Dame Helen Mirren claims female jurors reckon rape victims ‘ask for it’

By Jack Grimston

She has already caused a stir by disclosing that she was date-raped and did not report it to the police. Now Dame Helen Mirren has suggested that female jealousy may make women jurors less likely to sympathise with a rape victim.

The Oscar-winning actress says lawyers defending men accused of rape prefer having a female-dominated jury because “women go against women”.

Her comments, in an interview in today’s Sunday Times Magazine, have surprised campaigners trying to change attitudes to rape and increase the tiny proportion of rape claims that result in a conviction.


Others believe that Mirren, 63, may have touched on an uncomfortable truth.

Discussing examples of competitiveness among women, she says: “In a rape case, the courts — in defence of a man — would select as many women as they could for the jury, because women go against women.

“Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don’t know, but other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only reason I can think of is that they’re sexually jealous.”

Kirsty Brimelow, a barrister who has defended many men accused of rape, said female-dominated juries were often harsher on a woman, particularly if she had been drunk or the man was an acquaintance or former boyfriend.

“I would reassure a defendant who was worried that there was a preponderance of women on the jury,” said Brimelow. “They may take against the woman instead of him.”

Mirren, who won a best actress Oscar in 2007 for her role in The Queen, told GQ she had been date-raped “a couple of times, not with excessive violence.”

She said she had not told the police, partly because it is “a tricky area . . . especially if there is no violence”.

Campaigners have been trying to raise the proportion of rape allegations that end in conviction — just 6.1%, compared with about 25% for assaults.

Polls suggest between a quarter and a third of Britons believe a rape victim is largely responsible for an attack if she is drunk or wearing revealing clothes.

Cutting Hair, While Cutting to the Chase on Clients’ Domestic Abuse

By Leslie Kaufman






Martha Castillo knew her client had a problem because their weekly hair-straightening sessions were always interrupted by phone calls from a boyfriend angrily accusing her of being with another man. Magda Florentino noticed cigarette burns on a woman’s temples when she pulled back her hair for washing — and did not buy the explanation that it had happened accidentally while bartending.

And Candida Vasquez received a hysterical call from a customer soon after she had spent three hours knitting extensions into the woman’s hair. Her boyfriend hated the look, and in a fit of rage he had cut off not only the extensions, but also the rest of her hair.

Ms. Vasquez said she was not surprised by the call. Troubled clients tell her their personal stories all the time. “They are so tormented, they just come in and share,” she said.

The privileged, often therapeutic relationship between hairdressers and clients has long been the subject of magazine articles and movies. A growing movement in New York and across the nation tries to harness that bond to identify and prevent domestic violence, a pervasive problem that victims are often too ashamed to reveal to law enforcement or other public officials.

Ms. Vasquez, Ms. Castillo and Ms. Florentino are all stylists in Manhattan who have been trained (or are being trained) as part of a one-year-old program by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services in beauty salons in the Washington Heights area, where a high number of cases of abuse and neglect in homes have a component of violence that is not necessarily aimed at children. The initiative joins similar efforts that have been sprouting across the nation; perhaps the best known, called Cut It Out and based in Chicago, has trained 40,000 salon professionals in all 50 states to recognize telltale signs of domestic abuse. In the past few months, the Cut It Out program was also adopted by the Empire Education Group, which has 87 cosmetology schools, and endorsed by the American Association of Cosmetology Schools, the trade organization representing another 800 schools.

Nearly 600,000 women and girls were victims of violence by an intimate partner in 2006, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In New York last year, the police received hundreds of domestic disturbance calls every day and recorded about 55,000 crimes connected to domestic violence — everything from stalkings to killings.

Neither the city’s program or the much larger Cut It Out, founded in 2002, tracks how many women they have referred for help, so it is hard to assess the effectiveness. But law enforcement officials in New York and nationally have praised the beauty-shop approach for reaching a population that normally hides from authorities.

Kathy Ryan, chief of the Domestic Violence Unit of the New York Police Department, said that battered women were such a hard population to reach that “preventing even one death should be considered success.”

The police have tried doing outreach to victims by, among other things, setting up domestic violence education tables at community events, only to find that no one wants to be seen near them. But the atmosphere is different in the safety of a beauty salon.

