<![CDATA[AUTHOR ELLE TRAVIS - BLOG]]>Mon, 17 Dec 2018 22:02:49 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[injustice...]]>Wed, 05 Dec 2018 13:07:36 GMThttp://www.authorelletravis.com/blog/looking-for-justiceWritten on December 3, 2018; exactly 10 years from the morning that I was savagely abducted and sexually assaulted by a serial rapist, Jessie Harris. I may never truly heal from the torment I experienced at the hands of this monster. However, the mistreatment and mockery by police; being silenced for several years and repeatedly victimized by the “justice system”, is an injustice that I refuse to accept. As long as Injustice exists true Justice can NEVER prevail...

Like bad medicine
Can be a hard pill to swallow

If you've never felt its’ pain
You'll find this hard to follow
Since I met it; life's been all pills, pain, and bottles
A bitter pill… Still trying to choke it down
Tried to spit it out; it's implanted in my bowels
How many lives have been devoured?
Souls swallowed lost in your bowels?

Battered, bloodied seas of bodies
Steadily rising till we drown

Now it's your turn
Throw it back and chug it down

Don't you dare choke
On that bitter, bloody taste
Of human bile

You can do it!
I was forced to do so with a smile

Are you sick yet?
Does it make you want to puke?
Can't you stomach
The putrid taste
Of the hatred that you spew?

An institution
Flawed in its design
Dying for a change

They say
Justice is blind
But injustice
Knows people of color
By first name

You can't just
Change the players

You have to
Change the GAME

<![CDATA[An  Introduction  & Overview]]>Tue, 08 May 2018 03:00:56 GMThttp://www.authorelletravis.com/blog/elle-travis-an-introduction-overview-of-my-storyHi, I am Elle Travis and welcome to my blog! I would like to take a moment to introduce myself and share a bit of my story and mission with you and describe what led me to speak up and why I started this website and blog.       

​This began as an effort to bring full awareness to the havoc and devastation that the rape kit backlog has unleashed on our nation. The rape kit and initial interview is supposed to mark the beginning of a sexual assault investigation. 

Being  Let Down  and  Given  False  Hope

When an investigation is properly conducted in a timely manner it can result in the arrest, prosecution and possible conviction of the offender. Every 98 seconds a person in the United States is sexually assaulted. Unfortunately only 1 in 3 victims report their assault to the police. At this point they submit their body, now a crime scene, for the evidence collection process known as a rape kit. As a survivor of multiple attacks, I have submitted my body more than once, as a crime scene. Each time every inch of my being was combed over and exploited. Each time the evidence was scraped and peeled from my person and collected to be documented and sealed away in an evidence collection or "rape" kit.

I underwent this process, this invasion hoping it would lead to my multiple rapists being found and arrested. I hoped they would be tried and convicted for their crime. A crime against me and a crime against the community. I'm almost certain that all of the more than 400,000 women affected by the backlog had similar hopes. Sadly after having our inner most parts invaded and violated. After being interrogated and accused by the police instead of properly interviewed. After being told flatly, "we'll be in touch". I never got a follow up phone call, none of us did. Instead over time, hope turned to outrage and finally hopelessness as the cold, harsh reality that nothing was being done hit us. Tragically, I along with 11,340 other women in #Detroit #Michigan sat... waiting for justice. 

Still Looking For Justice

Across the nation more than 400,000 of us waited... and waited. Days, weeks and years passed. Nothing, not a call, no investigation. NOTHING. What we and the general public were unaware of is that scattered and growing in evidence storage facilities throughout the United States was something so devastating and grotesque it was almost impossible to believe. It is inexplicable how stockpiles of sealed and untested evidence boxes containing rape kits were "discovered" sitting on shelves in evidence warehouses, rotting, for years in most cases. In cities like #Detroit, the boxes dated as far back as 1984!! Each sealed box was an unopened, untested rape kit. Each kit represented a woman.

​Each woman had a story, and each woman and her story had been shelved and silenced, nationwide. The various stockpiles of sealed and untested rape kits has been carelessly and collectively named "The Rape- kit Backlog". When I first heard the words "rape kit backlog". Instantly, I pictured a bunch of paperwork and dusty boxes with spider webs covering them. Maybe a lot of us did. The rape kit backlog more accurately is the mass silencing of more than 400,000 people. It also sentenced us and our communities to being overrun with sexual predators who were free to keep violating and terrorising society, because the boxes containing their DNA had never been opened, tested or investigated. Even worse, because of the backlog and being shelved for numerous years, justice has been more than delayed; but denied. 

Violent Sexual Predators Are In The Streets

Due to the statute of limitations and other technical loopholes in the system rapists; many of them multiple offenders, are not sought after or even released from custody after a circus commonly called a trial. These trials are a circus because somehow in a rape case especially being associated with the backlog the victims or survivors are tried and judged instead of the rapists, the monsters themselves. My personal experience and a deep sense of responsibility to make a change in the laws and system that allowed my serial rapist free on the streets, painfully motivated me to become an Activist advocating for social and legal justice. 

IT IS MY MISSION TO fight and stand for justice 

My mission became to bring awareness to this injustice by sharing my poetry and story, and become active in the fight to end the backlog for good. As a part of my mission I am using my writings and this blog to advocate for the eradication of the statute of limitations attached to sexually motivated or gender based violence. I am using this platform to stand in truth against the horrors of the backlog. This is my strongest effort to protect my family and community while assisting with healing myself and others affected by the treachery and obstruction of justice known as the rape kit backlog. I, amongst over 400,000 other human beings, was silenced for a number of years. At one point I was afraid to speak up, to live in my truth and stand up for my rights. I will no longer be afraid or ashamed. Most importantly I will no longer be silent, nor will I be silenced. 

​Thank you, Until next time-