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.

As DC college and university students head back to school for a new year, we want to empower them with knowledge, information, and resources about sexual assault.

Our opinions of ourselves and our interpretation of events are greatly shaped by the words and actions of people we love. So when someone is going through traumatic and life changing events, these initial reactions can be game changing.

Noah Mattapallil is the Victim Legal Network of DC Summer 2018 Intern at NVRDC. He attended the DC Council’s hearing on proposed amendments to the Intrafamily Offenses Act (IFOA) and wrote about his experience.

A friend of NVRDC opened up publicly in recent weeks about her past experience with abuse and sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. Her experience illustrates a struggle we see in many different forms, between individuals affected by violence and abuse and the institutions reluctant to make waves by standing up for them.

From Black Lives Matter to Me Too, people who have survived, witnessed, or lived with vulnerability to violence have been recently creating platforms to speak out and push for change.

Despite the significant increase in media coverage of sexual violence, an important question has yet to be asked: why do we believe some allegations of sexual violence, yet dismiss others?