In The News
Justice Department Commemorates National Stalking Awareness Month
The Justice Department joins survivors, victim services providers, justice professionals and others in recognizing the month of January as National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM). According to the CDC, an estimated one in three women and one in six men experience stalking in their lifetimes. This NSAM, the department reaffirms its commitment to survivors by honoring and providing resources to those leading efforts in supporting survivors and preventing stalking crimes. Read [...]
Funding Opportunity: OVW Abuse in Later Life Program
The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Fiscal Year 2023 Training and Services to End Abuse in Later Life (Abuse in Later Life Program) Solicitation is now available. This grant program supports a comprehensive approach to addressing abuse in later life, including domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, neglect, abandonment, economic abuse, or willful harm committed against victims who are 50 years of age or older. Eligible Applicants Eligible applicants [...]
Funding Opportunity: OVW FY 2023 Legal Assistance For Victims Grant
NOW OPEN: OVW's FY 2023 Legal Assistance for Victims Grant Program Solicitation OVW’s Legal Assistance for Victims Program is intended to increase the availability of civil and criminal legal assistance needed to effectively aid adult and youth (ages 11 to 24) victims of domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, or sexual assault by providing funds for comprehensive direct legal service to victims in legal matters relating to or arising out of [...]
OVW FY 2023 LAV Grant Program Expanding Legal Services Initiative (ELSI) Now Open
OVW’s Legal Assistance for Victims Program Expanding Legal Services Initiative (ELSI) is intended to enable eligible organizations that do not currently offer legal services to establish a program that provides legal representation to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Organizations funded under this solicitation may be eligible for up to five years of funding, two years under this solicitation and an additional three years of noncompetitive [...]
Funding Opportunities to Support Public Safety in Tribal Communities
The Department of Justice today announced the opening of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS) period for comprehensive funding to American Indian and Alaska Native communities. CTAS funding supports crime prevention activities, victim services, and coordinated community responses to violence against Native American individuals. Administered by the Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), CTAS posts today online at https://www.justice.gov/tribal/open-solicitations. [...]
Blog
Indigenous Canadians wary, hopeful as pope prepares apology
MASKWACIS, Alberta — To this day, Flo Buffalo doesn't drink milk — not since two nuns force-fed her the sour milk she had refused at the Catholic-run Ermineskin Indian Residential School for Indigenous children that she attended in the 1960s. Holding out her right hand, she showed how she has never been able to fully straighten it out since a nun severely beat her with a stick. "The nuns, they [...]
Where are the Indigenous children who never came home?
When Yufna Soldier Wolf was a kid, she was made well aware of why her family members only spoke English, and why they dressed the way they did. Her grandfather and other elders used to recount their experiences at boarding schools, where the government sent hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children, from nearly every Indigenous nation within U.S. borders, to unlearn their languages and cultures. “A lot of them were [...]
Washington State creates an alert system for missing Indigenous people
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday signed into law a bill that creates a first-in-the-nation statewide alert system for missing Indigenous people. The law creates a system similar to Amber Alerts and so-called silver alerts, which are used respectively for missing children and vulnerable adults in many states. The system will notify law enforcement when there's a report of a missing Indigenous person. It will also place messages on highway [...]
Tribe grapples with missing women crisis on California coast
By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press February 21, 2022 YUROK RESERVATION, Calif. — The young mother had behaved erratically for months, hitchhiking and wandering naked through two Native American reservations and a small town clustered along Northern California's rugged Lost Coast. But things escalated when Emmilee Risling was charged with arson for igniting a fire in a cemetery. Her family hoped the case would force her into mental health and addiction [...]
Systems Advocacy: Creating Safe, Respectful & Effective Responses Part 3
“I was so tired I could hardly think. Petrified about going to court. The prosecutor was an angel. Kind, patient. He actually said he was sorry I got beaten up, I didn’t deserve it – no matter what. Then he said he would do the prosecution without me if I wanted. The cops did a great job investigating, documenting, and the doctor did a detailed report, so it was [...]