For better or for worse, experiences on a college campus can change lives.

Amnesty International, UNC Charlotte and Charlotte Area Health Education Center co-hosted the global launch of My Sister’s Keeper, a lifestyle movement that advocates respect for females. They advocate Rock the Pledge, which men take as a commitment to showing unconditional respect to all females.

Tina Valentine experienced firsthand what can go wrong on a college campus when financial challenges led her to a life in the sex industry. That choice led to drug and alcohol addiction.
“It’s a pleasure and an honor to be standing here,” Valentine said. “Last year, this wouldn’t have been possible, because I was in the depths of sexual exploitation and addiction, and now I’m in recovery. It didn’t start last year. It started when I stepped on a college campus.”

Valentine went from pursuing a college education in Ohio to the bottom of a bottle.

“I was a freshman who was very naïve, and I was a church girl,” Valentine said. “Somehow I found myself targeted by upperclassmen and because of my behavior — drinking and putting myself in situations that made me vulnerable — I found myself defenseless against people who wanted to prey on me.”

Countless cases like Valentine walk across college campuses every day, she said.   

“Eventually I became a willing victim, because my idea to make enough money to go back to college came up with a friend of mine, and I stepped into another life,” Valentine said. “I got trapped in that life, because at that time I was very young and impressionable. I didn’t understand my power as a woman. I didn’t understand my value.”

MSK challenges females to ask when considering a date or a relationship with a guy “is he a keeper?”

“If [young men] see men that they look up to, respecting women, it’s bound to happen,” District Court Judge Ty Hands said. “If we can get a hold of what social media they’re using, and once we find out where they are, we just have to be the model and teach them. Sometimes, it’s not that our young folks don’t want to do things; it’s not that they may not have seen it. I think if we show them and we teach them, they will see that as the only option.”

For more information: http://msknow.com/

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