Story Search Results

Advanced Search

There are so many ways to search the solutions journalism stories in this database. Explore our searchable fields:

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 182 results for your search. View and Refine Your Search Terms

Bay Area Girls Lead Campaign Against Sexual Harassment on Public Transit

Sarah Holder

April 02, 2021 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

A coalition of groups advocating for young girls of color succeeded in winning new policies and financial support to combat sexual harassment on public transportation. By surveying middle and high school students about their experiences, the groups behind the "Not One More Girl" campaign convinced Bay Area Rapid Transit system officials to install posters, make reporting of incidents easier, and pay for non-police "transit ambassadors" and crisis intervention specialists to patrol trains.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Solar lights help Kenyan women escape sex-for-fish trap

Kagondu David Njagi

March 16, 2021 |

Thomson Reuters Foundation |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Kenya, Kendu Bay

A renewable energy project in Kenya is empowering women to catch their own fish instead of relying on “sex-for-fish” deals. Previously, men used to control the mechanisms for catching fish and would only sell to women who would have sex with them. About 400 women have received free solar lights, which allows them to fish at night. The batteries are lightweight and can run up to 120 hours on a single charge. For one woman, using the light also enables her to keep her fish stall open longer, earning her 10 times more than what she used to.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Nigeria is using radio to provide support for SGBV survivors

Seun Durojaiye

March 13, 2021 |

International Centre for Investigative Reporting |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Nigeria

To combat high rates of sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria, the Spotlight Initiative supports several organizations providing counseling and educational services to victims and to women and girls at risk of abuse. One program from the NEEM Foundation countered the pandemic shutdown by distributing transistor radios to continue its classes for women. Another, Save the Child Initiative, intervened in a child rape case that local authorities ignored, convincing national police to arrest the attacker and providing counseling to the victim and her mother.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Human trafficking operations surrounding the Super Bowl result in dozens of arrests for prostitution

Kylie McGivern

March 04, 2021 |

WFTS-TV |

Broadcast TV News |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Tampa, Florida

Law enforcement and a private organization, Rahab's Daughters, attacked human sex trafficking at the 2021 Super Bowl in Tampa by tracing leads from tens of thousands of advertisements for sexual services. While the private group says it provided housing, food, and clothing to 40 women, and the police said they identified six trafficking victims and connected them with needed protection and services, far more women were arrested on prostitution charges, along with a handful of men on trafficking charges. Critics say the harm from those arrests can overshadow the benefits from looking for actual victims.

Read More
Go to Original Story
With women-only transport, South African city tackles sexual abuse

Kim Harrisberg

January 18, 2021 |

Thomson Reuters Foundation |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: South Africa, Cape Town

To combat high rates of sexual violence in the Cape Flats neighborhood, an entrepreneur steeped in activism founded a women-only driving school. Hundreds of women have learned to drive without having to fend off assaults or harassment from male instructors, while gaining a skill that frees them from the risks inherent in taking public transportation or taxis. To tackle the latter risk, the same entrepreneur, Joanie Fredericks, recently started Ladies Own Transport, an all-female taxi service.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How 'emancipatory sex-ed' can help prevent rape

Sarah Treleaven

January 14, 2021 |

Maclean's Magazine |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada, Windsor, Ontario

Flip the Script is a course that teaches rape prevention without the usual blame-the-victim undertones. While teaching college-age women to assess and avoid risks, it places the responsibility squarely on the people who rape, not on women's behavior. The approach, also called Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act Sexual Assault Resistance Program (EAAA) is sex-positive, encouraging women to think about their own pleasure as much as guarding against victimization. It has been shown to reduce rape and lower women's feelings of self-blame.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Outside/In: Everybody Knows Somebody

Laine Kaplan-Levenson

January 07, 2021 |

NPR |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States

The story of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act starts with a young legal aide to Sen. Joe Biden who did not identify as a feminist and knew little about the issues, but whose methodical building of a coalition and a set of arguments led to the historic passage of the law in 1994. VAWA was the first U.S. federal law to address comprehensively the ancient problem of gender-based violence. A key provision, authorizing federal civil lawsuits by victims, helped many women for six years until the Supreme Court struck it down. The law's other effects, still ongoing, include funding victim-aid groups.

Read More
Go to Original Story
After 3 years and $1.5 million devoted to testing rape kits, Alaska made one new arrest

Kyle Hopkins

December 30, 2020 |

Anchorage Daily News |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Alaska

Despite hopes that testing a backlog of rape kits would reveal many new serial-rape suspects, Alaska's three-year push to test 568 kits under the federally funded Sexual Assault Kit Initiative led to only one new prosecution. The reasons the program fell short of expectations include a lack of usable DNA samples, errors by investigators, cases in which victims and suspects had died or victims no longer wished to proceed, or the kits revealed no evidence that wasn't previously known. Alaska is now footing the bill to test more kits, which contain physical evidence collected after a rape.

Read More
Go to Original Story
The child trafficking survivors training to prosecute sex crimes

Neha Bhatt

December 16, 2020 |

Al Jazeera |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: India, Kolkata

The School for Justice provides an education in law or advocacy to young women who have survived sex trafficking. The program started in Kolkata in 2017 and has expanded to Mumbai and Katmandu. Forty students receive housing, counseling, and free tuition to the local university of their choice, where they can study to be lawyers, paralegals, social workers, police officers, or journalists. The goal is to equip them with the tools they need to protect others from child sexual exploitation and to bring perpetrators to justice. Along the way, they begin to heal through empowerment and peer support.

Read More
Go to Original Story
NYPD Cops Cash In on Sex Trade Arrests With Little Evidence, While Black and Brown New Yorkers Pay the Price

Joshua Kaplan Joaquin Sapien

December 07, 2020 |

ProPublica |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

New York Police Department sex-crimes enforcement officially shifted away from arresting people selling sex to those buying it and those in the large-scale trafficking business. At the same time, the Human Trafficking Intervention Court was created to divert sex workers' criminal cases away from conviction and toward social services. The reality, however, is that police officers' overtime income gives them incentives to make high volumes of arrests of sex workers and buyers in flimsy, low-level cases that get plea-bargained down, but which skew heavily against people of color.

Read More
Go to Original Story