WASHINGTON, DC, USA — The United States government is using technology to help combat dating violence and sexual assault of teens and young adults.

White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, Lynn Rosenthal, said the move was in recognition that technology was critically important in reaching out to this group — 16-24 — especially since it accounts for the highest rates of dating violence and sexual assaults nationwide.

“We looked at how we could use this technology to reach people and have people reach back our services,” she said. “The average US teen girl sends 3,000 texts per month, so we know that for her to reach help when she’s experiencing abuse we have to have the ability for her to do it.”

For this reason, she said, the national dating violence helpline was expanded to be available 24 hours a day, by text message, phone and Internet chat.

“It’s a big accomplishment for us and those services were supported by our Department of Justice and our Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.

Rosenthal was addressing Caribbean journalists attending a seven-day reporting tour on women’s empowerment and combating domestic violence at the State Department in Washington, DC, Monday.

Her address explained how US policy is shaped and what actions are taken at a federal level to address the issue of domestic violence and abuse, for journalists to present to their home countries.

Rosenthal explained another of the ever-expanding technology tools that was launched to combat sexual assault — a phone application, to be available in a month for free download, that will allow young women caught in vulnerable situations to get help.

Young women aged 16-24 experience the highest rates of rape and sexual assault, she said, explaining that one in three women will be a victim of rape, stalking or violence at some time, while one in four will be a victim of severe physical violence.

Rosenthal said the ‘Apps against Abuse’ technology challenge created an opportunity for technology innovators to figure out ways to create phone Applications to reach women with messages about dating violence and sexual assault.

It’s a project of the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in collaboration with the Office of the Vice-President.

“It was a challenge to create new applications that young women could use to be safe. These are phone applications for iPhones and Androids that a teenager or young adult could put on a phone and it creates ways that she can reach out immediately to her friends, parents, dating violence helpline – whatever she needs to get assistance,” she said, explaining that one in five women in the US have been rape victims.

Rosenthal, who played a major advocacy role in the reauthorisation of the Violence Against Women Act in 2000 and 2005, said since the passing of the act, the rates of domestic violence have dropped, but there are still high rates of sexual assaults on college campuses, many occurring at parties.

“Young women go in a group together to a party, they become separated and they become more vulnerable to sexual predators. So these [phone] applications will help young women at the push of a button to send their GPS coordinates to a group of friends to come and find them.”

Regarding the need to include campus administrators in ensuring women’s safety, Rosenthal said existing civil rights laws will be used to hold them accountable.

“We realised that we could use existing civil rights laws to combat sex assault. Our Department of Education developed new guidelines that made it clear that universities’ responsibilities included helping young women be free from sexual assault on campuses and universities.”

She said these guidelines are in the implementation stages, and training is being conducted all around the country.

“Basically what it says is they have to provide a fair process for both the victim and the alleged offender and they have to help the victim get services. We believe it’s a major step forward for addressing these high rates of sexual assault on college campuses,” she said.

She said the vice-president has been travelling around the country and getting feedback from college students, and a key area of feedback is that they should use men to speak out.

“Engaging men’s voices is critically important,” Rosenthal said. “If women could stop violence against women by ourselves we would have stopped it a long time ago. We’ve got to have men speaking out.”

The domestic violence tour ends in Atlanta, Georgia.