in March. On the South Side of Chicago, LaShawn Levi, a medical assistant who rides the bus to work each day, turned to tea and cough syrup - "everything your grandma taught you" - to treat a headache and a cough. And in Detroit, Glenn Tolbert, a union leader for city bus drivers, was coughing so much that he got tested.

"This is a call-to-action moment for all of us," said Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, who announced statistics of the outbreak in her city this week. African-Americans account for more than half of those who have tested positive and 72 percent of virus-related fatalities in Chicago, even though they make up a little less than a third of the population.

"Those numbers take your breath away, they really do," said Ms. Lightfoot, who is the city's first black woman elected as mayor. She added in an interview that the statistics were "among the most shocking things I think I've seen as mayor."

On Tuesday, President Trump acknowledged the growing signs of disparity, and said that federal authorities were working to provide statistics over the next two or three days that might help examine the issue. "Why is it that the African-American community is so much, numerous times more than everybody else?" he said at a daily briefing on the coronavirus.

For many public health experts, the reasons behind the disparities are not difficult to explain, the result of longstanding structural inequalities. At a time when the authorities have advocated staying home as the best way to avoid the virus, black Americans disproportionately belong to part of the work force that does not have the luxury of working from home, experts said. That places them at high risk for contracting the highly infectious disease in transit or at work.

Ms. Levi, the medical assistant from Chicago who fell ill, thinks that her daily bus ride to work could have been the source of her exposure. Or, she said, she could have picked it up in the hospital where she works, at the grocery store, or from food served to her.

"I'm just not sure," said Ms. Levi, 45, who has asthma and high blood pressure.

Longstanding inequalities also make African-Americans less likely to be insured, and more likely to have existing health conditions and face racial bias that prevents them from getting proper treatment.

Initial indications are that doctors are less likely to refer African-Americans for testing when they visit a clinic with symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Since the disease can progress quickly, researchers say, a disparity in testing can lead to considerably worse outcomes. A lack of early communication about the threat of Covid-19 and confusing messages that followed left an information vacuum in some black communities that allowed false rumors to fester that black people were immune to the disease. Some places ended up behind in taking measures to slow the spread.

The TCF convention center in Detroit is being transformed into a field hospital. Credit... Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

Sharrelle Barber, an assistant research professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University, said the effects of government redlining policies that began in the 1930s linger. Many black residents live in segregated neighborhoods that lack job opportunities, stable housing, grocery stores with healthy food and more.

High levels of segregation in large urban counties lower the life expectancies of African-American residents but have little effect on the life expectancies of white residents, according to an analysis of the County Health Rankings by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Before the pandemic hit, officials had calculated that white Chicagoans had an average life expectancy of 8.8 years longer than black residents.

"These communities, structurally, they're breeding grounds for the transmission of the disease," Dr. Barber said. "It's not biological. It's really these existing structural inequalities that are going to shape the racial inequalities in this pandemic."

Work kept Mr. Tolbert, 54, who drove a Detroit bus for 24 years before becoming president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 26, from staying home as the virus spread.

All through March, Mr. Tolbert said, he proceeded with his responsibilities of checking on the well-being of drivers at the bus depot and on passengers along city routes.

On April 2, Mr. Tolbert was coughing so much during a meeting with Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, that Mr. Duggan suggested he get tested. He was one of the first people in the city to take a rapid test and got his results back in 15 minutes.

"I was social distancing - at least I thought I was," Mr. Tolbert said. "I don't know where it happened."

The death toll has been particularly devastating among African-Americans.

Donations of personal protective equipment were collected to distribute to medical workers in Chicago. Credit... Scott Olson/Getty Images

"What's really important is who is succumbing to the infection," said Dr. Phillip D. Levy, the associate chairman for research in the department of emergency medicine at Wayne State University. "That gives you an idea of the severity of the illness and the impact on the community."

One factor that might make the coronavirus more devastating for African-Americans is that they experience high levels of stress-mediated wear and tear known as "weathering," said Arline Geronimus, a professor of public health at the University of Michigan who studies the concept.

Stresses like exposure to toxins, lack of sleep and racial discrimination, Dr. Geronimus said, can cause a kind of accelerated aging. The coronavirus is most lethal in people over 65.

Watching news reports of coronavirus racial disparities this week, Dr. Geronimus said she had found herself shouting at her television. "They're saying, 'We don't know why,'" Dr. Geronimus said, "and I'm standing there saying, 'It's weathering!'"

Medical experts, community activists and policymakers are pushing for greater transparency on racial data.

Officials who are reporting racial data are doing so only for cases in which the patient's race is known. For a large percentage of total cases in some places - sometimes more than 40 percent - no racial information is available.

And officials in many states, including those hit hard by the pandemic - California, New Jersey, New York and Washington State - have not provided statewide information about the race of patients.

That has raised anger in some corners. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey have demanded that the Trump administration collect race and ethnicity data on coronavirus testing and treatment. And Jumaane D. Williams, the public advocate for New York City, sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio calling for the release of a breakdown of cases by race.

A worker power-washed a bus stop in Detroit. Credit... Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

In Mecklenburg County, N.C., where black residents are overrepresented in the number of positive tests, George Dunlap, the chairman of the county commission, said he was skeptical of the data. He said he believed that African-Americans in that county, which includes Charlotte, were overrepresented because the group was being tested at a higher rate, according to information he said he received from county health officials.

But North Carolina's top health official said the disparities aligned with historical trends.

"This current crisis lays out what we have known for a long time, which is that your ZIP code is often a determinant of your health outcome," said Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Judge Hoover, the Mecklenburg County Superior Court judge who has tested positive for the virus, is 70. His wife, Josephine, has also tested positive. He was receiving chemotherapy for multiple myeloma and she has diabetes, underlying medical issues that put them at higher risk of severe illness.

While Judge Hoover recuperated in their condominium in downtown Charlotte, Ms. Hoover, a retired math teacher, was hospitalized for two weeks. Even now, they are staying at least six feet apart in their home.

"I am assuming that I picked it up in the courthouse and gave it to her," he said. "We were so scared. And we are still scared because we do not know for sure if we are out of the woods."

Amy Harmon, Mitch Smith and Matt Furber contributed reporting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Data on race and the coronavirus is too limited to draw sweeping conclusions, experts say, but disparate rates of sickness - and death - have emerged in some places. The coronavirus is infecting and killing black people in the United States at disproportionately high rates, according to data released by several states and big cities, highlighting what public health researchers say are entrenched inequalities in resources, health and access to care.

# data[].attributes.body
From Pennsylvania, so phone numbers in some sections are not local to us.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you have a loved one who has been assaulted and you want to support them when rape culture comes to the forefront of our media, Pinero suggests reaching out in person or on the phone. You can say something as simple as, "Hey, I stand with you. I'm here to listen if you need to talk." Pinero pointed out that it's important to be cautious of what is a personal declaration of support versus a public declaration (in other words, do not do this over social media). You want to keep the survivor, their privacy, and their self-care in mind first.

