White Ribbon Campaign

The White Ribbon Campaign

Make Your Ribbon

NEW!!!

At the 2004 RWA Conference, the white ribbon will be a sign of solidarity against stalking and stalking-related crimes by supporting the individual’s constitutional right to privacy and control over one’s own personal information.

Wear it on your shirt or your nametag to show your support!

You can make a ribbon out of cloth ribbon, gift ribbon, or even a piece of paper. The substance doesn't mater--just the color.

Some attendees will be giving out more ribbons to people at the convention. If you’d like to do so, too, your support would be greatly appreciated.

Stalking is an all too common form of abuse against women. According to the Department of Justice, 8% of all women and 2% of all men will be stalked at some point in their lives.

This percentage is higher in public figures, including authors, who are subject to special dangers in addition to the threat that the general public faces.

Most violent crimes begin with stalking, and victims of abduction are usually stalked before they are kidnapped. 76% of women killed by their intimate partners were stalked by these partners before they were killed.

Only 25% percent of victims get restraining orders according to the DOJ. 69% of restraining orders are violated. In fact, police in some jurisdictions routinely warn victims of stalking that restraining orders can have an exacerbating effect on a stalkers, and many advocates recommend them only on a case-by-case basis.

According to the National Institute of Justice and the CDC in 1998, the relationship between the victim and the stalker were as follows:

Intimate/Dating 43%
Neighbor 8%
Co-worker 5%
Acquaintance 3%
Spouse/ex-spouse 18%
Public Figure 8%
None 15%

Also, 72% of defendants in stalking cases (92% of which were male with an average age of 38) had a prior criminal record, the majority being intimate abuse crimes.

According to the National Center for Victims of Crime:

According to a study on the impact stalking has on victims’ psychological well-being, the stalking victims’ scores for somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction, and severe depression were much closer to those of psychiatric outpatients than those of the general population.

Thirty-one percent of stalking victims had recurring thoughts about suicide as a result of being stalked according to a study of stalking victims.

A study found that the physical and mental health effects of being stalked were not gender-related. Both male and female victims experienced impaired health, depression, injury, and were more likely to engage in substance abuse than their non-stalked peers

Despite these statistics, when a victim approaches a person or organization that is disseminating potentially dangerous private information about her, she is often not taken seriously. It is shrugged off as something "minor" when the statistics clearly show the danger, physical and psychological. Sometimes, the person or organization demands as proof of danger possibly hazardous steps such as obtaining a restraining order, or they ask for proof of specific threats against the victim when several studies clearly show that the stalkers who make explicit threats are less dangerous, on average, than those who don't*. Sometimes, victims even find themselves facing claims or implications that they “deserve” to be stalked!

This reckless indifference to the welfare of stalking victims and those who wish to take precautions against stalking results in the violation of an individual's constitutional right to privacy and the endangerment of those individuals by making their private information needlessly available.

This attitude is reactionary and dangerous, and it must be faced—and brought to an end.

*Dietz PE, Matthews DB, Martell DA, Stewart TM, Hrouda DR, Warren J : Threatening and otherwise inappropriate letters sent to members of the United States Congress. J Forensic Sci 1991 Sep;36(5):1445-68. & Zona MA, Sharma KK, Lane J: A comparative study of erotomanic and obsessional subjects in a forensic sample. J Forensic Sci 1993 Jul;38(4):894-903. Comment in: J Forensic Sci. 1994 Jul;39(4):905-7.--among others.

Stalking is a willful course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable person to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested. It can be conducted in person, over the telephone, through the mail, or over the internet.

First, we declare that NO ONE should have to live in fear because of a stalker. Stalking is never deserved.

If a person has a relationship with another individual who turns into a stalker, she does not “deserve” it because she made a poor choice in friend, lover, or partner. Most stalking is done by people who are known to the victim. Knowing a person who turns into a stalker in no way makes a woman complicit in her own persecution.

If a person has an online disagreement with another individual who then stages a campaign of stalking and harassment against her, she does not deserve it.

If a person is a public figure, she is not asking to be stalked through her exposure through any form of media.

Being young, pretty, poor, or even engaging in high-risk activities or any other excuse does not make a person deserving of being stalked.

In short, under no circumstances does someone deserve to be stalked.

Secondly, we affirm that it is the responsibility of every member of society to not expose other individuals to unnecessary danger through action or negligence. Our society and our legal system consistently uphold this principle, and so there are legal terms such as reckless endangerment, reckless disregard, gross negligence, and attractive nuisance, among others, to describe a failure to adhere to it.

Refusing to recognize an individual's right to privacy when their safety may be at stake is evidence of a blatant disregard for this principle.

Furthermore, we affirm that there is an implied constitutional right to privacy that has been recognized by the courts, and control over personal information must be regarded as part of that right.

If a stalker cannot find out where his victim lives, he cannot terrorize her at home. If he is refused access to a victim’s phone number, he cannot call her. If he does not know her email address, he cannot email her.

Therefore, we recognize that it is the right of any individual to decide what personal information, if any, should be displayed publicly. Just as a person may choose to have an unpublished phone number or to use a P.O. box, and just as the right to use a false name is generally protected if the purpose is not for fraud, it is also the right of any individual to conceal any identifying information that he or she desires. This applies equally to someone who wishes to take preventative steps against victimization as it does to someone who is currently a victim.

Therefore, the ethical and correct course of action of any individual or organization, private or public, that collects and/or distributes information is to:

Take as little personal or identifying information as is necessary.
Display or share personal information with only the continuing consent of the individual or as required by law.

Display or share only the minimal amount of information necessary for the circumstances.

Cooperate with the desire of an individual to display alternative, non-endangering data where feasible, including but not limited to false names and protective addresses.

Personal information, whether a phone number, an address, an email address, or even a name, belongs to the individual. Under no circumstances should this right of the individual be contravened except in the legally established right of the public to know in the case of certain media coverage or as required by law.

The right of control over personal information is not waived even if:

At some time in the past, such personal information was readily available, whether by the individual’s consent or not.

Such information can still be found through means not under the control of the individual.

Ideally, no excuse whatsoever need be given if an individual wishes to avoid publicity in a certain forum, but a “good faith” litmus test is the most stringent that should ever be applied to such a situation. That consists of requiring evidence or a statement that the individual has taken all reasonable steps to the best of her knowledge to take back overall control of her personal information.

If you are sympathetic with our cause, please make yourself white ribbon to wear at the RWA convention! Even better, make extras to hand out to people there. Please, forward this page to friends, or put it in the footer of your emails. You can also add this picture and link to this page from your own website:

If you don't know and want to find out why we're showing our support specifically at the RWA Convention, email whiteribbon2004@yahoo.com for more information. Because the problems involve a case of stalking and privacy, it would be unwise to post it in a public forum.