“The salon may be one of the few places women might be without their abuser around,” said Laurie Magid, a former state prosecutor who is acting United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “This program really addresses a need. You don’t have a case unless you have a crime reported in the first place and that is the difficult area of domestic violence.”

While Cut it Out trains stylists offsite, the Washington Heights workshops, conducted in Spanish, take place inside beauty parlors during the hours that clients are served, which not only makes it easier for people to participate, but also enhances the comfort factor.

“The salon is a place where everyone already feels at home,” said Sharon Kagawa of the Administration for Children’s Services, the agency that recruits salons for the program. “So they can be more honest.”

The Washington Heights program started in 2007, when a woman walked into Porto Pelo Unisex salon, just north of the George Washington Bridge, and unashamedly began telling everyone in shouting distance her marital saga.

She told of how her children had been removed from her home by the city because her husband beat them and her, but said she could not leave him because she feared deportation. As she wept, stylists and customers gathered around to offer comfort, but they had little advice on how to get help.

But Ingrid Dominguez, the director of the child welfare agency’s Washington Heights Family Preservation Program, who happened to be getting her hair done at Porto Pelo that day, knew where to get help. She knew all about nearby therapy and community resources, and knew all about violence in the home. She estimated that domestic violence was the root cause of about 95 percent of the hundreds of cases that crossed her desk each year, some as seemingly simple as student absenteeism.

“The child in question would have missed school, but it was to stay home and protect the mother,” Ms. Dominguez said in an interview. “Or they would be getting bad grades, but it was because they were so worried they could not concentrate.”

The episode gave Ms. Dominguez the idea of recruiting salons to help fight domestic abuse. Since then, the city has trained 116 stylists at 19 salons across Washington Heights and Inwood. Most were familiar with the problem; at Tauro Unisex Salon, one of the first beauty shops to sign up, a stylist was killed right out front by a jealous lover in 2004.

The plan is to reach all of the roughly 400 salons in the neighborhood in the next four years. “We love our salons up here,” Ms. Dominguez said. “By our research, we have one on every block on the main avenues.”

The point of the training is not to turn stylists into law enforcement officials, but to teach them how to identify victims and let them know their options.

The message was hammered home at a recent mid-morning training session at Divas Unisex Hair Salon, a 10-chair shop on Dyckman Street in Inwood. Karina Vargas, a social worker, set up a portable projector on a counter between vases of orchids, flashing slides on the red walls as the stylists, all speaking Spanish, snacked on doughnuts and casually offered up abuse stories.

Ms. Florentino worked on a client’s hair as she shared the story of the woman with cigarette burns on her temples. She spoke through a translator, as did all the other stylists. Never pausing from unrolling curlers, then tugging hair out under the hiss of the dryer, she said she had grown impatient and told the woman that if she would not listen to her warnings, she should stop coming there to get her hair done. And the woman stopped coming.

Over the drone of the dryer, Ms. Vargas gently explained that turning the woman away was probably the wrong move. Instead, she suggested patiently offering advice on resources like domestic-violence shelters. “She is the professional in her own relationship,” she said. “Only she knows when to leave.”

Next time, Ms. Florentino said, she would handle it differently.

Suddenly, her client, Aida Sosa, stood up to admire her hair and, in a puff of hairspray, burst out with her own story. “When my children were small, I was verbally abused,” she said. “I had to get out of it in my own time.”

Sonia Nieves, the owner of Sonia’s Beauty Center on 180th Street in Washington Heights, said she had already seen results since the trainers visited in February. The material about domestic violence that child welfare gives her to pass out, including phone numbers for resources like nearby safe houses and counseling, disappears quickly.

She said she has intervened with a client who said her husband punched her in front of their children. After Ms. Nieves gave her the information about available services, the woman called recently to say things were getting better. Ms. Nieves said she was unsure whether the client had left her husband or was working it out at home.

“I will find out when she comes in to get her hair done,” she said.

Uraguay Moves to Allow Abortion

The Uruguayan Senate has voted to decriminalise abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy - a rare step in a Latin American country.

The measure, approved last week by the lower house, passed by 17 votes to 13.

The bill's backers say it will reduce the number of women dying because they have to resort to illegal abortions.