5. Know and communicate your sexual boundaries.

Navigating sex after trauma can be difficult, but knowing your boundaries and having a partner who respects those boundaries are key aspects to feeling great about your pleasure. Solow provides insight into how to have these conversations: "First of all, you get to decide how much of your story to share. If you know certain sexual activities are triggering, you can totally say something like, 'I don't want to be on my back during sex,' without offering further explanation - you deserve to have that boundary respected. You can also say, 'Before we sleep together, I need to tell you some things about my past trauma so that I feel safe.'

"You deserve to have that request respected," Solow continues. "Any partner who shames you for having boundaries doesn't deserve to be with your body. Period. And this is a good time to remind yourself and your partner that there isn't one particular activity that 'counts' as sex - you can explore lots to figure out what makes you feel safest."

Pinero suggests role-play with a safe person before you have a conversation in which you come out as a survivor. You can call the RAINN hotline and the person who answers can help you navigate this dialogue in a safe way that works for you. It might mean starting off by telling the person something like, "I want to tell you something that happened to me and I need you to just listen and give me the space to walk away if I need to."

6. It's OK to walk away from a situation or conversation that feels triggering.

For me, this has probably been the most difficult self-care lesson to learn. I want to engage, educate, and empower people to understand how we can eradicate rape culture. But sometimes, people aren't open to learning and it can cause you more harm than good to engage in these situations.

Solow has some great advice for how to handle these difficult, and often triggering, conversations: "The thing is, you have capacity for different responses in different situations. It's not your job to educate someone and it's not your job to stay calm or even stay in the conversation - do what you need to do to take care of yourself in the situation."

"When possible, I like to call on someone else who I know is less activated by those words to do the leg work. Call them and say, 'Hey, did you hear what that person said? Can you tell them why that's not cool?' I'm also a big fan of follow-up emails or messages after a heated discussion, or even just after hearing an oppressive comment that you didn't get to respond to at the time. There are always opportunities later for you or someone else to message that person and say, 'Hey, here's how what you said affected me, here's why it's not cool, here's an article you should read about this.'"

At the end of day, remember that you come first. Figuring out what works best for you is a huge step in your healing process. Remember that you aren't alone and we all need help sometimes, especially when rape culture becomes a national conversation on every news channel.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can seek help by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673). For more resources on sexual assault, visit RAINN, End Rape on Campus, Know Your IX, and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
Related: What You Need to Know About Getting Help If You've Been Sexually Assaulted

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 Self-Care Tips for Sexual Assault Survivors

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you have a loved one who has been assaulted and you want to support them when rape culture comes to the forefront of our media, Pinero suggests reaching out in person or on the phone. You can say something as simple as, "Hey, I stand with you.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and, as seen by the actions of the White House and even our own Australian government, the usual mandates for gender balance and equality have already fallen by the wayside.

It hardly seems like a time to complain about this; after all, there are lives at stake. However, if gender cannot be part of the conversation during a crisis, when can it be?

After all, we know that women are disproportionately affected by disasters, with crises exploiting structural inequalities that affect preparedness, response, impact, number of deaths, and recovery. Further, we know that Covid-19 is not gender neutral - among other things, women are overrepresented in health services on the frontline, and in casual employment most likely to be hit hard by economic downturn. Men may be more likely to be infected, based on early assessments of Italian data.

When a crisis strikes, informal gendered "rules of the game" dominate decision-making and discussion, with women's perspectives and presence often entirely absent.

We also know that the cure of social distancing is gendered - for so many Australian women, home is not a place of safety. Domestic violence is already a major health problem, according to the World Health Organization, with one in three women around the world experiencing physical or sexual violence, mostly from an intimate partner.

We should always question what gets to be called a crisis. Counter-terrorism, diseases, political violence, the stock market, areas of life where elite men may be affected often earn the title. The realities of women's insecurity and structural poverty often do not.

Across all our research on gender and Australia's international decision-making, one trend really stands out during these times: gender equality is a fair-weather friend quickly abandoned when "real problems" arise, as much as we can have the formal policies and rules that institute equality in good times. When a crisis strikes, informal gendered "rules of the game" dominate decision-making and discussion, with women's perspectives and presence often entirely absent.

Look at the G20 virtual leaders' summit last week hosted by Saudi Arabia, issuing a communique that gestures vaguely to social "shocks" and "damage". Only Angela Merkel remains as a G20 female leader, joined by invitee Ursula von der Leyen representing the European Union. The G7 couldn't even agree on an outcome due to Trump's name-calling.

The virtual G20 summit (Evan Schneider/UN Photo)

There are of course a few exceptions. When women are represented in the highest positions of leadership, they are more likely to look out at the gendered impact of their decisions, even those made in crisis. This is certainly true of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, for instance, for whom Julie-Ann Guivarra was appointed Gender Equality Ambassador only this fortnight, which, strategically or not, places her in a strong position to advocate for women and gendered responses in domestic and international affairs. Female leaders in Norway and New Zealand held special briefings for children, talked about teachers and childcare workers, and aged care workers, debated school closures from a perspective that included the rights of parents and teachers.

In Prime Minister Scott Morrison's National Covid-19 Coordination Commission, only two out of eight appointed commissioners were women - Jane Halton and Catherine Tanna - and ethnic and sexual diversity was nowhere to be seen. This imbalance has not gone unnoticed, particularly with Australian Public Service Commission requiring that boards across government, for instance, must have a 50:50 gender balance. Yet some have questioned whether now really is the time to call it out.

We wonder, why not? In fact, if we take the lessons from international affairs, we know that gender equal leadership leads to more comprehensive decision-making (read: less deaths?), lower levels of interstate violence (as important now as ever before), and higher levels of collaboration and consensus (crucially important, particularly considering we need community buy-in and collaboration to flatten the curve).

Even in debates about prioritising the "operational needs" of a crisis or situation, it is always worth noting whose lives are on the line, and when women's inclusion matters. The $150 million funding for domestic violence prevention that was released at the weekend in Australia was a crucial measure, if belated, particularly considering rates of domestic violence have increased globally since the Covid-19 outbreak. The UN has called for greater creativity by governments in addressing women's rights at this time.

Now is not the time for complacency or demoting the gender lens in favour of biased and narrow operational realities that fail to accurately represent and see half the population. Domestic and international politics must reflect on the fact that instability is often a key time when regression occurs in the fight for gender equality. Gender equality is not just for good times, a luxury good. Gender matters in a crisis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Covid-19 responses: Why feminist leadership matters in a crisis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and, as seen by the actions of the White House and even our own Australian government, the usual mandates for gender balance and equality have already fallen by the wayside. It hardly seems like a time to complain about this; after all, there are lives at stake.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The phone rings less than it used to at the London Abused Women's Centre.

The calls that do come through are often quick and concerning, with women warning the support worker that if their abuser comes in from the backyard or gets out of the shower, they'll have to hang up with little to no warning.

"We do literally 10 seconds of safety planning, say call back whenever you can, and then they hang up," says Megan Walker, the centre's executive director. She is worried, and you can hear it in her voice.

Across the country, support centres and shelters are grappling with the same heartbreaking problem: how to help someone be safe when they have been told to isolate at home but their home isn't safe.

Add in children and the sometimes very small confines of an apartment, and "things are really brewing and bubbling," Walker says. "I'm just so worried about increases in violence and femicide."

