Timing Considerations for Sexual Assault Examinations

Just a quick reminder: you have until Wednesday at noon ET to enter the Sexual Assault Quick Reference giveaway. Head over to the post and leave your comment to be eligible!

SAFE-TA (a project of IAFN) is offering a free webinar December 15th at 2pm, ET: Timing Considerations for Sexual Assault Examinations. Presented by Jack Ballantyne, Ph.D. and Pam Marshall, M.S., this webinar will offer advanced education to practitioners on issues involving timing of evidence collection, advances in forensic DNA technology, and factors affecting time since intercourse intervals.

Organ Trafficking & Transplant Tourism

A subset of human trafficking, organ trafficking and transplant tourism are significant concerns around the globe. And while they’re not discussed to the same extent as sexual exploitation and forced child labor, quite a bit’s available on the subject. It initially caught my eye when I noticed Harvard’s Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking had an archived webcast available on their site addressing the issue. You can link to it, along with podcasts, articles, and other resources after the jump.

A Call to Men

Prevention Connection‘s latest newsletter is pretty fantastic. It includes audio recordings from the 4th Annual A Call to Men conference (PDF), held last spring in NYC. If you’re not familiar with the project, A Call to Men “challenges men to reconsider their long held beliefs about women, in an effort to create a more just society. We achieve this by encouraging change in the behaviors of men through a re-education and training process that challenges sexism.”

Maximizing the Potential for DNA Technology

NCVC is hosting a webinar November 18th at 1pm ET: Maximizing the Potential for DNA Technology. “The goals of this webinar are to expose participants to the “big picture” of how forensic DNA came to be the potent crime-fighting tool that it is today, and for participants to learn about today’s most extensive and innovative applications of forensic DNA in the United States and abroad. The speaker will highlight the importance of DNA databasing for identifying offenders and solving and preventing crimes and will present intriguing cases and innovative techniques using forensic DNA.”

Articles of Note: November Edition

Time once again for a run down of some of the new and noteworthy articles in the current literature. All of these are from the October/November issues. As always, please keep in mind this in no way a comprehensive list; simply items that have caught my attention from a selection of peer-reviewed journals. Links lead to PubMed abstracts; from there you can choose what’s worth a.) paying for; b.) a pilgrimage to your nearest medical library;  or c.) downloading via the full-text access you possibly have at your disposal. To be honest, it was kind of a light month; not nearly so much grabbed me in my rounds of the recent stuff.

Trafficking: New Offerings from the Week that Was

Over the past week there have been several new offerings related to human trafficking:

Phil Borges has an interview on his blog with Rachel Lloyd, founder of GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services). “Rachel told me that historically law enforcement in our country has punished the victims of the sex industry—the vulnerable and exploited adolescent girls that are coerced and trafficked into the trade.  She said that labeling and jailing them as ‘teen prostitutes’ instead of what they are–exploited and trafficked children– while ignoring the 30 to 40 year old men that sell and buy these girls has been a crime in itself.”

Listen to the 8+ minute audio file here.

Physicians & Executions

ReachMD has a roundtable discussion on physicians and executions, facilitated by Dr. Atul Gawande. He is joined by Deborah Denno, professor of law at Fordham University; Dr. Robert Truog, professor of medical ethics, anesthesiology, and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; and Dr. David Waisel, associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, in a conversation about lethal injection, the current protocol, possible alternatives, and the role of health care professionals in putting convicted criminals to death.

As with all ReachMD programs, they’re free of charge, but require site registration to access.

Intimidation of Domestic Violence Victims

Battered Women’s Justice Project will be presenting a 3-part webinar series on intimidation of DV victims. Participation is free, but registration is required in advance. The presenters will be Attorney Rhonda Martinson of BWJP and Jeff Greipp, Attorney Advisor with AEquitas.

Women’s Experience with Sexual & Domestic Violence

BWJP is hosting an audioconference, Wednesday, October 21st from 3-4:30 ET on women’s experiences with sexual and domestic violence. Speakers include Molly Dragiewicz and Walter DeKeseredy from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

Violence Against Sexually Exploited Women

I am thrilled to announce that AEquitas is offering our first webinar October 21st, 11:30-1pm ET: Prosecutorial Response to Violence Against Prostituted Women. This webinar will help prosecutors and allied professionals understand, identify, and respond to violence against sexually exploited women, i.e., women used in prostitution.  It will discuss the dynamics of sexual exploitation, including the frequency and type of violence sexually exploited women experience.  It will also explore issues, strategies, and defenses relevant to the prosecution of violence against sexually exploited women.

Preventing Violence

The Prevention Institute has created a new resource on their website: Preventing Violence: Quick Links. It’s a “web-based compilation of practical, solution-oriented resources for communities working to prevent violence before it occurs“. You’ll find some great tools for community-wide planning and engagement. Best of all, if this is an area of interest for you, you can sign up for email alerts, so that you’re informed as additional resources are added to the page.

Digital Safety: Cyberstalking

I love when readers (especially readers abroad) send me links I never would have run across otherwise: this summer in London, the UK hosted their inaugural digital safety conference, which “brought together thought leaders, policy makers, legal professionals, law enforcement agencies, government representatives, educators, industry leaders and those committed to protecting civil liberties to consider the health, reputation and environment of the digital world”.

This Week in Webinars

Just a reminder that there are two fantastic (and free!) webinars coming up this week that most of the regular FHO readership should find interesting: Victim Privacy, Tuesday, October 13th, 2-3:30 pm ET (read the original post here) and Medical Forensic Exams Conducted Without a Report Being Made to Law Enforcement, Thursday, October 15th, 2-3:30 pm ET (read the original post here). This is a great opportunity to get you and your team (and your SART or MDT or CCR) some continuing ed!

Engaging Men

An interesting coincidence (if you believe in those sorts of things) happened yesterday. I received an email from a reader asking about resources to engage men in ending violence against women; and I checked my Facebook page last night and saw that EVAW had posted some info about one of Canada’s latest campaigns to engage men in ending violence, It Starts With You. So I’ve taken that as a sign from the Internet gods, and am doing a post today on the topic. It’s in no means comprehensive (in fact, consider it more of a jumping off point)–if you have more to add, please do so in the comments section so readers around the globe can benefit from our collective knowledge. My resources are, for the most part, US and Canadian. I would love (love, love) to hear about campaigns in other countries, as well.

Council of Daughters

With all of the news focusing on Roman Polanski, it seems like a good time to post this:

GEMS, the organization featured in the documentary Very Young Girls (previous post here), has a new initiative: The Council of Daughters. It’s a campaign “to strengthen laws that protect victims, encourage Americans to support girls empowerment initiatives at the local level, increase support for recovery services, and bring this urgent issue into schools, offices, dorms, places of worship and other community spaces.”