{"id":39104,"date":"2025-02-06T15:37:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T20:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/?p=39104"},"modified":"2025-02-21T15:38:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T20:38:39","slug":"listening-to-survivors-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/listening-to-survivors-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening to Survivors Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rappaport panelists share policy reform efforts that center the voices and experiences of sexual assault and domestic violence survivors.<\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

The Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy recently welcomed 2025 Senior Fellow Hema Sarang-Sieminski, who delivered a community address on the long arc of the movement to end sexual and domestic violence. This was the Center\u2019s first program under the leadership of its new executive director, Amanda Teo. The former Counsel for the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts succeeds Elisabeth \u201cLissy\u201d J. Medvedow, who retired in December after almost a decade in the role.<\/p>\n

Sarang-Sieminski, the executive director of Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence (JDI), focused her address on the intersection of interpersonal and state violence, and how intimate partner violence must be understood through the framework of oppression.<\/p>\n

She explained that starting in the 1980s, advocates successfully campaigned for government recognition of, and funding for services to support, survivors of sexual violence. With these positive efforts, however, also came an increasing overreliance on criminal-legal and carceral approaches that disproportionately impacted communities of color and often compounded harm by criminalizing survivors. \u201cBuild[ing] the world we want to see,\u201d said Sarang-Sieminski, means supporting and addressing the needs of all survivors, including those who are systems-involved or who don\u2019t fit a neat conception of \u201cvictim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have work to do,\u201d Sarang-Sieminski said. Stressing the need for community involvement and organization, she analogized her strategy to that of bison, who, when facing a storm, walk through in formation headfirst, knowing that if they are to survive, they must do so as a collective.<\/p>\n

In the week following her address, Sarang-Sieminski moderated a panel on emerging issues in domestic violence and sexual assault survivor advocacy. Panelists were Anne Bureau, program director of the Worcester Community Connections Coalition; Lisa Goodman, clinical-community psychologist and professor in BC\u2019s Lynch School of Education and Human Development; and Jamie Sabino, deputy director of advocacy at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.<\/p>\n

Survivors often find themselves with limited space for action, making choices to avoid harm for themselves and their loved ones that may not make sense to judges, juries, or people who have not experienced interpersonal violence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The panel discussed how the understanding of abuse has evolved to encompass not just physical violence but also forms of coercive control. As Goodman explained, domestic violence is, at its core, a set of demands that are backed by threats or punishments. This can manifest through physical, emotional, mental, financial, and sexual control or abuse. Survivors often find themselves with limited space for action, making choices to avoid harm for themselves and their loved ones that may not make sense to judges, juries, or people who have not experienced interpersonal violence.<\/p>\n

Inspired by a recent law passed in Connecticut that redefines abuse to include coercive control, Bureau has worked tirelessly to get Massachusetts to do the same. The success of this initiative resulted from Bureau\u2019s engaging of survivors as leaders, culminating in a legislative hearing that lasted more than eight hours, where survivors were able to tell their stories, and more importantly, be heard.<\/p>\n

In domestic violence work, there\u2019s sometimes a feeling that you shouldn\u2019t involve survivors, Bureau said. \u201cBut they want to speak up.\u201d Even more than educated judges, the field needs educated litigants so that survivors can tell their stories. That said, \u201clearning to listen as a lawyer is the best skill you can develop,\u201d Sabino added, acknowledging that it can be a challenge when survivors don\u2019t want to talk. \u201cBut,\u201d she said, \u201cI can\u2019t be the only voice at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel agreed that policy and outcomes are better when the work is survivor-centered and survivor-led. \u201cYou can get so much done when you\u2019re working in a broad coalition with different folks,\u201d Bureau said. Armed with a better understanding of the limits and possible harms of criminal-legal responses, the wide range of abuse that occurs beyond physical violence, and what survivors actually need to feel safe, advocates can make \u201cbig changes,\u201d Bureau and other panelists insisted.<\/p>\n

As Teo stated in her introduction, \u201cnobody needs to be spoken for. Survivors know what will lead to justice. Listening, therefore, turns out to be a radical act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photograph by Reba Saldanha<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rappaport panelists share policy reform efforts that center the voices and experiences of sexual assault and domestic violence survivors. The Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy recently welcomed 2025 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39107,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39104\/revisions\/39107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}