Take Action!

Act now – survivors need your voice.

Take action TODAY to help protect survivors and prevent domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking!

Click here to find your elected representatives.

Urge your Representative to vote "YES" on the bipartisan Family Violence Prevention and Services (FVPSA) Improvement bill, H.R. 2119, and "NO”"on two harmful amendments!

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) is at the heart of our nation’s response to domestic violence, ensuring more than 1,500 local domestic violence shelters and programs can provide emergency shelter, crisis counseling, legal assistance, and other life-saving services to more than 1.3 million victims and their children every year. The FVPSA Improvement bill would bolster existing FVPSA programs and increase authorized funding, as well as expand domestic violence services to Tribes, Tribal coalitions, culturally specific programs, and other underserved communities.
Unfortunately, there are two proposed amendments that pose a threat for service providers and the overdue improvements included in H.R. 2119.

Urge the Senate to introduce and pass a bipartisan Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) bill built on the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021, H.R. 1620!

More than six months ago, the House passed H.R.1620, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021, with strong bipartisan support. Now we need the Senate to introduce and pass a bipartisan VAWA bill built on H.R.1620, centering the needs of the most historically marginalized survivors and investing in key strategies like housing, legal services, economic justice, and prevention.

Contact the Department of Justice and inquire about narrowed definitions of Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence posted on their website!

While the statutory definitions of domestic and sexual violence have not changed, the DOJ’s website previously included advocacy-based definitions which took into account physical, emotional, and economic abuse, all of which are used by abusers to gain and maintain power and control over victims/survivors. The definitions now posted are more narrow in that they primarily include only cases of violence which would be considered felony or misdemeanor crimes. This ignore everything those of us in the trenches of this work know about power and control and the cycle of violence. Abuse rarely starts with physical violence but instead typically escalates and progresses along a continuum. Failing to acknowledge broader patterns of power and control along this progression of violence may impact when or whether a survivor reaches out for help and support, which could increase already staggering numbers of intimate partner homicide. In our nearly forty years of supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence, we understand that many individuals choose, for multiple and extremely valid reasons, not to report to law enforcement. These descriptions discount and disregard these individuals.

Compare the current and previous definitions:

Domestic violence

Sexual violence

Click here to contact the DOJ.
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