'Listen and believe' Panelists share stories of intimate violence
By Nora Wiltse
Staff Writer

"A woman is 10 times as likely to be raped as to die in a car crash ... There were more females injured by rapists last year than marines wounded by the enemy in all of WWII ."

These statistics were written in red ink on body-shaped white paper cut-outs. They hung on the walls of Norris 101 Monday night for the second annual Intimate Violence Survivors Panel. The Anna Howard Shaw Center for Women's Studies and Programs and SHARE co-sponsored the panel. Nicole Kramer, '95, was the first of three survivors to speak.

"I met Dave when I was 18," she began. She said the relationship started out with respect, but progressively led to rape.

"He forced himself inside me and wouldn't get off until he finished. I saw the experience as rape, I recognized it as rape, but I stayed in the relationship. My first experience with sexual intercourse was rape."

And when they were no longer dating, he raped her again."I screamed and yelled and cried the whole time," Kramer said.

But she channeled the experience into the positive...she is now a legal advocate for a domestic violence protection center.

Julie Thornton, Livonia sophomore, spoke next. Her older brother sexually molested her for five years, beginning when she was 5 years old.

"My mom was warning me about the guy in the trench coat, but she never warned me about my own brother," she said. "I just didn't know my brother wasn't supposed to molest me."

In junior high school, she finally a friend and a psychologist...who urged Thornton to tell her mother. She said her mom replied, "Are you sure?" "To this day she still doesn't believe me," Thornton said.

The third panelist was Jacqueline Worosz, Plymouth senior. Her father's uncle molested and raped her when she was about 7 years old. In junior high school, her repressed memories "flooded back to me ... I just sort of exploded." Her parents supported her when she told them. "The next day my father started proceedings to sue my uncle.

"I ... suffered the physical and sexual abuse, but my whole family endured this as well."

The Worosz case was settled out of court, but "What is money when he's taken something from me that can never be replaced?" All panelists said their experiences have permanent effects.

I wouldn't be on the panel if it wasn't constantly on my mind," Worosz said. She is now doing a directed study on the effects of childhood molestation.

Worosz spoke at last year's panel, and said she could tell the impact was positive. People "came out of the woodwork."

"This is not a taboo," said Trisha Franzen, women's center director. "This is something we can talk about."

Worosz agreed."I'm very proud to be up here talking about it...we need to deal with it to get past it."

The panelists were asked what people should say or do when others tell them of sexual abuse. "One thing is 'I believe you'," Thornton said. "It's not your fault ... you're not alone." Franzen added, "It's important just to listen and believe."

Albion's 24-hour sexual assault hotline is ext. #9876.