But President Tabare Vazquez, himself a doctor, has said he opposes abortion on medical and ethical grounds, and he is expected to veto the bill.

Under the current law, women who have an abortion and the people who assist them face prison.

Abortion is only allowed in the case of rape or when the life of the woman is in danger.


Moves to decriminalise abortion have provoked fierce debate in Uruguay







The new legislation would allow women to terminate their pregnancies in the first 12 weeks for these reasons but also under certain other circumstances, such as extreme poverty.

'Milestone'

However, the measure is unlikely to take effect as President Vazquez has said he will veto the bill.

It would need a three-fifths majority in Congress to override a presidential veto.

The Roman Catholic Church in Uruguay had warned lawmakers voting for the bill that they could face ex-communication.

But the bill's backers said the vote was a "milestone" for women's rights in Uruguay.

"Whether the president vetoes it or not, it's important that Congress has established this right," Margarita Percovich, a senator from the governing party, told Reuters.

Recent opinion polls suggest a majority of Uruguayans favour easing restrictions on abortion.

Most Latin American countries allow abortion only in cases of rape, when the woman's life is in danger or if the foetus is severely deformed.

But both Cuba and Mexico City (though not the rest of Mexico) allow abortions without restriction in the first 12 weeks.

Free sex toys — and much more — for voting

By Mike Stuckey


Businesses across nation ready to reward citizens for casting their ballots


Just when you thought it was safe to focus on the issues in this historic election season, a chain of sex toy shops has joined retailers, restaurateurs and other businesses across the nation in the time-honored tradition of rewarding Americans who go to the polls.

Babeland, with stores in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle, is offering a pair of self-gratifying incentives for voters who present their registration cards, ballot stubs or “word of honor” that they voted next Tuesday.

The rewards are no-so-subtle reminders of this year’s campaign rhetoric. For men, it’s the “Maverick,” a "sleeve" for self-pleasuring. According to a press release, “He’s always there to lend a hand, he works for every man, and he bucks the status quo.” Women can choose the “Silver Bullet” mini-vibrator, which is “a magical solution to difficult problems” and “a great stress-reliever during these troubled economic times!” The promotion lasts through Nov. 11.

Babeland spokeswoman Pamela Doan told msnbc.com in an interview that the promotion is a first for the company, which she describes as “a sex-positive, women-friendly retailer for sex toys and accessories.”

Although the company is relying on press releases and bloggers to get the word out, “We’re expecting a good response,” Doan said. “Both of these toys are very popular. The Maverick retails for $20 and the Silver Bullet retails for $15. It’s a good reward.”

'Sex crosses party lines'
As to whether Babeland expects voters who take them up on the offer to lean one way or the other politically, Doan said, “Sex crosses party lines. … We’ve tried to make this into a nonpartisan reward because we welcome everyone. That’s our philosophy and our mission. We didn’t want to reward only Obama supporters. We have a lot of Republicans who shop at Babeland too.”

If the sex toys don’t float your vote, there are plenty of other less racy rewards to choose from in the afterglow of casting your ballot.

How about a free cup of Joe? Starbucks stores across the nation and Eat’n Park outlets in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia are among many U.S. restaurants offering complimentary coffee to anyone who presents a ballot stub or “I Voted” sticker.

Voters can get a beer on the house at Todd Conner’s pub in Baltimore’s historic Fells Point neighborhood.

Nunavut Cabinet: 3 of 19 have been charged with sexual assault

By Sara Minogue

Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik won a third term as a member of the territory's legislature Monday night in one of the most heated races of his political career.

Mr. Okalik beat out popular Iqaluit mayor, Elisapee Sheutiapik, who conceded the race before the final results were tallied.

Ms. Sheutiapik, who as mayor of the territory's capital had made a habit of challenging Mr. Okalik's leadership, was widely seen as the first serious contender for Mr. Okalik's seat in Iqaluit West. She had already declared her intentions to run for premier if elected.

Mr. Okalik has been premier since Nunavut became a territory in 1999 and is the longest-serving leader in the North.

But there were no guarantees he would be returned to the premier's seat.

Like the Northwest Territories, Nunavut operates under consensus government. Instead of political parties, all candidates run as Independents. Once the 19-seat legislature is elected, members select from among themselves a speaker, premier, and cabinet members by secret ballot.

