Introducing Project Guardrail

What #MeToo can do to include PREVENTION along with awareness

Project Guardrail is about changing the environment which presently enables sexual predation so that everyone knows that victims' stories will be saved and heard  -- we do this through education and a mobile app.

Harvey Weinstein opened our eyes to a massive need: millions of victims of sexual assault and harassment have gone unprotected because they feel unable to tell their story on their terms.

The past month has reinforced a few sad truths that we at Empowering Victims have known all too well for the three years we have been working on this issue:

• Many perpetrators have no idea that they are doing something wrong while they are doing it.  That realization only occurs later if ever.
• Many victims have only a vague idea that something wrong is being done to them whilst it is occurring.   That realization only occurs upon reflection and discussion.
• Because the realization of the “wrong” is delayed, control of the story matters greatly.
• The perpetrators are often in a position of power and use that position to silence the story.
• The greater the delay in telling the story, the greater the injury to the victim, the greater the possibility of injustice to all, and the higher the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.

We believe that the single greatest preventative measure we, as a society, can take is to make it well understood that victim’s stories will be told, that silence cannot be permanently coerced, and that the story belongs to the victim and no one else.

Just as guardrails serve to protect us on mountain roads, story preservation can serve to protect potential victims of sexual assault and harassment.  Giving prospective victims an easy and reliable way to control their story reassures everyone.  The potential perpetrator knows that silence cannot be certain and must weigh the risk of disclosure – disclosure on the victim’s terms. Empowering Victims has the beta of such a guardrail -- an app which allows victims to record their story and have it preserved in a manner which ensures credibility and anonymity.  Because retrieval of the recordings can only happen by appropriate authorities there is no risk of public exposure  -- the app is not a tool for potential blackmail.  Instead the app is the first version of a story holding safeguard  -- a means for victims to control both the telling of the story and the timing of that telling.  Our app has been 3 years in the making and has been downloaded by more than 50,000 users.  But, we need your help to turn the beta into the game changer it can be.

Please see http://empoweringvictims.org/NextSteps.pdf
  
and #MeToo's Border Wall (an article on Medium)