There is reason to be worried.

"Times of social isolation increase the risk of domestic abuse," according to the European Institute for Gender Equality, which also noted that even once the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak subsides, life doesn't just snap back to normal.

"It can also be harder for women to leave their abuser once the crisis is over, due to the financial insecurity that might follow."

Schools are closed, libraries are closed and community centres are closed. In Ontario, where Walker works, only essential services remain open.

Those closures have an important impact on stopping the spread of the new coronavirus, wrote lawyer Pamela Cross for The Lawyer's Daily, but "some of them play right into the hands of many abusers."

Domestic abuse is about power and control, something an abuser has more of when their victim is forced to isolate at home - which, as Cross wrote, means an increase in "opportunities for physical, sexual and emotional abuse."

What is violence against women?

That negative impact will likely only get worse as time goes on, says Petra Molnar, acting director of the international human rights program at the University of Toronto.

So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has earmarked $50 million for women's shelters and sexual assault centres grappling with the spread of COVID-19 and their support work.
[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]
Generally speaking, Molnar says offering solutions is "tough because it highlights how limited our societal supports are for people going through domestic violence."

Those support gaps can be felt even more keenly when the person experiencing abuse is also part of a more marginalized community, Molnar says, like refugees and immigrants.

That's an intersection Natalia Jiménez, a Colombian refugee whose partner tried to kill her after moving to Canada, spoke with Global News about last fall.

Jiménez struggled with the language barrier, a lack of understanding of Canadian policies and laws and issues accessing support services and alternative housing options in addition to pressure within her community not to report the abuse she faced.

"I kept quiet and endured," she said.

How Natalia Jimenez survived an attempted murder

Jiménez and Sonya Cywink, an Ojibway woman whose murder remains unsolved 25 years later, were the two honourees for last year's Shine the Light campaign organized by the London Abused Women's Centre.

The campaign has been revived this spring to highlight the role neighbours and community members can play in helping people escape abuse during COVID-19 isolation, Walker says.

Community involvement is a point she wants to underscore.

A woman might only have a few minutes for a stolen phone call while her abuser is in the yard. And while Walker says that might be enough for a little bit of safety planning, it's still wholly inadequate; the support worker on the other end often can't offer an immediate shelter bed or hotel space.

As a result, figuring out a safe alternative space to ride out the pandemic can mean time, including back-and-forth calls, that a woman at risk in her own home doesn't necessarily have.

On the contrary, a conversation with a neighbour on the street - even one with six feet of space in between - likely wouldn't arouse as much suspicion.

"If you know somebody that's isolated or might be struggling, make sure you ask the question: 'Are you being abused?'" Walker says. "They're more likely to respond if they're asked than just to come out (with it) themselves."

Calgary social agencies brace for increased domestic violence calls during COVID-19 pandemic

Once you know, you can offer to be the person who more safely co-ordinates calls with shelters and other support services as needed.

"I really believe it will be the neighbours who get women through this," Walker says, encouraging neighbours to ask: "Are you being abused? Are you safe?"

Community-based responses to gender-based violence are an approach that the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) uses. It's of particular importance for racialized and immigrant communities, says Margarita Pintin-Perez, senior co-ordinator of OCASI's Initiative to End Gender-Based Violence.

Pintin-Perez echoes Walker's call to community action, particularly now, when people are at home with "no reprieve" from their abuser and the support systems they might usually be able to reach are working remotely.

"Neighbours are definitely important," she says, encouraging people to check in on those around them, whether it's saying hello on a walk or dropping letters off in mailboxes saying to text or call if you need anything.

"Those are great gestures, really important because they can be life-saving for someone in these situations," Pintin-Perez says.

Ultimately, Molnar says it's important to remember that the COVID-19 outbreak isn't creating new problems but exacerbating long-standing ones.

Women's shelters and transition homes, often the starting point for those fleeing violence, are decades old, crumbling from lack of repairs and struggling to finance the life-saving services they provide.

Every day, shelters turn away 379 women and 215 children because of space constraints, according to a 2019 report from Women's Shelters Canada. The idea of having to turn someone away in the middle of a pandemic is "so unbelievably sad," says Silvia Samsa, executive director of Women's Habitat.

Women's Habitat has a 10-room shelter on the western edge of Toronto that's been full since mid-March. Already, they've shuttered community outreach programs, enacted strict rules around handwashing and hand sanitizer use and done their best to navigate toilet paper shortages when the women they serve don't have the funds to stockpile toiletries.

"We're really, really hoping we don't have to go into quarantine," Samsa says.

Molnar is heartened to see how much communities have already stepped up to support victims of domestic abuse amid the pandemic. Still, she says, she wants to be clear that she is in no way advocating for local initiatives as the solution.

"As a society, we need to have a conversation around what our priorities are and what kind of funding and support are we able to provide to the violence against women sector."
If you think someone is being abused, here is some information on supporting them and additional information on safety planning. If you think someone is abusive to their partner, here is a list of resources to help. View link "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When home isn't safe: How coronavirus puts neighbours on front lines of abuse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The phone rings less than it used to at the London Abused Women's Centre. The calls that do come through are often quick and concerning, with women warning the support worker that if their abuser comes in from the backyard or gets out of the shower, they'll have to hang up with little to no warning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We, the undersigned organizations committed to feminist principles and women's human rights, call on governments to recall and act in accordance with human rights standards in their response to COVID-19 and uphold the principles of equality and non-discrimination, centering the most marginalized people - women, children, elderly, people with disabilities, people with compromised health, rural people, unhoused people, institutionalized people, LGBT+ people, refugees , migrants,indigenous peoples, stateless people, human rights defenders, and people in conflict and war zones. Feminist policy recognizes and prioritizes the needs of the most vulnerable communities. Beyond the response to this pandemic, it is necessary for the development of peaceful, inclusive and prosperous communities within human rights-driven states.

It is critical that governments utilize a human rights and intersectional based approach to ensure that everyone has access to necessary information, support systems and resources during the current crisis. We have recognized nine key areas of focus to be considered in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. They are listed below with brief descriptions of potential challenges and recommendations that consider the lived experiences of people in vulnerable position - especially women and girls that endure a disproportionate impact due to their sex, gender, and sexual orientation - and steer policymakers toward solutions that do not exacerbate their vulnerabilities or magnify existing inequality and ensure their human rights.

These guidelines are not a replacement for the engagement of women and girls and other marginalized communities in decision-making, but a rationale for consultation and diversity in leadership.