And as the election results rolled in, it looked as though the legislature could be a sea of new faces.

Just one former cabinet member looked certain to return to the house Monday night — Louis Tapardjuk, Minister of Finance and Minister of Culture, Languages, Elders and Youth.

Deputy Premier Levinia Brown was one of the early casualties.

Ms. Brown lost her Rankin Inlet South/Whale Cove seat to Rankin Inlet Mayor Lorne Kusugak, who won a decisive victory despite the fact he was charged with sexual assault last month. Mr. Kusugak has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which date back to 2001, and his trial will proceed in December.

One of the more controversial members of the previous legislature was roundly defeated by a political neophyte.

Nunavut businessman David Simailak was kicked out of Mr. Okalik's cabinet last winter, after allegations emerged that he had an undeclared interest in a company that received a million-dollar loan from a government agency. He was reprimanded a second time after further investigation revealed he had repeatedly, over two years, acted on behalf of his business interests while serving as finance minister.

As a condition of running in this election, Nunavut's integrity commissioner ordered Mr. Simailak to deliver a letter to each household in his constituency acknowledging and apologizing for his actions.

But voters turfed Mr. Simailak in favour of Moses Aupaluktuq.

Two candidates with sexual assault convictions on their recorded faced closely contested races.

Former human resources minister Levi Barnabas, who was forced to resign his seat in 2000 after pleading guilty to a sexual assault, was hoping to be returned to the legislature in the High Arctic riding of Quttiktuq. He appeared headed for defeat late Monday night at the hands of Ron Elliott, an adult educator from Ontario.

In the riding of Tununiq on north Baffin Island, James Arvaluk was re-elected after being forced to resign from both the Northwest Territories and Nunavut legislatures in 1995 and 2003 for two separate sexual assault convictions. The second conviction involved violence and resulted in a nine-month jail sentence. He made his comeback in a by-election in 2006.

Nine women ran in this election — the highest proportion of female candidates yet. But Nunavut's languages commissioner Eva Aariak was the lone woman to win, taking Iqaluit East.

In a record for the territory, four non-Inuit were elected. All were long-time northerners.

Voters have yet to head to the polls in two constituencies.

The race for the South Baffin seat was postponed by a week because no candidates came forward to run in the general election.

In central Nunavut, the race in Akulliq has been postponed indefinitely while former Nunavut MP Jack Anawak launches a legal challenge over the right to run in the general election without meeting the current residency requirement of 12 months.

Mr. Okalik campaigned on the territory's improved situation — the economy has improved almost 40 per cent in recent years and the budget has remained balanced.

The mining industry invested $230-million in the territory last year, a big reason why Nunavut's unemployment rate has steadily dropped from 13 per cent in 2004 to 8.7 per cent in 2007.

Important and long-awaited pieces of social legislation have also become law.

A new Education Act guarantees that students will be taught in Inuktitut, Nunavut's majority language. A Language Act also ensures that Nunavummiut will be able to receive services in their language.

The territory is also finally implementing a prevention strategy to fight a suicide rate nine times the national average.

But some said Mr. Okalik's own policies were a big reason why progress was slow until recently.

They argued that his goal of moving government offices out of the capital into even more remote communities to spread the jobs around has made it tough to find qualified workers. Spreading out the bureaucracy over three time zones has also made the business of government vastly more expensive and complicated.

Ms. Sheutiapik, who also owns a bistro in Iqaluit, ran on a message of change saying Mr. Okalik had amassed too much authority in his own office.

She argued Mr. Okalik's leadership style had been holding Nunavut back, and that all organizations in the territory — communities, land-claims groups and the government — had to start working together.

Young Women and Sexual Coercion: Reproductive Health Realities

by Esta Soler

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/10/21/making-link-between-reproductive-health-and-violence-against-women

Nearly every time a candidate, presidential or otherwise, discusses reproductive health in this year's election the conversation turns to prevention. Each has his or her specific ideas about what prevention means. Unfortunately, this conversation has been woefully incomplete.

There is an important contributor to unintended pregnancy, especially among young people, that is rarely mentioned on the campaign trail or even among advocates -- namely, the strong link between unintended pregnancies and dating violence or coercion.

