COVID-19 Package Must Fund Culturally-Specific Community-Based Organizations
Contact Your Senators TODAY and Tell Them to Pass a COVID-19 Package
That Supports Victims and Survivors and Includes Funding for Culturally-Specific Organizations and Sexual Assault Survivors
Tell Congress that it must acknowledge that racism is part of all of our institutions, as amply demonstrated by the disparate impact of COVID-19 on Black communities and Communities of Color. While we appreciate that the House’s HEROES Act provides funding for domestic violence programs and ensures the long-term viability of the Crime Victims Fund, it provides NO funding for culturally-specific community-based organizations that provide domestic violence and sexual assault services and insufficient funding for sexual assault programs. This is unacceptable – and the Senate needs to hear from you. Survivors need more.
When you call your Senators tell them that in the next COVID-19 relief package, the Senate should include important provisions from the HEROES Act that support survivors and, in addition:
- Provide dedicated funding for culturally-specific organizations that provide domestic violence and sexual assault services through both the Division of Family Violence Prevention and Services in the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families and the Office on Violence Against Women;
- Address the needs of survivors by funding sexual assault services;
- Fund Tribal governments to provide domestic violence and sexual assault services;
- Provide more funding for domestic and sexual violence programs through a VAWA formula grant directly to victim service programs;
- Ensure that access to safety for immigrant survivors is not compromised by immigration enforcement, by restricting enforcement activities at sensitive locations like courts and hospitals and by prohibiting the detention or deportation of survivors with pending immigration applications; and
- Allow states to make survivors eligible for unemployment insurance if they leave their jobs due to domestic or sexual violence.
IANGEL, as a member of the Coalition to End Violence Against Women and Girls Globally, also recently signed onto a letter to the U.S. government focused on COVID-19 policies. IANGEL believes the U.S. Government should take all available measures to ensure that preventing, mitigating, and responding to gender-based violence is a priority in all global COVID-19 responses. In the document we call on the U.S. Government to:
- Ensure adequate funding to address gender-based violence
- Support program measures that integrate gender-based violence prevention and mitigation
- Ensure U.S. Government programs are based on a gender analysis and collect sex- and age-disaggregated data
- Prioritize women-, girl-, and community-led solutions and knowledge