Key Focus Areas for a Feminist Policy on COVID-19

Food security. In countries that depend on food imports, there are fears of closing borders and markets and the inability to access food. This concern is exacerbated for people experiencing poverty and in rural communities, especially women, who do not have easy access to city centers and major grocery stores and markets. This leads to people with the means purchasing large quantities of goods which limits availability for those with lower incomes who are not able to do the same and are likely to face shortages when they attempt to replenish their food supplies. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Increase - or introduce - food stamps and subsidies, both in quantity for those already receiving them and in expansion of access to include those who become more vulnerable due to current circumstances

Direct businesses to ration nonperishable food supply to control inventory and increase access for those who, due to their income levels, must purchase over a longer period of time

Send food supply to rural communities to be stored and distributed as needed to eliminate the delay in accessing supply in city centers and safeguard against shortages due to delays in shipping

Send food supply to people unable to leave their homes (e.g. disabled people living alone or in remote areas)

Healthcare. All countries expect a massive strain on their public health systems due to the spread of the virus, and this can lead to decreased maternal health and increased infant mortality rates. There is often lack of access to healthcare services and medical supplies in rural communities. The elderly, people with disabilities, and people with compromised or suppressed immune systems are at high risk, and may not have live-in support systems. The change in routine and spread of the virus can create or exacerbate mental health issues. This crisis has a disproportionate impact on women who form, according to the World Health Organization's March 2019 Gender equity in the health workforce working paper, 70% of workers in the health and social sector, according to the World Health Organisation . It also disproportionately affects those who provide care for others.

In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Education. The closure of schools is necessary for the protection of children, families, and communities and will help to flatten the curve so that the peak infection rate stays manageable. It, however, presents a major disruption in education and the routine to which children are accustomed. In many cases, children who depend on the school lunch program will face food insecurity. They also become more vulnerable to violence in their homes and communities which can go undetected due to no contact. School closures also have a disproportionate burden on women who traditionally undertake a role as caregivers. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Social inequality. These exist between men and women, citizens and migrants, people with regular and irregular status, people with and without disabilities, neurotypical and neuroatypical people, and other perceived dichotomies or non-binary differences as well as racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Existing vulnerabilities are further complicated by loss of income, increased stress, and unequal domestic responsibilities. Women and girls will likely have increased burdens of caregiving which will compete with (and possibly replace) their paid work or education. Vulnerable communities are put at further risk when laws are enacted, or other measures are introduced, that restrict their movement and assembly, particularly when they have less access to information or ability to process it. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Encourage the equitable sharing of domestic tasks in explicit terms and through allowances for time off and compensation for all workers

Provide increased access to sanitation and emergency shelter spaces for unhoused people

Implement protocol and train authorities on recognizing and engaging vulnerable populations, particularly where new laws are being enforced

Consult with civil society organizations the process of implementing legislation and policy

Ensure equal access to information, public health education and resources in multiple languages, including sign and indigenous peoples languages, accessible formats, and easy-to-read and plain languages

Water and sanitation. Everyone does not have access to clean running water. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Ensure infrastructure is in place for clean, potable water to be piped into homes and delivered to underserved areas

Cease all disconnections and waive all reconnection fees to provide everyone with clean, potable water

Bring immediate remedy to issues of unclean water

Build public handwashing stations in communities

Economic inequality. People are experiencing unemployment, underemployment, and loss of income due to the temporary closure of businesses, reduced hours, and limited sick leave, vacation, personal time off and stigmatization. This negatively impacts their ability to meet financial obligations, generates bigger debts, and makes it difficult for them to acquire necessary supplies. Due to closures and the need for social distancing, there is also lack of care options and ability to pay for care for children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. This produces a labor shift from the paid or gig economy to unpaid economy as family care providers. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Violence against women, domestic violence/Intimate partner violenceDV/IPV). Rates and severity of domestic violence/intimate partner violence against women, including sexual and reproductive violence, will likely surge as tension rises. Mobility restrictions (social distance, self-isolation, extreme lockdown, or quarantine) will also increase survivors' vulnerability to abuse and need for protection services. (See Economic inequality.) Escape will be more difficult as the abusive partner will be at home all the time. Children face particular protection risks, including increased risks of abuse and/or being separated from their caregivers. Accessibility of protection services will decline if extreme lockdown is imposed as public resources are diverted. Women and girls fleeing violence and persecution will not be able to leave their countries of origin or enter asylum countries because of the closure of borders and travel restrictions.

In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Access to information. There is unequal access to reliable information, especially for those structurally discriminated against and belonging to marginalized communities. People will need to receive regular updates from national health authorities for the duration of this crisis. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Launch public campaigns to prevent and contain the spread of the virus

Consult and work with civil society in all initiatives to provide information to the public

Make information available to the public in plain language and accessible means, modes and formats, including internet, radio and text messages

Ensure people with disabilities have access to information through sign language, closed captions, and other appropriate means

Increase subsidies to nongovernmental organizations that will ensure messages translated and delivered through appropriate means to those who speak different languages or have specific needs

Build and deploy a task force to share information and resources with vulnerable people with specific focus on unhoused, people with disabilities, migrant, refugees, and neuroatypical people

Abuse of power. People in prisons, administrative migration centers, refugee camps, and people with disabilities in institutions and psychiatric facilities are at higher risk of contagion due to the confinement conditions. They can also become more vulnerable to abuse or neglect as a result of limited external oversight and restriction of visits. It is not uncommon for authorities to become overzealous in their practices related to enforcement of the law and introduction of new laws. During this crisis, vulnerable people, especially dissidents, are at a higher risk of having negative, potentially dangerous interactions with authorities. In response to this challenge, we call on governments to:

Signed by: [Networks and Organizations: 1 to 422; Individuals: 422-1156]

Networks and organizations

1. 4M Mentor Mothers Network

2. A Long Walk Home

3. ABAAD-Resource Center for Gender Equality

4. ABOFEM ARGENTINA

5. Action pour l'Education et la Promotion de la Femme (AEPF-Tchad)

6. Activista Ghana

7. Adivasi Dalit Woman Civil Rights Forum

8. African Diaspora Women's Network

9. African Disability Forum- ADF

10. African Women 4 Empowerment

11. African Women Leaders Forum

12. AFROAMERICAS

13. Akina Mama wa Afrika

14. Akshara Centre

15. Aliansi Remaja Independen Sulawesi Selatan

16. All India Progressive Women's Association AIPWA

17. Alliances for Africa

18. Annie North Women's Refugee and Domestic Violence Service

19. Arab Women Network for Parity and Solidarity

20. Arise Nigerian Woman Foundation

21. Arts for Women Indonesia

22. Artykuł 6 (Article 6 feminist disability collective)

23. Asamblea Feminista Plurinacional

24. Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW)

25. Asociación Ciudadana ACCEDER

26. Associação brasileira de antropologia- Brazilian Anthropology Association

27. Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust (AALI)

28. association Tunisienne des femmes démocrates

29. Associazione Dream Team Donne in Rete

30. Associazione Il Giardino dei Ciliegi

31. Associazione Maddalena

32. Associazione Orlando

33. Associazione Risorse Donna

34. Associazione Topnomastica femminile

35. Aswat Nissa

36. ATHENA Network

37. Atria, institute on gender equality and women's history

38. Awmr Italia Donne della Regione Mediterranea

39. Bangladesh Centre for Human Rights and Development (BCHRD)

40. Bangladesh Model Youth Parliament (Protiki Jubo Sangsahd)

41. Baobab Women's Project CIC

42. Believe mental health care organisation

43. Berliński Kongres Kobiet

44. Beyond Beijing Committee (BBC)Nepal

45. Border Crit Institute

46. BraveHeart Initiative for Youth & Women

47. Breakthrough (India)

48. Breakthrough (USA)

49. Broadsheet, New Zealand's Feminist Magazine

50. Campaign for Lead Free Water

51. Canadian Feminist Network

52. Catholics for Reproductive Health

53. CEDAW Committee of Trinidad and Tobago

54. Center for Building Resilient Communities

55. Center for gender and sexual and reproductive health, James P Grant school of public health

56. Center for Hunger-Free Communities

57. Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)

