February 11, 2009 5:13 PM
- Text
Comic Book On Rape Aimed At Young Latinas
(AP)
It starts out like most fotonovelas, Latino comic books with themes often centered on love and betrayal: Teenage "Yaneth" is at a picnic when she spots handsome, raven-haired "David." She nabs his number and afterward, playfully sends him a text message.
A few pages later, Yaneth isn't smiling. She's in a car alone with David, who's actually a man in his late 20s. He's demanding sex and the 14-year-old is scared.
The Virginia Department of Health hopes readers will want to find out what happens next to Yaneth, and to many real life Latina teens like her.
They've spent two years developing the comic book to combat statutory rape among Hispanic girls — put at higher risk, some say, by limited understanding of American laws and cultural mores condoning May-December relationships.
"Gracias Papi: A fotonovela about a young woman, an older guy and a loving father" will be distributed across Virginia starting in April. Franklin already has received calls from interested health care workers in Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Florida and Tennessee.
The effort stems from Virginia's "Isn't she a little young?" statutory rape campaign, a 2004 project employing everything from billboards to napkins bearing the provocative question.
Robert Franklin, a health department male outreach coordinator, immediately got requests to translate the materials into Spanish.
"Getting males to challenge their peers about having sex with teens is hard in any culture," said Franklin, who felt a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't work. "I can't just translate 'Isn't she a little young?' into Spanish."
Franklin instead began targeting Latino men through Spanish-language radio ads. When he realized he was only addressing part of the problem, Franklin searched for ways to reach Latina teens.
He turned to fotonovelas.
Popularized in Latin America, fotonovelas use photographs of live actors instead of drawings, and illustrate soap opera-like stories. The books have caught on among health care agencies as a hip alternative to stiff brochures about diabetes risks and other medical issues.
Franklin's tackling a tougher topic. A white male who speaks no Spanish, he's boldly challenging the older man-younger woman relationships many Latino immigrants consider normal.
Asks Yaneth's mother in one panel, speaking to her own older husband: "How is this different than when we got married?"
Latinas led the nation in teen births in 2004, with 82.6 per 1,000 girls ages 15-19, according to September data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The national birth rate per thousand girls that age was 41.1.
CDC data shows Mexican and Puerto Rican girls at an especially high risk.
Both groups have settled in Virginia. The state had double-digit drops in births among black and white girls ages 15-19 from 1990 to 2003, while births rose 50 percent among Latinas in that age group, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
Health officials say it's hard to figure out who's fathering their children.
In 2005, state police made 127 arrests for statutory rape, defined in state law as carnal knowledge of a minor under age 18.
But experts warn that statutory rape is often unreported. Many Latina teens, meanwhile, are reluctant to identify their children's fathers — often an indicator of an inappropriate sexual relationship, Franklin said.
"The younger the female, the less likely people were to give the father's age," said Franklin, who studied hospital delivery forms to estimate over half of Latina teen mothers in Virginia were sexually active with adult men.
Most Latinos don't condone "viejos verdes," Spanish slang for older men who prey on girls.
But in the rural Latin-American towns where many immigrants originate, it's not uncommon for a man to date a girl, especially if he's a family friend, said Carmina Oaks, executive director of the Latino Resource Center, in Jackson, Wyo. Police there have seen more than a dozen statutory rape cases in recent years, most involving Latina victims.
Oaks organized a community workshop on the topic, and is interested in Virginia's fotonovela.
"In a lot of places, it doesn't matter the age," said Oaks, who's Mexican. "If it's your best friend's son, he could be maybe 10 years difference, the family are OK with that."
In the fotonovela, David works for Yaneth's dad.
"Often immigrants come from countries with few or no statutory rape laws" and "don't know that a four-year difference or a six-year difference would (have) a legal implication for them," Oaks said.
Virginia officials have worked hard to make the fotonovela something Latinas will embrace.
They incorporated text messaging, "Spanglish" phrases and modern names like Yaneth (a Spanish take on Janet) to recreate the average Latina youth's environment, said Paz Ochs, a Richmond Hispanic liaison who helped create the 13-page, color booklet.
