Kentucky’s Attorney General Andy Beshear and Eileen Recktenwald, director of the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs (KASAP), will announce the #VoiceofJustice video contest on Facebook Live Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m.

The contest was created as a way to promote awareness and bring transparency to campus sexual assault, according to the official press release from the Attorney General’s Office.

In an interview with the Attorney General, he claimed sexual assault as one of the greatest threats facing young adults.

“College is a place where our young adults are supposed to go to improve their futures, expand their minds, not to be prayed upon, and we have to do everything in our power to make sure that our universities are safe environments,” Beshear said. “Because of that, we want to raise awareness so that ultimately, we can reduce the occurrence of sexual assault.”

One in five women and one in 16 men were sexually assaulted while in college in 2015. Only 36 sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement on Kentucky’s public university campuses, according to the press release.

Statistics show that the number of sexual assault reports are drastically lower compared to the number of sexual assault occurrences.

“We all know the statistics that universities report on the number of sexual assaults are so much lower than the actual ones that occur,” Beshear said. 

According to the AG, universities need to be more transparent in the way they go about their process in evaluating and investigating sexual assault, so they can accurately convey the safety of their university.

Beshear attributed the lack of reports to people lacking “faith that either the Title IX system at the university or the criminal justice system will end up seeking and securing justice for them,” he said. 

Beshear said he hopes that this contest will also push universities to be more transparent, to be more responsive and to do the right thing by their students.

The official press release outlined the rules of the contest.

The contest requires each video entry to be 30-seconds, contain information on the 24/7 free and confidential Sexual Assault Hotline, 800-656-HOPE and increase awareness of campus sexual assault, active bystanding to prevent sexual assault or reporting, investigations and prosecutions of campus sexual assault.

For a complete list of the contest rules, eligibility, entry forms and contact information, visit http://ag.ky.gov/family/victims/voice-of-justice.

Submissions are due by April 1, 2017. Winners will be announced shortly after submissions are finalized and reviewed, in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The contest is a part of the AG’s mission for advocacy of sexual assault victims.

“We, at the Attorney General’s Office, are here to seek justice for victims of sexual assault. It’s one of our four-part core mission. Those that, sadly, are victimized by perpetrators will know that there are people out there willing to work for them, willing to seek justice for them and will ultimately report,” Beshear said.

“Day in and day out, the AG’s Office is working to better protect people from sexual assault,” he said.  

The AG will be traveling around the Commonwealth to all of the public universities to raise awareness of sexual assault.