58. Center for Migrant Advocacy Philippines

59. Center for Women's Global Leadership

60. Center for Women's Health and Human Rights, Suffolk University

61. Center Women and Modern World

62. Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy

63. Centre for Gender Justice

64. Centre for Social Concern and Development (CESOCODE)

65. Centro de Derechos de Mujeres

66. Centro de Mujeres ACCION YA

67. Centro di Women's Studies Milly Villa - Università della Calabria

68. CENTRO MUJERES A.C.

69. Centro Mujeres Latinas

70. Channel Foundation

71. CHIRAPAQ Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú

72. Closet de Sor Juana

73. Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR)

74. Colectiva Lésbica Feminista Irreversibles

75. Colectivo "Género y Teología para el Desarrollo"

76. Collettivo Anguane

77. Comisión de Antropología Feminista y de Género, Colegio de Etnólogos y Antropólogos Sociales A.C

78. Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de las Mujeres, CLADEM

79. Common Health

80. Community Care for Emergency Response and Rehabilitation

81. Community Healthcare Initiative

82. Comunicación, Intercambio y Desarrollo Humano en América Latina, Asociación Civil ( CIDHAL, A. C.)

83. Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd

84. Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights

85. Cooperativa Sociale Centro Donne Mantova

86. Coordinadora de la Mujer

87. Council of Indigenous Women of Lower Lands of Europe

88. Courageous people health and development lnitiative

89. Creativería Social, AC

90. DAWN Canada

91. Design Studio for Social Intervention

92. DESSI International

93. Development in Practice, Gender and Entrepreneurial Initiative (DIPGEI)

94. DIVA for Equality

95. Dorothy Njemanze Foundation

96. Dziewuchy Berlin

97. Echoesofwomeninafrica11@gmail.com

98. Emma organization for human development

99. EMPOWER Malaysia

100. End Violence Against Women Coalition (UK)

101. Enhancing Access to Health for Poverty reduction in Tanzania (EAHP Tanzania)

102. Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas de las Américas ECMIA