"We wanted something that would be appealing," said Ochs, who's part Dominican. "There's some people that might not realize that this is even against the law."
A few pages later, Yaneth isn't smiling. She's in a car alone with David, who's actually a man in his late 20s. He's demanding sex and the 14-year-old is scared.
The Virginia Department of Health hopes readers will want to find out what happens next to Yaneth, and to many real life Latina teens like her.
They've spent two years developing the comic book to combat statutory rape among Hispanic girls — put at higher risk, some say, by limited understanding of American laws and cultural mores condoning May-December relationships.
"Gracias Papi: A fotonovela about a young woman, an older guy and a loving father" will be distributed across Virginia starting in April. Franklin already has received calls from interested health care workers in Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Florida and Tennessee.
The effort stems from Virginia's "Isn't she a little young?" statutory rape campaign, a 2004 project employing everything from billboards to napkins bearing the provocative question.
Robert Franklin, a health department male outreach coordinator, immediately got requests to translate the materials into Spanish.
"Getting males to challenge their peers about having sex with teens is hard in any culture," said Franklin, who felt a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't work. "I can't just translate 'Isn't she a little young?' into Spanish."
Franklin instead began targeting Latino men through Spanish-language radio ads. When he realized he was only addressing part of the problem, Franklin searched for ways to reach Latina teens.
He turned to fotonovelas.
Popularized in Latin America, fotonovelas use photographs of live actors instead of drawings, and illustrate soap opera-like stories. The books have caught on among health care agencies as a hip alternative to stiff brochures about diabetes risks and other medical issues.
Franklin's tackling a tougher topic. A white male who speaks no Spanish, he's boldly challenging the older man-younger woman relationships many Latino immigrants consider normal.
Asks Yaneth's mother in one panel, speaking to her own older husband: "How is this different than when we got married?"
Latinas led the nation in teen births in 2004, with 82.6 per 1,000 girls ages 15-19, according to September data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The national birth rate per thousand girls that age was 41.1.
CDC data shows Mexican and Puerto Rican girls at an especially high risk.
Both groups have settled in Virginia. The state had double-digit drops in births among black and white girls ages 15-19 from 1990 to 2003, while births rose 50 percent among Latinas in that age group, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
Health officials say it's hard to figure out who's fathering their children.
In 2005, state police made 127 arrests for statutory rape, defined in state law as carnal knowledge of a minor under age 18.
But experts warn that statutory rape is often unreported. Many Latina teens, meanwhile, are reluctant to identify their children's fathers — often an indicator of an inappropriate sexual relationship, Franklin said.
"The younger the female, the less likely people were to give the father's age," said Franklin, who studied hospital delivery forms to estimate over half of Latina teen mothers in Virginia were sexually active with adult men.
Most Latinos don't condone "viejos verdes," Spanish slang for older men who prey on girls.
But in the rural Latin-American towns where many immigrants originate, it's not uncommon for a man to date a girl, especially if he's a family friend, said Carmina Oaks, executive director of the Latino Resource Center, in Jackson, Wyo. Police there have seen more than a dozen statutory rape cases in recent years, most involving Latina victims.
Oaks organized a community workshop on the topic, and is interested in Virginia's fotonovela.
"In a lot of places, it doesn't matter the age," said Oaks, who's Mexican. "If it's your best friend's son, he could be maybe 10 years difference, the family are OK with that."
In the fotonovela, David works for Yaneth's dad.
"Often immigrants come from countries with few or no statutory rape laws" and "don't know that a four-year difference or a six-year difference would (have) a legal implication for them," Oaks said.
Virginia officials have worked hard to make the fotonovela something Latinas will embrace.
They incorporated text messaging, "Spanglish" phrases and modern names like Yaneth (a Spanish take on Janet) to recreate the average Latina youth's environment, said Paz Ochs, a Richmond Hispanic liaison who helped create the 13-page, color booklet.
"We wanted something that would be appealing," said Ochs, who's part Dominican. "There's some people that might not realize that this is even against the law."
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