We've all heard the stereotypes and assumptions--"she's pregnant because she was too irresponsible to use birth control" or "she got HIV because she sleeps around." But emerging data is shining a light on a very different story: an astonishing number of young women, while dating or in relationships, are raped or coerced into sex, prevented from using protection, or forced into choices that are not their own.

The correlation between abuse and pregnancy is complex - and overdue for further research and public discussion. Consider the following facts:

Rates of sexual coercion are high. New research conducted for the Family Violence Prevention Fund finds that nearly 1 in 5 women age 18 to 24 report having experienced forced sexual intercourse at least once in their lives. The most common types of force are verbal or physical pressure, and being physically held down. More than half the women forced to have sexual intercourse report experiencing each of these types of force. Approximately a quarter of the women report being physically hurt.

Abused women are more likely to have an unintended pregnancy. Forty percent of pregnant women who have been exposed to abuse report that their pregnancy was unintended, compared to just eight percent of non-abused women. As many as two-thirds of adolescents who become pregnant were sexually or physically abused some time in their lives.

Pregnant women are more at risk for abuse. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for pregnant and recently pregnant women.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund's new kNOw MORE initiative is designed to start a dialogue about the birth control sabotage and reproductive coercion that many teens and young women face, and help draw the link to the resulting reproductive health problems. We are creating a space for women to share stories, and raising awareness among those who may be at risk as well as their friends, policy makers and others.

Abuse often takes the form of birth control sabotage or other reproductive control.

The kNOw MORE initiative shines a spotlight on the prevalence of coercion and the ways it affects reproductive health. The stories on our site shed light on how this plays out.

One woman, Kylie, who shared her story, wrote, "when I first met my ex, he never wanted to use condoms. He did want me to use the ‘morning-after pill,' I'll admit. I was quite young and didn't know how to stand up for myself, so I became pregnant after coerced sex. For the next four years, I stayed with my ex for the sake of the baby, suffering the most horrific kinds of abuse--physical and emotional. His "reason" for abusing me? Because I 'trapped' him through pregnancy. Although the only thing I'd been doing since the pregnancy was begging him to let me leave, he threatened to kill me, the baby, and my entire family if I ever attempted it."

Too often, victims of reproductive coercion are stigmatized and labeled. They hide their stories because they feel judged and shamed.

The bottom line is that unintended pregnancies are not simply a matter of promiscuous young women who do not use birth control. A pregnancy may be the result of a controlling partner who has engaged in birth control sabotage or coerced sexual intercourse. Anyone who is serious about turning back the tide of unintended pregnancies in this country must also understand the profound connections between violence, coercion and the reproductive health consequences - which include pregnancy, STD's and HIV and emotional trauma - for women.
We can, we must, take action. October is National Domestic Violence Awareness month, and this year it also coincides with the 2008 elections - a time when we gather as a nation to discuss important issues. The time has come for a meaningful dialogue about how we are going to commit to stopping sexual coercion and the unintended pregnancies that can result. A generation of young women is counting on us.

Rape victim upset? Well, she's smiling on Facebook said lawyer

By Ryan Kisiel
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076965/Rape-victim-upset-Well-shes-smiling-Facebook-said-lawyer.html?page1

A barrister has caused outrage by suggesting a rape victim could not have been upset by her ordeal because there were photos of her on Facebook looking happy.

The woman was attacked in 2001 when she was 19 and has since tried to kill herself.

Her attacker, Anthony Francis, was caught seven years later as a result of a DNA sample.

His barrister tried to persuade a judge to be lenient by showing pictures posted on the social networking site of the woman laughing and smiling at a fancy dress party in the years since the rape.

Colin McCarraher, defending, told Reading Crown Court last week: 'What we have is a person who has post traumatic stress but is quite capable of going out and having a good time at a fancy dress party.'

Mr McCarraher told the court that although he did not know when the images had been taken, they did not tally entirely with someone struggling to rebuild their life.

The barrister's attempt to save his client from a lengthy prison sentence failed and Deputy Circuit Judge Stanley Spence jailed Francis for five-and-a-half years.

Last night the barrister's comments were criticised by Martin Salter, Labour MP for Reading West.