103. Enlightenment and empowerment of northern women initiative

104. Equality Bahamas

105. Equipo Jurídico por los Derechos Humanos

106. Etihad Peace Minorities Welfare Foundation

107. EuroMed Rights

108. European Roma Rights Centre (Brussels, Belgium)

109. FACICP Disability Plus

110. Families Planning Association of Puerto Rico (PROFAMILIAS)

111. Family Planning Association of Nepal

112. FAMM Indonesia

113. Federation for Women and Family Planning

114. Federation of Sexual and Gender Minoriites Nepal

115. Federazione Femminile Evangelica Valdese e Metodista

116. Female Safe Environments-Her Safe Place

117. Femini Berlin Polska

118. Feminist Alliance for Rights

119. Feminist Humanitarian Network

120. Feminist Policy Collective

121. Feminoteka Foundation

122. Femmes leadership et développement durable

123. FEMNET - African Women's Development and Communication Network

124. Fiji Women's Rights Movement (FWRM)

125. First Future Leadership

126. Flash Dynamic Concepts

127. Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres

128. Food Corporation of India Handling Workers Union

129. Food Sovereignty Alliance, India

130. For Violence-Free Family Coalition

131. Forum Against Oppression of Women

132. Forum against Sex Selection

133. Four Worlds Europe

134. Fund for Congolese Women

135. Fundación Arcoíris por el respeto a la diversidad sexual

136. Fundación Código Humano

137. Fundacion Estudio e Investigacion de mujer FEIM

138. FUNDACION MARIA AMOR

139. Fundación Puntos de Encuentro

140. Fundacja "Inicjatywa Kobiet Aktywnych"

141. Fundacja Dziewuchy Dziewuchom

142. Gamana Mahila Samuha

143. Gantala Press, Inc.

144. GAYa NUSANTARA Foundation

145. Gender and Environmental Risk Reduction Initiative(GERI)

146. Gender and Sociology Department, Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences

147. Gender at Work

148. Gender Awareness Trust

149. Gender Equality,,Peace and Development Centre

150. GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, India

151. GirlHQ Foundation

152. Girls Voices Initiative

153. Global Alliance for Tax Justice

154. Global Fund for Children

155. Global Fund for Women

156. Global Justice Center

157. Global Rights for Women

158. Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation

159. Global Women's Institute

160. Graduate Women International

161. Grandmothers Advocacy Network

162. Grupo de Estudos Feministas em Política e Educação (GIRA/UFBA)

163. Grupo Guatemalteco de Mujeres-GGM

164. Hawai'i Institute for Human Rights

165. Herstoire Collective

166. Hollaback! Czech

167. Hope for the Needy Association

168. Humanity in Action Poland

169. ICW - International Community of Women Living with HIV

170. Icw argentina

171. Identities Media

172. If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice

173. IMMAHACO Ladies COOPERATIVE Society 87 set

174. Inclusive Bangladesh

175. iNitiatives for Nigeria

176. Institute for Economic Justice

177. Institute for Gender and Development Studies-University of the West Indies

178. Institute for Young Women Development

179. Institute of Gender Studies, University of Guyana

180. Instituto de Estudos de Gênero da UFSC e NIGS UFSC

181. Instituto de Investigación y Estudios en Cultura de Derechos Humanos CULTURADH

182. Instituto de Transformación social de pr

183. Instituto de la Mujer

184. Instituto RIA

185. Interamerican Network of Women Shelters

186. International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD)

187. International Commission on Global Feminisms and Queer Politics (IUAES)

188. International WOmen's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific

189. International Women's Rights Project

190. Istituto Comprensivo Statale "Don G. Russolillo"

191. Jaringan Muda Setara

192. Jaringan Perempuan Yogyakarta - Yogyakarta Women's Network

193. Jordanian National Commission for Women

194. Journal of International Women's Studies

195. Justice Institute Guyana

196. Kenya Female Advisory Organization

197. L'union de l action féministe

198. LABIA - A Queer Feminist LBT Collective

199. Latin American and Caribbean Womens Health Network

200. Le kassandre

201. Le Maestre Ignoranti

202. Lesbianas Independientes Feministas Socialistas - LIFS

203. Libera...Mente Donna ets

204. Liberian women Humanitarian Network

205. Life in Leggings: Caribbean Alliance Against Gender-based Violence

206. Lon-art Creative

207. Mahila Sarvangeen Utkarsh Mandal (MASUM)

208. Malcolm X Center For Self Determination

209. Mama Na Mtoto Initiative(Mami)

210. Manifest Wolnej Polki

211. MAP Foundation

212. Marie Stopes International

213. McMaster University

214. Mesa Acción por el Aborto en Chile

215. Movimiento de Mujeres de Chinandega

216. MOVULAC ONG

217. MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians

218. Mt Shasta Goddess Temple

219. Mujer Y Salud en Uruguay-MYSU

220. Mujeres+Mujeres

221. NAPOLINMENTE a.p.s.

222. Narasi Perempuan

223. Naripokkho

224. National Alliance Of Women Human Right Defender/Tarangini Foundation

225. National Alliance of Women's Organisations

226. National Birth Equity Collaborative

227. National Forum Of Women With Disabilities

228. National Network For Immigrant And Refugee Rights

229. National Platform For The Rights Of The Disabled

230. Nederlandse Vereniging Gender & Gezondheid

231. NEPEM - Center of feminist studies at Federal University of Minas Gerais

232. Network for Community Development

233. Nigerian Feminist Forum

234. Nigerian Professional Working Women Organization

235. Nobel Women's Initiaitve

236. NoMore234NG

237. Non una di meno

238. O.A.B.I.: Organization for Abused and Battered Individuals

239. Observatorio de Género y Equidad

240. Odri Intersectional rights

241. Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology

242. Organización Artemisas

243. Organization Name

244. Orikalankini

245. Our Generation For Inclusive Peace

246. OutRight International

247. Oxfam (various offices)

248. Oxford Human Rights Hub

249. Pan African Positive Women's Coalition-Zimbabwe

250. Parteciparte

251. Pastoralist Girls Initiative

252. Peasants Dragnet

253. Perempuan Mahardhika

254. Perhimpunan Pembela Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (PPMAN) - Indigenous Lawyers Association Archipelagos

255. Perkumpulan Lintas Feminist Jakarta / Jakarta Feminist Association

256. Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance

257. Plan International

258. Por la Superación de la Mujer A.C.

259. Power in her story / Manila Feminista

260. Programa de Investigacion Feminista, CEIICH UNAM

261. Programa Género, Cuerpo y Sexualidad de la FHCE/UDELAR

262. Promundo-US

263. Punto Género

264. Queer Women in Business + Allies

265. Race, Racism and the Law

266. Radha Paudel Foundation

267. Raising Voices

268. RALI - Reborn Athena Legal Initiative

269. Rassemblement Contre la Hogra et pour les Droits des Algeriennes :"RAHDA"

270. Rays of Hope Community Foundation

271. Red Chiapas por la Paridad Efectiva

272. Red de Educación Popular entre Mujeres - REPEM

273. Red de la No Violencia contra las Mujeres-REDNOVI

274. Red de Mujeres contra la violencia

275. Red de Mujeres por una Opinión Pública con Perspectiva de Género en Campeche AC

276. Red Mexicana de ciencia tecnología y genero

277. Red Nacional de Refugios AC

278. Red Nacional Universitaria por la Equidad de Género en la Educación Superior

279. Rede Nao Cala USP - Network of professors against gender violence at the University of Sao Paulo

280. Remember Our Sisters Everywhere

281. Reporteros de investigación

282. Restless Development Nepal

283. Rutgers WPF Indonesia

284. Rutgers WPF Indonesia

285. Sacred Circle of Indigenous Women of Europe

286. Salamander Trust

287. Sanctus Initiative for Human Development and Values Sustainability (SIHDEVAS]N

288. Sangsan Anakot Yawachon Development Project

289. Save Generations Organization

290. Sehjira Foundation

291. Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) Behind Bars

292. Shayisfuba feminist collective

293. Shedecides

294. Shifting the Power Coalition - Pacific

295. Shirakat - Partnership for Development

296. Shishu Aangina

297. Society for the Improvement of Rural People(SIRP)

298. Solidarite Des Jeunes Filles Pour L'education Et L'integration Socioprofessionnelle, Sojfep

299. Sonke Gender Justice

300. Soroptimist International

301. Spatium Libertas AC

302. Spinifex Press

303. Stop au Chat Noir

304. Studentato universitario San Giuseppe

305. Success Capital Organisation

306. Suppressed Histories Archives

307. T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

308. Tag a Life International (TaLI)

309. Tanzania Home Economics Association

310. Tarangini Foundation

311. Tata Institute of Social Sciences

312. TEDS TRUST and DAWNS

313. The Center for Building Resilient Communities

314. The Citizens'News

315. The Gender Security Project

316. The Institute for Gender and Development Studies, RCO

317. The Queer Muslim Project

318. The Story Kitchen

319. The Well Project

320. Todos Ciudadanas, AC

321. Toponomastica femminile

322. Trannational Decolonial QTPOC

323. Transgenders Fiji Network

324. Transnational United Front against Fascism

325. Ukrainian Association for Research in Women's History

326. Unchained At Last

327. Union Women Center Georgia

328. United African Diaspora

329. University of Namibia

330. US Human Rights Network

331. Vida Reavivida AC

332. Visible Impact

333. Wave - Women against violence Europe

334. WE-Change Jamaica

335. Welfare Rights Organization

336. WIDOWS DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION

337. Widows Rights International

338. WILDAF-AFRIQUE DE L'OUEST

339. Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center

340. Women Against Rape(WAR) Inc.

341. Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression

342. Women Against Violence

343. Women and Girls of African Descent Caucus:Descendants of Enslaved Persons brought to the Americas During the Transatlantic Slave Trade Era

344. Women and Health Together For The Future (WHTF)

345. Women and Law in Southern Africa - Mozambique

346. Women Enabled International

347. Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (WEAN)

348. Women for a Change

349. Women for Peace and Gender Equality Initiative

350. Women for Peace and Unity Growth Initiative

351. Women for Women's Human Rights - New Ways

352. Women Foundation of Nigeria WFN

353. Women Health Together for Future

354. Women in Distress Organisation

355. Women Liberty and Development Initiative

356. Women March Lampung

357. Women Transforming Cities International Society

358. Women Working Group ( WWG)

359. Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)

360. Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights

361. Women's Human Rights Education Institute

362. women's initiative "One of Us"

363. Women's Legal and Human Rights Bureau, Inc. (WLB)

364. Women's Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) Nepal

365. Women's Resource and Advicacy Centre / WOMEN 2030

366. Women's All Points Bulletin, WAPB

367. Women's Probono Initiative(WPI)

368. Women's rights and health project

369. World Pulse

370. Y Coalition

371. Young Feminist Europe

372. Youth Action Nepal

373. Youth Changers Kenya

374. Youth Development Center

375. Zamara Foundation

376. Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Action: Call for a Feminist COVID-19 Policy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We, the undersigned organizations committed to feminist principles and women's human rights, call on governments to recall and act in accordance with human rights standards in their response to COVID-19 and uphold the principles of equality and non-discrimination, centering the most marginalized people - women, children, elderly, people with disabilities, people with compromised health, rural people, unhoused people, institutionalized people, LGBT+ people, refugees , migrants,indigenous peoples, stateless people, human rights defenders, and people in conflict and war zones.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Women locked in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana are terrified that they have been exposed to a person ill with the coronavirus, and they fear that they, too, will get sick. The women have been trying to communicate with the world about their plight, and they've been punished for trying.

