Sexual violence has always been about power.
For those who feel powerless it is a way to steal someone else's power and feel in control. For the powerful, especially powerful men, it is a tool of entitlement. Our history is riddled with great leaders, both men and women, who have advanced the quality of life for many but done so at the expense of others.
The Epstein files continue to be ignored because of the powerful men implicated in them. Survivors of his abuse still struggle to have their stories heard and believed in the face of a system that just wants them to stay quiet.
Even those who built power through movements dedicated to addressing injustices can be guilty of abusing that power.
In founding the UFW, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta worked to expose the exploitation of farm workers, improve their quality of life, demand living wages, and continue to advocate for safer work environments. Those struggles are ongoing today.
And yet, we are learning that Cesar Chavez was a man who committed sexual violence against women and girls in his life, including his founding partner in the movement they built. Dolores Huerta and her fellow survivors were put in an impossible situation: having to choose between staying silent or risking the downfall of everything they had built.
We are the ones who put them in that position.
All of our society that forces victims to choose between the safety of anonymity or the risk of public disclosure and everything that can be lost... because WE are the ones who allow that loss to happen with our responses.
WE are the ones who were not there for Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguia, Debra Rojas, and the other survivors who spoke with the New York Times, and the survivors who stayed silent all these years.
WE are the ones who made them feel they had to choose because we were not capable of both supporting the good work their movement did AND holding the man at the top accountable for his violence.
We must do better and we know what that looks like.
It looks like believing survivors the first time.
It looks like refusing to protect a legacy at the cost of a person's truth.
It looks like building a world where no one is ever forced to choose between justice and survival.
HAVEN is committed to that world, and we invite everyone reading this to join us in building it.
- HAVEN Justice Equity Diversity Inclusion (JEDI) Committee