Mr Salter, a member of the home affairs select committee, said: 'This quite extraordinary and callous attempt by the defence barrister to suggest that rape victims are not entitled to a life of their own is a shameful act and does no credit to our criminal justice system.'

Yvonne Traynor, chief executive of the South London branch of Rape Crisis, said: 'The barrister should be banished from his job and not allowed to return.

'If he had met any rape victim and seen what it can do to people's lives, I doubt he would have acted in the same way. It is disgusting.'

During Francis's trial last month, Reading Crown Court heard how he met his victim in the Matrix nightclub in the town on July 21, 2001.

She left the club with him and he drove her to a park, where he raped her in his car. The woman said that after a while she stopped struggling so as not to prolong the attack.

Francis then drove her back to the nightclub, where she instantly made a complaint of rape. Francis, who now lives in Wolverhampton, evaded arrest for seven years until he was stopped by police in the West Midlands for another matter and his DNA matched a sample taken from the victim.

He admitted having sex with the woman but claimed that it had been consensual. However, a jury did not believe him and found him guilty of one count of rape on September 10 this year.

The court heard that the victim had tried to kill herself in 2003 and it was only in the last year that she had been able to move on with her life.

Leslie Bates, prosecuting, said: 'She described herself as a happy, bubbly person who was thoroughly enjoying life.

'She was happy in her relationship, happy in her employment, and what happened on that day clearly changed her life greatly over the next seven years.

'She describes how she became depressed and at the beginning of February 2003 she took an overdose. Fortunately she was found by a friend.'

Last night Mr McCarraher refused to comment on the mitigation methods he used.

USA Today: Palin's town used to bill victims for rape kits

By Ken Dilanian and Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_n.htm

WASILLA, Alaska — In 2000, Alaska lawmakers learned that rural police agencies had been billing rape victims or their insurance companies $500 to $1,200 for the costs of the forensic medical examinations used to gather evidence. They quickly passed a law prohibiting the practice.

According to the sponsor, Democrat Eric Croft, the law was aimed in part at Wasilla, where now-Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor. When it was signed, Wasilla's police chief expressed displeasure.

"In the past, we've charged the cost of exams to the victims' insurance company when possible," then-chief Charlie Fannon told the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, the local newspaper. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

Now that Palin is the Republican nominee for vice president, Democrats such as former Alaska governor Tony Knowles — who signed the rape-kit bill into law and was defeated by Palin in 2006 — are raising the issue to question Palin's commitment to women's issues and crime victims. Palin appointed Fannon after firing his predecessor shortly after she took office in 1996.


"In retrospect, I would have asked the female working-mother mayor of that town why her police chief was against this," said Croft, the former Anchorage state representative.

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said in an e-mail that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."

"Gov. Palin's position could not be more clear," she said. "To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice."

Comella would not answer other questions, including when Palin learned of Wasilla's policy or whether she tried to change it. The campaign cited the governor's record on domestic violence, including increasing funding for shelters.

Knowles criticized Palin to USA TODAY, and again Wednesday in a teleconference organized by Democrats. "It seems like one of those pieces of legislation that you can't imagine it would ever have to be written," he said.

Until the 2000 legislation, local law enforcement agencies in Alaska could pass along the cost of the exams, which are needed to obtain an attacker's DNA evidence. Rape victims in several areas of Alaska, including the Matanuska-Susitna Valley where Wasilla is, complained about being charged for the tests, victims' advocate Lauree Hugonin, of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, told state House committees, records show.

In cases when insurance companies are billed, the victims pay a deductible.

Fannon told the Frontiersman that the tests would cost the department up to $14,000 per year. He said he would rather force rapists to pay for the tests, not taxpayers. Fannon, who is no longer police chief, could not be reached for comment Wednesday; his home phone number has been disconnected.

It is not known how many rape victims in Wasilla were required to pay for some or all of the medical exams, but a legislative staffer who worked on the bill for Croft said it happened. "It was more than a couple of cases, and it was standard practice in Wasilla," Peggy Wilcox said, who now works for the Alaska Public Employees Association. "If you were raped in Wasilla, this was going to happen to you."

After calling Wasilla Mayor Dianne Keller for comment Tuesday, USA TODAY was instructed to submit a public records request, under which the city has 10 days to respond. As of Wednesday, the city had not responded to a request for records reflecting Wasilla's prior policy, including when it took effect and the cost to sexual assault victims.

