My Sisters' Place NY

Audrey Morrissey was only 16 when she was lured into the commercial sex trade in Boston’s notorious “Combat Zone.” She would spent the next 14 years on the streets. Now 52, Morrissey mentors at-risk youth through her work with My Life My Choice, an organization featured in A Path Appears that’s fighting to end exploitation and trafficking of girls. 

Read more via Al Jazeera:http://bit.ly/1QZJ0X1

Narrowly beating a statute of limitations deadline to file charges, prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced a felony sexual assault charge against comedian Bill Cosby Wednesday. A former Temple University employee says Cosby drugged and assaulted her in January of 2004.

Montgomery County, Pa., prosecutors have charged Bill Cosby with aggravated indecent assault – a first-degree felony.

“These charges stem from a sexual assault,” according to prosecutor Kevin Steele, who said the assault occurred at Cosby’s house in Cheltenham, a Montgomery County township that’s just outside of Philadelphia.

Steele said Cosby is expected to appear in court to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon; he also urged any other victims to contact his office.

Over the past year, Cosby has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of women. Cosby has denied those charges, and earlier this month, he filed lawsuits against seven of his accusers, saying they had made up the claims to extract money from him.

TW for violence against women, domestic violence, abuse

“Protesters wearing mourning clothes and black veils held up signs with the number of women’s refuges that have closed since 2010 – estimated at around 30 – and shouted slogans including “they cut, we bleed” as they marched through central London.

The protest came days after George Osborne’s autumn statement, which coincided with the UN’s International Day for Ending Violence Against Women, received a mixed reception for using the controversial “tampon tax” on sanitary products to fund women’s charities.

“I’m going to use the £15m a year raised from the tampon tax to fund women’s health and support charities,” the Chancellor said.

“The first £5 million will be distributed between the Eve Appeal, SafeLives and Women’s Aid and The Haven - and I invite bids from other such good causes.”

Sisters Uncut, whose members protested on the red carpet at the film premiere of Suffragette last month, described the proposals as a “sticking plaster on a haemorrhage”.

Members are demanding no further cuts to domestic violence support services and guaranteed funding for specialist support for those helping help black and minority ethnic women.

The group also argues that council budget changes will also impact on local domestic violence services, which it says leaves fewer women at risk of harm and death at the hands of their partners without refuge.”