MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Rape & Domestic Violence Information Center in Morgantown is marking 50 years of helping sexual assault victims in the Mountain State.
Virginia Jackson Hopkins, one of the founding members of RDVIC, said on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkline” it was a different time in 1973.
“It was not a crime to molest boys. The age of consent for girls was 10 years old. Women had to put up enough of a fight to show that they were resistant or there wouldn’t be a conviction,” she said.
Hopkins said the center was purchased in 1983. She said they worked to enact laws to protect everyone from sexual assault.
“The mindset then was ‘a decent woman would rather be dead than be raped and therefore she should put up enough of a fight that even if it was a risk to her own safety, that didn’t matter.’ Those laws were changed, and it was a gender-neutral law that said we need to protect men and women, boys and girls,” she said.
Since the center opened, RDVIC has taken thousands of calls from victims seeking help.
According to RDVIC’s website, more than 433,00 Americans ages 12 and older are sexually assaulted or raped every year. Some 60,000 of those sexual assault victims are children.
In the early days, Hopkins said they worked to increase awareness about these crimes in the community.
“We did law enforcement training, prosecutor training, we were able to speak to judges, CPS workers and even had community forums in the very beginning to try to educate the public generally about what a serious crime it was,” she said.
Once new laws were put in place, RDVIC started to receive more calls from victims who needed help.
“Once that change occurred, victims of domestic violence found us and as they did, they realized they needed help as well as the victims of sexual violence,” Hopkins said.
RDVIC is holding its 50th Anniversary Gala from 6:30-10 p.m. Friday in the Hotel Morgan Ballroom.