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Case Not Dismissed: Domestic Violence Is Indeed a Big Deal For Survivors

“It’s just domestic violence.”

“They did not have a good relationship.”

 If I had a dime for every utterance of those repulsive, dismissive sentiments from TV pundits and legal experts about the details in the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial in New York, I would donate it to the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, to reinvigorate paused funding.

That is because the cultural affinity for survivor diminishment as demonstrated in this case is aligned to the White House administration’s latest reduction of monetary, social, healthcare, housing and legal support for those experiencing domestic violence.

The Trump Administration Is Making the Country Less Safe for Domestic Violence Victims

Over the last four decades, the United States has built a web of federal policies and funding to address domestic and intimate partner violence, a pervasive health and safety crisis. 

In just 130 days, the Trump administration has put that safety net in jeopardy.

Funding pauses, cuts, firings and information purges have destabilized the infrastructure that helps victims of abuse. At the same time, federal teams dedicated to preventing sexual violence are being decimated. Departments in charge of administering grants that fund shelters for those fleeing assault have been deemed “duplicative, DEI or simply unnecessary.”

“I am horrified,” said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), who has detailed her experience as a victim of domestic violence.  “Maybe it’s not intentional, but it’s very dangerous as a survivor of domestic violence—a survivor in the days where there was no crisis line to call … no information to be able to stand up for yourself. There was no shelter to go to.”

Cuts to ‘Woke’ Programs Threaten Lifelines for Domestic Violence Survivors

Without stable residence, childcare, income and economic resources, many domestic violence survivors eventually return to their abuser, trapped in a permanent cycle of violence.

Now, the Office of Management and Budget’s review of 2,600 programs for potential cuts—including key domestic violence grants labeled as “woke” “gender ideology”—has sparked alarm among advocacy organizations scrambling to support survivors without federal aid.

The Next President Will Decide Domestic Violence Policy for Millions of Survivors

Survivor Justice Action, alongside survivors and allies across the country, is taking the conversation about domestic violence beyond individual homes, ensuring it’s heard loudly throughout the halls of Congress.

We refuse to settle for a world that enables, perpetuates and ignores the root causes of domestic violence. We will always make survivors voices a priority, and we won’t stop until domestic violence ends.

Could You Be ‘Framed’? New Book Exposes How Domestic Abuse Victims Are Set Up in Family Court

In their groundbreaking new book, Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld, Dr. Christine M. Cocchiola and Amy Polacko expose the gender biased injustice in family courts. Through the stories of 22 real women from the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia the authors shine a light on how women are accused, arrested, abused and can even lose custody of their children—to their abusers. 

“Most people have no idea what really happens when you get divorced—until they find themselves entering the world of family court. It is an abuser’s playground,” said Polacko.

The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban Survives Yet Another Attack

The Feminist Majority—the advocacy arm of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which publishes Ms.—together with the National Network to End Domestic Violence and its then director, Donna Edwards, played a pivotal role in passing the original Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban at the heart of the Rahimi case, often referred to as “the Lautenberg Amendment,” after its sponsor, the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), in 1996. After passage, feminists stood firmly against all attempts to gut the law, like the 1997 and 1999 attempts to exempt police officers and military service personnel from its coverage (which both failed). 

“The law prevented countless tragedies,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. “It has saved the lives and harm of countless domestic violence survivors, most of whom are women.” Here’s to the feminist allies and advocates ensuring those days stay behind us.

In U.S. v. Rahimi, Domestic Violence Victims Live to Die Another Day

Friday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that a law restricting firearms access for a narrow class of individuals subject to a specific kind of domestic violence restraining order does not violate the Second Amendment. The ruling is a “win” in much the same way the Court’s ruling in the mifepristone case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine earlier this month is a win: The Court did the “bare minimum” necessary to cling to the last vestiges of its legitimacy.

The threat posed by violent abusers like Zackey Rahimi might be temporarily disarmed today, but the threat posed by the Supreme Court’s patriarchal agenda remains a loaded weapon.

Supporting Domestic Violence Survivors Means Protecting Their Options

We can and must aspire to a future in which domestic violence survivors have options beyond the civil and criminal legal systems. But in the meantime, our government leaders must protect the options that do exist.

Those existing options are largely funded by the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) which, since its inception in 1984, has supported survivors all over the country by funding services that assist with shelter and housing access, legal representation, counseling and more via the Crime Victims Fund. But with those funds declining over time, so has available VOCA funding. And while the U.S. Department of Justice is working on a solution to this problem, any action they take won’t restart that crucial funding flow to individual states for years.