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Kansas Agencies Push Lawmakers To Protect Sexual Assault Victims

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The Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center is among 29 agencies across Kansas pushing for lawmakers to close a loophole that restricts protection for victims across the state. KMUW’s Carla Eckels reports…

A bill introduced by Representative Gail Finney of Wichita would add protection orders for sexual assault victims into the existing Protection from Abuse Act and the Protection from Stalking Act.

Under current law, if you are not in an intimate relationship or have at least two incidents of stalking, you are unable to qualify for the Protection from Abuse or Protection from Stalking order. 

Credit Carla Eckels
Cherrie Holder is a Protection Order Advocate with the Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center

  "What we’ve seen is that a lot victims have come in and it’s been a one-time incident or it’s a child who--it’s a family friend that has sexually abused them, and they as well will not fit into the criteria as its stands," says Cherrie Holder, a Protection Order Advocate with the Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center.

The Protection from Abuse Act applies to current or former intimate partners including dating partners. To qualify for the order, a victim must show that an abuser threatened to physically harm or actually harmed them. Sara Rust Martin, Legal and Policy Director at the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence says sexual assault often occurs between two people who might have some sort of friendship.

"It might be a social encounter, it might be a close friend, it might be going to a party on a college campus and knowing the people in the room, so it doesn’t mean that this is somebody that they are in an intimate relationship with," says Rust Martin. "If that’s the case, then the Protection from Abuse applies. What we’re talking about is those situations that don’t qualify under that and unfortunately that is a large amount of the sexual violence that takes place."

The Protection from Stalking Act requires two or more instances of threats to physically harm a victim or someone who demonstrates stalking behavior. Rust Martin says after an assault, many victims feel like they’re vulnerable to further violence or other threats from abusers.

"They do many times have a way of locating the victim, of knowing where the victim lives of going to the same schools as the victim of other things and so because of that, many victims want to have an order of protection in place as a means of feeling safer," says Rust Martin.

Kathy Williams, Executive Director of the Wichita Sexual Assault Center says an order of protection is a civil action that one person can take against another one.

"This is not a criminal kind of action where law enforcement will investigate but a civil action, as is a restraining order," Williams says.

If the protection order is violated, police action is justified to enforce the order and protect the safety of the victim. Holder, who’s work includes support to families dealing with abuse, says passing the bill can also help children who have been sexually assaulted.

"If a parent comes in to file on behalf of their child and let’s say the offender was a family friend and it was one time incident but the child is afraid of this person coming around and still harassing them, as the statute stands right now, they don’t qualify for the order and so what this bill will help is to include those type of victims and sexual assault victims that don’t fit the order as it stands," says Holder.

Holder says on average, five sexual assault victims a month are turned away because they don’t meet the requirement for protection from their offender. She says one victim is too many to have to turn away.

"For the victim to feel that they have this added protection and to feel safe in their community and having their offender to stay away from them is extremely important to us as a community," says Holder, "not just to the victim--but to the community as a whole."

Twenty-seven states have already passed laws providing protection orders for sexual assault victims. The Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice is currently reviewing the Kansas bill.

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Follow Carla Eckels on Twitter: @Eckels.

Carla Eckels is Director of Organizational Culture at KMUW. She produces and hosts the R&B and gospel show Soulsations and brings stories of race and culture to The Range with the monthly segment In the Mix. Carla was inducted into The Kansas African American Museum's Trailblazers Hall of Fame in 2020 for her work in broadcast/journalism.