“Aren’t we aware by now?” Someone recently asked me this when I mentioned Domestic Violence Awareness Month was coming up in October.  Obviously not.  My acquaintance, like many people, imagines a younger woman with children when they think of domestic violence or abuse.  However, abuse can and does happen across a lifespan.  As people age, the abuse in a relationship may evolve and the needs of the survivor may change but the abuse is still there.  We just don’t see it, think about it or can’t believe it still happens as people get older. The knock on effect is that certain groups are excluded from research and prevention campaigns.[1] With education and awareness comes opportunity to change that narrative.

Domestic violence is a reality experienced by many and understood by few. As an advocate and survivor, I’ve faced an alarming degree of misinformation and misunderstandings about domestic violence.

Given that domestic violence homicides accounted for over half of all mass shootings in the United States over the last decade, understanding – or misunderstanding – the realities of domestic violence, can be a matter of life or death. 

As such, being asked to write about domestic violence for the sake of public awareness feels like an enormous responsibility. There is so much essential information to share. I’ve done my best to do so with as much brevity as I could responsibly afford. 

Elisa is a Senior Advocate who has been with NVRDC since June 2019. In 2020, Elisa, along with the rest of our advocacy staff, supported 462 survivors and spent over 1,100 hours in the hospital accompanying them during medical forensic exams.

NVRDC is excited to expand our advocacy response for sexual assault survivors from the hospital to the community at large. Community Response Advocates are now responding in person to sexual assault survivors seeking to report their victimization to MPD's Sexual Assault Unit. Under DC’s Sexual Assault Victims’ Rights Amendment Act of 2019 (SAVRAA 2019), sexual assault survivors have the right to an advocate at any interview with a District Agency, including the police.

January 2021 is National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM). It is a yearly reminder that education and outreach is an important part of recognizing and addressing criminal stalking, or to Know It, Name It, Stop It.

The National Center on Elder Abuse and the Keck School of Medicine USC have recently updated their “Research to Practice Briefs” on this topic. These briefs offer new information on mistreatment of cultural subgroups of older adult survivors.

As a result of systemic racism, oppression, misogyny, and classism, many formalized systems, such as the criminal legal system or campus sexual misconduct proceedings, are inaccessible or undesirable avenues of justice for marginalized communities.

In March of this year, DC entered a state of emergency due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and drastically reduced or outright ceased most operations. Almost all pending cases, civil and criminal, were impacted in the form of postponed and rescheduled hearings or trials. Around the same time, criminal defendants who were detained pending trial, as well as inmates currently serving prison sentences for a previous conviction, began filing motions for release. Generally speaking, these motions based the request for release on the health risks posed by COVID-19, the risk of contagion while incarcerated, and other arguments about the specific health risks of the defendant or inmate seeking release.

June 15, we marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD). The year’s theme was Lifting up the Voices of Older Survivors. NVRDC endeavors to provide outreach and education throughout the year, but WEAAD allowed us to highlight the issue, assess how far we’ve come in combating elder abuse, and where we need to focus in the year to come. The new year brought a new virus. As the novel corona virus spread through communities and long-term care facilities across the country, we saw some disappointing ageist rhetoric about the value of older adults and the expendability of their lives to save the economy. We have also seen how racism has impacted older adults from attacks on Asian Americans to the higher mortality rates of older American minority groups as a result of systemic racism. And we know there is a correlation between ageism and abuse.

On May 6, 2020, I joined countless advocates, survivors, administrators, and activists in feeling deep disappointment that the Department of Education (DOE) chose to release new, confusing, and potentially harmful Title IX rules in the middle of a global pandemic. Student-survivors who are in the middle of their schools’ current processes feel the added uncertainty about what will happen if their case isn’t concluded by the new rules’ August 14, 2020 implementation date.

College students, along with many of us during COVID-19, have had to adjust to this new season. Student-survivors of sexual assault have the added obstacle of managing all of these changes and also dealing with their sexual assault and Title IX cases away from campus.

As DC Superior Court began curtailing operations down to the most essential court functions, our organization worked overtime assessing the impact these changes would have on crime victim’s rights. As an organization we also anticipated that COVID-19 would affect correctional facility’s ability to safely house inmates thus requiring the release of some inmates. The challenge would be to find a way to give victims a voice balanced with the very real threat facing incarcerated men and women from this disease.  

If you were sexually assaulted and had to choose between receiving forensic medical care or lessening your risk of exposure to an infectious respiratory disease, what would you decide? How would you rationalize your choice, concluding that one option is more important than the other? What if you were severely injured during the sexual assault? Or what if you have underlying health conditions and are more susceptible to developing serious illness after exposure to COVID-19? Coming to such a decision is the reality of the survivors we serve; forensic medical care for sexual assault and intimate partner violence is provided at one central location in Washington, DC.

Older District residents may be feeling the impacts of this social isolation deeply. Seniors may be fearful of being exposed to the virus and need food, medicines or just a friendly hello. While many of us are connected to the internet through a variety of devices, many older Americans may not have access to the internet via a computer or mobile phone or may be dependent on someone else to access the outside world.

At the core of NVRDC’s approach to supporting survivors is our commitment to survivor defined justice. The person directly impacted by the crime should be defining what justice looks like for them. NVRDC seeks to support clients in both defining what justice looks like for themselves and achieving this vision. However, the criminal legal system is not always an option or even the best option for everyone. For individuals who choose not to engage with this system we hope to offer other ways of achieving healing and justice. 

Each year on September 25, loved ones and victim service agencies gather together in solidarity for the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. Homicide rates in DC rose 67% from January 1 to March 4, 2018. 1 Despite its increase and prevalence, homicide and the impact on surviving family members continue to be particularly underserved in the areas of crime victims’ rights and services.