ywrape crisis center: 2009 Bergen County Clothesline Project

Survivors Break Their Silence via Clothesline Project Exhibit     

Hundreds of T-shirts were displayed on “The Green” across from the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack as the Bergen County Clothesline Project held its 16th annual exhibit on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009. This powerful display, which features shirts created by survivors or their significant others, is designed to raise community awareness of violence against women, men, and children.

Guest speakers included New Jersey Senator Loretta Weinberg; Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri-Huttle, Bergen County Freeholder Julie O’Brien; Sgt. Alan Lustmann, BCPO Sex Crimes & Child Abuse Unit; Hackensack Mayor Marlin G. Townes; Teaneck Deputy Mayor Lizette Phillips-Parker; Englewood Councilwoman Charlotte Bennett Schoen; Domini Oreski, MSW, LCSW; and attorney Richard Pompelio, founder of the New Jersey Crime Victim’s Law Center.

Several pieces from the Silent Witnesses project—silhouetted figures that represent women and children who were murdered in acts of domestic violence—were on display. And the Reflections, an improvisational theater group associated with the Bergen County Department of Human Services, Division of Family Guidance, performed a piece on dating and interpersonal violence.

The exhibit was sponsored by the YWCA Bergen County Rape Crisis Center in partnership with the Bergen County Department of Human Services, Division of Alternatives to Domestic Violence, Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Office of Victim/Witness Advocacy, Bergen Family Center, National Council of Jewish Women, Bergen County Section, and Shelter Our Sisters.