Immigrants in ICE detention nationwide are intensely afraid of contracting Covid-19. More than 37,000 people are detained in facilities described by government inspectors, nongovernmental organizations, and the prisoners themselves as crowded and dirty. As two Department of Homeland Security doctors warned Congress, the facilities pose "an imminent risk to the health and safety of immigrant detainees" and to the public as well.

At least four ICE employees at detention facilities used by ICE in New Jersey, Texas, and Colorado have tested positive for Covid-19. On March 24, ICE announced the first detainee case. ICE later confirmed a second case, a 52-year-old detainee held in Newark.

The women who have been warning about the sick detainee in their midst are at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, in a rural area of the state near Lafayette. It is run by the private prison corporation GEO Group and holds more than 400 women. Five of them, all asylum-seekers from Cuba, have spoken with The Intercept by phone. One of the women, Rosa Pino Hidalgo, works in the kitchen. She said that a young Ecuadorian woman who worked in the kitchen with her fell ill with symptoms consistent with Covid-19.

"She served food and cleaned up after meals," Pino Hidalgo said in Spanish. But recently, the woman "got sick with a sore throat, high fever, and diarrhea. She spent three days in bed. There has been a lot of flu going around here, and the medical staff gave her a flu test. It came out negative. Then a doctor and nurse went into her dorm, dressed in medical gowns, masks, gloves, and protective eyeglasses. We've never seen that when people have the flu. They carried the woman out on a gurney. Her body was also in protective gear and she was hooked up to oxygen."

"They're saying this quarantine is for the flu. We don't believe them."

Pino Hidalgo said that the dorm the sick woman lived in, which holds 72 women, was locked down in quarantine. "They pass the food under the door. The guards are wearing a medical gown and other protection. They're saying this quarantine is for the flu. We don't believe them."

The woman was removed on the gurney about two weeks ago, according to Pino Hidalgo. Last week, she reappeared in the detention center's medical unit. "I've been there, and she's in a room with a sign on the window that says, 'confirmed or suspected Covid-19,'" said Yadira Labrada Merino, another Cuban detainee.

This past weekend, several of the women used the detention center's "video visitation" technology, using tablets provided by the detention center, to talk about their fears of contagion at the facility. The Intercept recorded them as they held up posters describing their situation. Their presentation was suddenly interrupted when a guard began yelling and confiscated the posters. For several hours, according to the detainees, all of the detention center's tablets were seized, televisions were turned off, and phone calls were prohibited.

Bryan Cox, director of public affairs for ICE's Southern Region, refused to discuss the sick woman's health. Cox told The Intercept by email that "multiple false allegations" have been made recently about detainees being infected with Covid-19. He wrote that no ICE detainees in Louisiana have tested positive. He said ICE isolates detainees together if they have fever or respiratory symptoms, and if they have moderate to severe Covid-19 symptoms, they are sent to hospitals and may be tested there.

On March 18, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security Covid-19 report obtained by The Nation, the ICE Health Services Corps noted that it was "monitoring" two dozen detainees in 10 facilities and had nine "in isolation."

Covid-19 case statistics from Louisiana suggest that contagion is of extraordinary concern in that state. The state is experiencing an unusually rapid spread of the illness. According to the Louisiana health department, there were 54 cases as of last week in the six counties surrounding the South Louisiana ICE facility, with almost a 4 percent death rate. To date, Louisiana has reported 3,540 cases of Covid-19 and 151 deaths.

ICE will not discuss Covid-19 with the incarcerated immigrants at that facility or with people who assist them. Rachel Taber, who works for the Southeastern Immigrant Rights Network in New Orleans said she helped a detainee, Francisca Morales Diaz, to get bond so she could be released. Taber drove to the South Louisiana Processing Center to pick her up. But Taber was told that Morales Diaz couldn't be released because she was quarantined. Taber secured her release, and Morales Diaz told me that while detained, she lived on the opposite side of the facility from where the sick woman was housed. But two days before she was released, Morales Diaz said, the women in her area were told that they were being quarantined "so we wouldn't get sick."

Morales Diaz said that no information about Covid-19 was being given to the detainees when she was locked up. She said the women tried to get it from the news on the television, where they had learned about social distancing and the need for law enforcement workers to wear protective gear such as gloves. Morales Diaz said she saw a Cuban detainee yelling at a guard for not wearing a mask or gloves. The guard ignored the detainee. Often, media is denied to the women. "They refuse to clean the living areas to protest that we don't have proper cleaning supplies," Morales Diaz said. "The staff punishes them by turning off the TV."

Morales Diaz has diabetes, and when Taber came to pick her up, Morales Diaz requested her medical records. But the officials refused to release them. Taber turned on her phone to make a recording and repeated her records request to the officials. She asked if there were any Covid-19 cases at South Louisiana. "I cannot affirm or deny," the official said.

Since the Ecuadorian kitchen worker got sick, ICE has quietly released a few detainees from South Louisiana without charging them bond, according to Samantha Magdaleno. She coordinates a project in Michigan that assists women locked up in South Louisiana, including by gathering donations so that they can buy soap from the commissary. One bar costs $2 to $3, according to the women. That's the only way to get enough soap to do regular hand-washing; what's given out for free is inadequate. "Once a week, we're given five bars per dorm of 72 people," said detainee Maybis Ranzola Lamas. "It's used up in a day."

So far, the South Louisiana women have used videos to air their concerns and have been briefly punished. In several other ICE centers, detainees have staged hunger strikes. In three incidents in Texas and Louisiana, guards used force, including pepper spray on four women.

Meanwhile, two federal court judges in Manhattan last week ordered the release of 14 ICE detainees with health problems. One judge noted that ICE measures to prevent an outbreak of Covid-19 are " patently insufficient." Two lawsuits have been filed by coalitions of immigrant rights and civil rights advocates, demanding the release from ICE detention of at-risk immigrants in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

But at the South Louisiana Processing, detainees are still "living almost on top of each other," said Ranzola Lamas. Another detainee, Karina Serrano Rodriguez, said the women sleep in bunk beds 3 feet apart. "The guards come in from outside and wear no masks," Ranzola Lamas said.

Pino Hidalgo said her dorm houses three women older than 60 - putting them at high-risk of dying if they get Covid-19. One has diabetes. "I myself am a cancer survivor," Pino Hidalgo said. "Nobody is protecting me."

"I am having nightmares," said Ranzola Lamas. "We feel almost forgotten."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women in ICE Detention, Fearing Coronavirus, Make Video to Protest Unsafe Conditions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Women locked in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana are terrified that they have been exposed to a person ill with the coronavirus, and they fear that they, too, will get sick. The women have been trying to communicate with the world about their plight, and they've been punished for trying.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Houston Matters

Dr. Kjersti Aagaard of Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital shares some simple things expectant women should know about COVID-19 and the coronavirus that causes it.

Health officials say the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are most at risk for complications due to this new coronavirus. But what about pregnant woman?
1. Pregnant Women Are Not More Likely To Get Infected Than Others
Dr. Kjersti Aagaard is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital. She told Houston Matters with Craig Cohen on Thursday four things expectant women should know about COVID-19 and the coronavirus that causes it.