In 2000, there were 497 rapes reported in Alaska, FBI statistics show. That's a rate of 79.3 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation.

Nationally, victims' advocates have for years reported scattered instances of rape victims being required to pay for their forensic tests, says Ilse Knecht of the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington. Those complaints have subsided somewhat after Congress in 2005 passed a law requiring states to provide rape exams free of charge or reimburse victims for the costs, says Knecht, whose group supported the provision.

"The reason we passed the legislation was that we saw it was prevalent enough to be a pretty considerable problem," Knecht says. "There are no other victims of crime that end up being billed for evidence collection."

The Senate version of the legislation that included the rape-exam provision was sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was one of 58 co-sponsors; Republican presidential nominee John McCain was not.

Sarah Palin and the Rape Kits - A NY Times Editorial

By Dorothy Samuels
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/opinion/26fri4.html?em

Even in tough budget times, there are lines that cannot be crossed. So I was startled by this tidbit reported recently by The Associated Press: When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the small town began billing sexual-assault victims for the cost of rape kits and forensic exams.

Ms. Palin owes voters an explanation. What was the thinking behind cutting the measly few thousand dollars needed to cover the yearly cost of swabs, specimen containers and medical tests? Whose dumb idea was it to make assault victims and their insurance companies pay instead? Unfortunately, her campaign is shielding the candidate from the press, so Americans may still be waiting for answers on Election Day.

The rape-kit controversy is a troubling matter. The insult to rape victims is obvious. So is the sexism inherent in singling them out to foot the bill for investigating their own case. And the main result of billing rape victims is to protect their attackers by discouraging women from reporting sexual assaults.

That’s why when Senator Joseph Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, drafted the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, he included provisions to make states ineligible for federal grant money if they charged rape victims for exams and the kits containing the medical supplies needed to conduct them. (Senator John McCain, Ms. Palin’s running mate, voted against Mr. Biden’s initiative, and his name has not been among the long list of co-sponsors each time the act has been renewed.)

That’s also why, when news of Wasilla’s practice of billing rape victims got around, Alaska’s State Legislature approved a bill in 2000 to stop it.

“We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence,” said Alaska’s then-governor, Tony Knowles. “Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.”

If Ms. Palin ever spoke out about the issue, one way or another, no record has surfaced. Her campaign would not answer questions about when she learned of the policy, strongly supported by the police chief: whether she saw it in the budget and if not, whether she learned of it before or after the State Legislature outlawed the practice.

All the campaign would do was provide a press release pronouncing: “Prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault is a priority for Gov. Palin.”

Eric Croft, a former Democratic state lawmaker who sponsored the corrective legislation, believes that Wasilla’s mayor knew what was going on. (She does seem to have paid heed to every other detail of town life, including what books were on the library’s shelves.)

The local hospital did the billing, but it was the town that set the policy, Mr. Croft noted. That policy was reflected in budget documents that Ms. Palin signed.

Mr. Croft further noted that right after his measure became law, Wasilla’s local paper reported that Ms. Palin’s handpicked police chief, Charlie Fannon, acknowledged the practice of billing to collect evidence for sexual-assault cases. He complained that the state was requiring the town to spend $5,000 to $14,000 a year to cover the costs. “I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” the chief explained.

“I can’t imagine any police chief, big city or small, who would take on the entire State Legislature on a bill that passed unanimously and not mention to their mayor that they’re doing this,” Mr. Croft said. Even if he didn’t inform her, the newspaper article would have been hard for her to miss.

In the absence of answers, speculation is bubbling in the blogosphere that Wasilla’s policy of billing rape victims may have something to do with Ms. Palin’s extreme opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape. Sexual-assault victims are typically offered an emergency contraception pill, which some people in the anti-choice camp wrongly equate with abortion.

My hunch is that it was the result of outmoded attitudes and boneheaded budget cutting. Still, Ms. Palin has been governor for under two years, and she’s running for vice president largely on her experience as mayor of tiny Wasilla — a far superior credential, she’s told us, to being a community organizer. On the rape kits, as on other issues, she owes voters a direct answer.