Civil Legal Rights & Protections Content Topic Results

This year marks the 30th anniversary since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. VAWA is a landmark piece of legislation designed to address domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and other forms of gender-based violence.

Federal resources are critical to reducing and eliminating violence. Both the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) Appropriations Subcommittee and the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee proposed bills that will maintain some supports for survivors, such as FVPSA programs and rental assistance programs, but also eliminate critical elements that support survivor and community safety and justice.

The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) is disappointed and concerned by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling today in Grants Pass v. Johnson. The Court’s decision to allow criminalization of homelessness will penalize victims of domestic violence for making the often life-saving decision to flee from a violent partner.

The 2022 U.S. Trans Survey was expanded to address lessons learned from the 2015 survey, respond to the evolving sociopolitical landscape, and increase knowledge of the lives and experiences of trans people in the United States.

In this first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, the Federal Government advances an unprecedented and comprehensive approach to preventing and addressing sexual violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, and other forms of gender-based violence.

This webinar featured a panel of experts who explored the unique barriers that people with disabilities have to navigate when seeking healing and the strategies that advocates employ to proactively remove those barriers. Specifically, they explored the civil-legal needs of survivors with disabilities, the needs of survivors who acquire a disability through domestic violence, and the unique needs of Deaf survivors.

The seeds for this survey were planted in the months following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Like the advocates at our member programs, ODVN wanted to better understand how survivors—women of color, specifically, along with other marginalized groups—experience law enforcement and other parts of the response system. We surveyed 505 survivors across the state to get some answers.

More than half of all American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime; one in three have experienced rape. The US government continues to fail to adequately prevent and respond to such violence. This report details some of the factors that contribute the high rates of sexual violence against Indigenous women, and the barriers to justice that they continue to face.

This guidance from the Social Security Administration, available in English and Spanish, reviews the process for victims of domestic violence to obtain a new social security number.