Aagaard said expectant mothers are not any more likely to get infected with this virus when compared to other women their same age or even men their same age.
2. Pregnant Woman Tend To Experience More Serious Effects
"That's not true with any virus because even though sometimes people say, 'Oh you're immunosuppressed in pregnancy,' that's not actually correct," she said. "Your immune system is finely tuned so it can accept your baby while you're pregnant, but it doesn't make you immunocompromised. And you run around fighting off pathogens all the time while you're pregnant."

Scientists have about a century's worth of data now to look at regarding how various influenza pandemics have affected pregnant women, Aagaard said. Those numbers show pregnant women in their second or third trimesters are about 45 percent more likely to be hospitalized and have both heart and lung complications when compared to the general population.
3. The Risks Go Beyond The Respiratory Disease
And, when looking at all the other major respiratory coronaviruses in recent memory (from SARS/COVID 1 to MERS), the rate of women needing to go on ventilators or even dying was higher than the general population. Aagaard said we should expect a similar outcome with this virus.

Aagaard says those same numbers from the past century also indicate that the respiratory disease isn't the only risk pregnant women face.
4. Keep Your Doctor Appointments
"There's also higher risks of pre-term births, there are higher risks of still-birth," Aagaard said, "And our minds, our hearts, and our doors are open, and we want to make sure we're taking care of our pregnant women just like we do every day."

Even in this environment of social distancing, Dr. Aagaard recommends pregnant mothers stay in touch with their OB/GYN and keep their regular appointments - unless their doctor has arranged another way to communicate, such as tele-medicine.

"Go ahead and come in for your regular visits," she said. "Call us if you're feeling sick. Let's stay on top of this."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Things Pregnant Women Should Know About Coronavirus And COVID-19 | Houston Public Media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dr. Kjersti Aagaard of Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital shares some simple things expectant women should know about COVID-19 and the coronavirus that causes it. Health officials say the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are most at risk for complications due to this new coronavirus.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
During this time, as family are sequestered inside their homes, there is a dark side.

Domestic violence shelters are seeing a dramatic increase in calls for help as people shelter in place to avoid COVID-19 exposure.

Staying at home can be a horrible situation for domestic violence victims.

Jessica Garza is a survivor who fled an abusive husband, who beat her so bad she lost her unborn baby.

"Being there with your abuser, I can't imagine what it's like for them right now because me, I just needed to leave, " said Garza.

Domestic violence shelters, like The Family Place, say they are seeing a big increase in calls for help.

"This is going to be similar to what happens during the holiday when everyone is together and a lot of frustration," said Paige Flink, The Family Place CEO.

Some shelters have run out of room and are looking to put victims in hotel rooms and other places, because of social distancing rules.

"What has also happened is because some shelters don't have private bedrooms, they are having to isolate people and spread them apart, which has reduced how many people they can take in," said Flink.

Flink says they are getting extremely violent calls that are COVID-19 related.

"People being locked in rooms, being shot through the doors, prevented from leaving, having to stay because he's afraid she will go out and get it. Crazy stuff," said Flink.

Garza was able to go to her sister's for help.

She says women should not hesitate to find a safe place to go.

"Let that shelter be something else. In this new norm we find ourselves in, let the new shelter be a friend's home, a hotel room, anything," said Garza.

The Family Place says it will not turn away someone in a lethal situation. The shelter will find a place.

The Family Places says it's making sure the people coming in have no symptoms of the virus, and the shelter is being deep cleaned frequently to keep everyone safe.

If you need help, please call the one of the following numbers:

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233.

The Family Place Crisis Hotline: 214-941-1991

Genesis Women's Shelter: 214-946-4357

Hope's Door: 972-422-2911

Safe Haven of Fort Worth: 877-701-7233

More on WFAA:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Domestic violence calls increase as people shelter in place during COVID-19 outbreak

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
During this time, as family are sequestered inside their homes, there is a dark side. Domestic violence shelters are seeing a dramatic increase in calls for help as people shelter in place to avoid COVID-19 exposure.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
President Donald Trump on Thursday once again said the nation's governors should be "doing more" to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and not rely so heavily on the federal government for help.

He claimed most governors "have been fantastic," but then took a few potshots at Washington's Jay Inslee (D) and Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer (D), whose name he either forgot or simply didn't want to mention.

"We've had a big problem with the young, a woman governor, you know who I'm talking about from Michigan," he told Sean Hannity of Fox News in a telephone interview. "We don't like to see the complaints."

Michigan has one of fastest rates of growth in coronavirus infections, now approaching 3,000 confirmed cases and 60 deaths.

However, the state has struggled to get essential supplies including protective gear for hospital workers, and Whitmer is calling on Trump to issue a major disaster declaration for the state and the emergency support that comes with it.

Trump did not indicate if that declaration would be forthcoming. However, he said this week that federal aid will only flow to states that "treat us well."

" It's a two-way street," he said on Fox News on Tuesday.

Trump told Hannity on Thursday that Whitmer has "not been pleasant" and said "all she does is sit there and blame the federal government."

Whitmer went on Twitter to set the record straight:

Hi, my name is Gretchen Whitmer, and that governor is me 👋

I've asked repeatedly and respectfully for help. We need it. No more political attacks, just PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, test kits. You said you stand with Michigan - prove it. https://t.co/FtWlTLZdqW

- Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) March 27, 2020

She added that she gets along well with Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading Trump's coronavirus response:
A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus Also on HuffPost Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer Fires Back After Trump Slams 'Young Woman Governor'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
President Donald Trump on Thursday once again said the nation's governors should be "doing more" to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and not rely so heavily on the federal government for help. He claimed most governors "have been fantastic," but then took a few potshots at Washington's Jay Inslee (D) and Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer (D), whose name he either forgot or simply didn't want to mention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
France's interior minister says that reports of domestic violence across the country have jumped by more than 30% since the country went into lockdown on March 17th.

Christophe Castaner revealed on Thursday that in Paris alone, cases were up by 36%.

France's anti-coronavirus lockdown has forced people to stay home for the last 11 days. The lockdown has now been extended until April 15.

Being confined at home with abusive partners is thought to have increased the risk to victims.

France already has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in Europe. Every year, an estimated 219,000 women, aged 18 to 75, face physical or sexual violence by current or former partners, but only 20% report it. According to official figures, one woman is killed by a partner or former partner every three days.

Castaner said that the government would introduce new measures to allow people facing abuse to call for help during the lockdown.

Victims will be able to call for help in pharmacies, he said. "A woman who is suffering from domestic violence, when she goes to the pharmacy without her husband, must be able to call for help."

He added that a code system would be developed for victims whose violent partners had accompanied them to a pharmacy,

Spain already has a code system for reporting domestic violence.

Castaner said that, as the lockdown continues, the police will be on high alert for reports of abuse, and that fighting domestic violence is a priority.

Currently, victims of domestic violence in France can call 3919 for help.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Domestic violence cases jump 30% during lockdown in France

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
France's interior minister says that reports of domestic violence across the country have jumped by more than 30% since the country went into lockdown on March 17th. Christophe Castaner revealed on Thursday that in Paris alone, cases were up by 36%. France's anti-coronavirus lockdown has forced people to stay home for the last 11 days.