Men and women of color, along with several white women came together last Friday night at Memorial Union to discuss the social and cultural barriers women of color face when dealing with sexual assault and abuse. The message of the meeting was that sexual assault affects everyone.

The cultural teach-in featured a six-panelist discussion, breakouts, a unity discussion and dinner.

“It’s not easy work, but it?s important work. It’s difficult to see the pain our students experience in sexual assault,” said panelist Yolanda Garza, an assistant dean of students. “It exists everywhere: in the Latino, black and white communities. That’s the bottom line.”

The forum, a coalition project sponsored by PAVE and ASM, was held in conjunction with Sexual Awareness Month. Jennifer Epps, ASM Diversity Committee co-chair, said women of color dealing with sexual assault and abuse need to be a constant topic of discussion. She said women have different experiences based on race, sexuality and class.

?Sexual assault and abuse are more devastating to women of color,” she said.

The campaign against sexual assault has grown recently due to UW-Madison’s No. 1 rank in the Big Ten for reported sexual assaults.

Epps said the percentage of women victims that do not report their cases is 85 percent, while for women of color, the unreported cases have reached 95 percent. She said women of color are five times more likely to drop out of college than white women who are victims of sexual assault.

The forum focused on different topics related to sexual assault and abuse. Panelists, who represented various ethnic communities at UW, shared their own stories relating to sexual assault and how communities cope with it in different ways.

Garza said she was pleased the forum showed a continuation of the goals each respective community hopes to reach.

?How do we break this wall of silence?” Garza said.