Latest News & Announcements

Dear partner,

WCSAP has recently gone through some significant changes, and we’re working on creating a path to move forward  to best serve our community.

As happens during natural disasters, survivors may not report a sexual assault or seek services for a variety of reasons. They may feel that sexual assault is not "as important" in the current context. Because of the chaos associated with a public health crisis, survivors may not know how to seek services, if anything is open/available, where to go, or who to talk to.

The Senate bill 6030 plans to make immigrant communities less safe, silence immigrant survivors, and push them further into the shadows. Immigrant survivors need access to justice and to reach out for support when they experience violence and discrimination. This access will effectively be blocked when the fear of removal from the U. S. is stronger.

WCSAP Supports Safer Immigrant Communities

We aim to create a safer state for immigrants and refugees and encourage our communities to continue to build onto existing protections and to center immigrant communities in creating solutions for access and safety.

Join WCSAP in making anti-oppression a priority in 2020. This year, we make a commitment to:

We are leading organizations in Washington State working to end sexual assault, domestic violence, and other forms of gender-based violence. We are deeply disturbed by the news, reported last week, that the Seattle Police Department has apparently abandoned existing policy on prostitution enforcement and resumed the practice of routinely arresting women in the sex trade in North Seattle.

We do not advise anyone to use an at-home rape kit as a viable alternative to a forensic exam. We also do not advise that any college or university encourage students to use this product or make it available for use. Me Too Kit has provided no information to explain how these kits will be admissible in court and how the proper chain of custody will be followed.

State and national sexual assault coalitions across the country are united in condemning the separation of children from family members as well as the violence and dehumanizing conditions faced by people being held in detention. The treatment of adults and children while detained in U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) migrant detention centers under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is dehumanizing and therefore unacceptable.

The continuing abhorrent separation of children from family members and incarceration of children is appalling and a human rights violation. The crisis on our U.S. Border is exacerbated by these cruel policies steeped in hatred of immigrants from Latin American countries and Black and Brown immigrants coming via Latin American countries. The camps have been affirmed by Holocaust scholars as parallel to concentration camps.