Red Flag Campaign urges students to speak out about warning signs in relationship violence

It’s a visual metaphor for an important message.

More than a dozen red flags lined the grass on Arizona State University’s West, Downtown Phoenix and Tempe campuses Feb. 12 and 13 to serve as a place for students to write down warning signs for unhealthy relationships.

Messages included “excessive anger,” “not letting you hang out with friends” and “not respecting your boundaries.”

The Red Flag Campaign is a national effort that urges bystanders to speak out when they see a red flag for dating violence in a friend’s relationship.

The Sexual and Relationship Violence Prevention Program hosted the series of events, which will culminate with the final event March 19 at ASU’s Polytechnic campus as part of ASU’s Women’s HERstory Month observances.

Talia Hernandez, a sophomore who is studying biomedical sciences at ASU, helped facilitate research activities that could raise awareness and engage students in learning about the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

“A lot of times I think it’s easy to just put away the fact that red flags exist,” Hernandez said. “You kind of normalize those red flags, so just seeing them, that red [on the flags] is really bold, and you see that no, this is something that could lead to more issues down the line,” she said. The red flags illustrate that you should pay attention to the behaviors from the start.

Julie Alvarez, a senior at ASU studying biochemistry, works as a peer education coordinator for ASU’s Sexual and Relationship Violence Prevention program. She is also the president for Team One Love at ASU, a student organization that educates ASU students on abusive and unhealthy relationships.

Alvarez said that mistrust, name-calling and shaming are other examples for red flags in relationships.

Alvarez said it’s important to bring the visual representation to college campuses like ASU because 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will be victims of an abusive relationship over the course of their lifetime.

“18 to 24 is the age group where most people experience that kind of abuse for the first time,” she said. “College students are an at-risk population, and many of them don’t think that abuse is something that could happen to them, mainly because they have preconceived notions that an abusive relationship has to be physical, but that’s not always the case. We actually see emotional abuse as more common among college students, and it still could have detrimental effects on an individual’s life and health.”

Alvarez said that being in abusive relationships can mean higher levels of stress and anxiety.

“If we don’t have good, supportive relationships, it can just make our lives a lot more stressful in general,” Alvarez said.

Patricia Palade, a senior studying microbiology at ASU, also helped plan the event.

She said a healthy relationship is one that builds you up and helps you succeed in your life.

“An unhealthy one is one that brings you down and keeps you from doing the things that you want to do,” she said.

Find resources, upcoming events and ways to get involved through Sun Devil Movement for Violence Prevention.