image of barnstable county courthouse

Bear Witness to the Clothesline Project at Barnstable County Complex

Bear Witness to the Clothesline Project will be held at the Barnstable County Complex on Tuesday, October 10th from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. T-shirts made in memory of someone who has been touched by violence will be on view. Additionally, there will be supplies available to make and hang t-shirts.

The Clothesline Project (CLP) is a program started on Cape Cod, MA, in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women. It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women. With the support of many, it has since spread world-wide.

According to http://www.clotheslineproject.org/There are currently over 500 projects nationally and internationally with projects in 41 states and 5 countries. This ever-expanding grassroots network is as far-flung as Tanzania and as close as Orleans, Massachusetts.

According to the Men’s Rape Prevention Project in Washington DC, 58,000 soldiers died in the Vietnam war. During that same time, 51,000 women were killed mostly by men with whom they were in a relationship. In the summer of 1990, that statistic became the catalyst for a coalition of women’s groups on Cape Cod, Massachusetts to consciously develop a program that would educate, break the silence and bear witness to one issue – violence against women.

The shirts are color coded to show the form of abuse and whether the victim survived the abuse they experienced.

• White represents women who died because of violence;
• Yellow or beige represents battered or assaulted women;
• Red, pink, and orange are for survivors of rape and sexual assault;
• Blue and green t-shirts represent survivors of incest and sexual abuse;
• Purple or lavender represents women attacked because of their sexual orientation;
• Black is for women attacked for political reasons.

Please visit http://clotheslineproject.info/https://www.iup.edu/haven/awareness-campaigns/clothesline-project/for more information about the Clothesline Project.

This event is Co-sponsored by Independence House and Massachusetts Association of Public Health Nurses Cape Cod Chapter.

When: Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Time: 8:00 am – 4:00 pm
Where: Barnstable County Complex, 3195 Main St., Barnstable, MA
Questions: Deirdre Arvidson, 508-375-6617

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