AzSan Adopts New Name: CEASE Coalition to End Arizona's Sexual Exploitation

January 17, 2012

To the Arizona State Legislature:

As you embark upon this Session, we know there are many pressing policy issues facing our State in its Centennial year involving the economy, jobs, education, housing and health care that will consume a great deal of your attention in the coming months. We greatly appreciate the enormity of your tasks and admire the energy and devotion you are dedicating to the betterment our State for future generations.

One other important area that we strongly urge you to devote attention to in the coming months is the protection of and services for sexual assault victims in our State. Arizona has effective laws and we know our public safety community is focused on protecting these victims and bringing perpetrators to justice. However, in the last few years, we have seen other states move forward with additional resources and training for investigations of these types of crimes, stronger laws and greater protections and services for these vulnerable victims. We can all agree that Arizona’s victims of sexual violence should receive the same attention and protections as victims do in other states. Within the last year, I became the Executive Director of AzSAN -- a collaborative statewide network focusing on the prevention, education and intervention of sexual assault. Recently, as our Board expanded our scope, we have adopted a new name to better reflect the additional areas we are addressing and services we are providing. AzSAN is now “CEASE,” which stands for Coalition to End Arizona Sexual Exploitation, a coalition committed to achieving a society free of sexual violence. Together with our coalition members, we initiate policies and legislation that protect victim’s rights, sustain funding streams for sexual assault advocacy, provide adequate care for victims, and increase the safety of Arizona’s communities.

We fulfill this mission through cooperative public awareness campaigns, an extensive network of resources and service providers, training to support professionals working in the field, an extensive lending library of resource materials, and collaborative advisory councils addressing community responses to sexual assault. Now, as CEASE, we are broadening our network, providing new and additional training and resources and working collaboratively with partner entities such as the ASU Diane Halle Center for Family Justice, NATN-SEEDS, and the O’Connor House, to name a few. Highlighting some of the areas we will be focusing on in the near future, we are working to:

• expand protections for the victims of human trafficking
• improve and increase capacity for batterers’ intervention
• develop and inform victims of minimum standards for shelters and sexual assault
• advocacy centers through a voluntary accreditation system
• raise awareness of sexual assault on university campuses and improve school
• procedures to protect victims
• enrich our coordination with Native American communities so that training, education and services for sexual assault are equally available throughout our State
  

We offer our network’s knowledge and expertise in the areas of sexual assault and human trafficking by providing briefings to you at any and all times. And, we can serve as a resource for research, training and information to you and your staffs. To achieve a society free from sexual violence, CEASE’ mission is centered on coordination and collaboration. We look forward to serving that mission with you during this Legislative Session.

Sincerely,

Peggy Bilsten

Executive Director

Remember, rape is never the victim's fault.

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