Mildred Ramos, Executive Director and Champion of Care
Mildred Ramos, Foundress of the FCSA
A Journey of Survival, Truth, and Systemic Reform
If you are here, it is because you believe in the power of raw, un-compromised truth. For too long, the stories of survivors have been managed, sanitized, or hidden away by the very institutions designed to protect us. Today, I am breaking that silence.
My story began in the 1980s. While I was a 16-year-old child living at Mount Hope Place in the West Bronx, I was subjected to a brutal gang rape in Washington Heights. This was a targeted attack on me and Father Louis R. Gigante—the priest at the church where I was baptized, and a staunch advocate for troubled youth and gang members. This assault was a direct consequence of horrific, ongoing warfare that targeted the vulnerable. Although the NYPD was called, Health + Hospitals performed a rape kit, and a detective from the 33rd precinct urged my family to pursue justice, a forced trade sent this child away to Puerto Rico, left to navigate the deep psychological and physical aftermath of that warfare entirely alone. Instead of receiving justice, protective intervention, or structural support, the system failed me completely.
Our Work Towards Addressing, Ending + Redefining Femicide
We demand justice and systemic reform to end the high rates of gender-based violence which includes the slow murder of women and girls.
In Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of Pope Leo XIV, the Holy Father plainly states that “doubly poor are those women who endure situations of exclusion, mistreatment and violence, since they are frequently less able to defend their rights.” And, he adds:
It is, therefore, not enough to state simply that men and women have equal dignity and rights; it is necessary that this be reflected in concrete decisions, such as in laws, access to employment, education, social and political responsibilities, and the way society listens to and values women’s contributions. As long as this gap persists, we cannot say that society truly and fully recognizes that women have the same dignity as men.
Understanding this, we challenge multiple, intersecting forms of oppression, including economic violence, labor exploitation, and state budget cuts.
