Our Policy Positions
Our Policy Positions
ZeroV holds the following positions on issues that intersect with our work to address and end intimate partner violence.
- We advocate for laws and policies that prevent gun violence and protect survivors while preserving the lawful use of firearms for sport and personal protection.
- We advocate for restorative and transformative alternatives to the conventional justice system that provide survivors, people who use violence, and their communities with opportunities to repair harm
- We advocate for laws and policies that affirm the right to bodily autonomy, freedom from reproductive coercion, and reliable access to quality reproductive healthcare.
- We advocate for equitable economic policies that help prevent intimate partner violence and give survivors the opportunity to build violence-free lives
- We advocate for laws and policies that invest in improving the life circumstances of people who use violence through education, accountability, and change
- We advocate for laws and policies that address all forms of oppression, in recognition that intimate partner violence exists within the broader context of systemic oppression and will never be eliminated until all oppression is eliminated
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We advocate for laws and policies that prevent gun violence and protect survivors while preserving the lawful use of firearms for sport and personal protection.
Answer
ZeroV is committed to federal and state efforts to protect domestic violence survivors and their children from gun violence including legislation to prevent future tragedies from occurring while preserving the lawful use of firearms for sport and personal protection.
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We advocate for restorative and transformative alternatives to the conventional justice system that provide survivors, people who use violence, and their communities with opportunities to repair harm
Answer
ZeroV is committed to expanding its knowledge of promising alternatives to the criminal justice system, including but not limited to restorative justice practices, and transformative justice initiatives, in order to promote processes that truly seek to address violence without causing more harm. We acknowledge that restorative justice, transformative justice, and related practices were developed in indigenous spaces and we are grateful for indigenous leadership in this area.
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We advocate for laws and policies that affirm the right to bodily autonomy, freedom from reproductive coercion, and reliable access to quality reproductive healthcare.
Answer
ZeroV supports the right to bodily autonomy, the right to live free of reproductive coercion, and the right to reliably access quality reproductive healthcare, especially for the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our Commonwealth.
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We advocate for equitable economic policies that help prevent intimate partner violence and give survivors the opportunity to build violence-free lives
Answer
Like physical or emotional abuse, poverty itself is a form of violence. It literally makes people sick, shortening lives, causing poor health outcomes, and increasing medical costs. It also undermines people’s dignity, restricts their opportunities to provide for their families as well as their ability to heal and thrive. Poverty is preventable. Having access to resources, including money, is essential for both preventing abuse and for survivors as they endeavor to build violence free lives. ZeroV is committed to both engaging in systems change work and supporting survivors to create conditions to heal, recover, and ultimately thrive.
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We advocate for laws and policies that invest in improving the life circumstances of people who use violence through education, accountability, and change
Answer
ZeroV seeks to create a third pathway to nonviolence that will complement services to survivors and the criminal court response. That pathway is called the Education, Accountability, and Change Program which will build upon current batterer intervention programming but that invests in addressing and improving the life circumstances for someone using violence. This means that families, children, those who do harm, and the communities they live in will be healthier and safer.
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We advocate for laws and policies that address all forms of oppression, in recognition that intimate partner violence exists within the broader context of systemic oppression and will never be eliminated until all oppression is eliminated
Answer
Like all people, survivors of domestic violence have multiple identities, shaped and influenced by their ancestry, biology, life experiences, culture, family, community, historic institutions and systems, and social relations. Different combinations of these identities produce their own oppressions. For example, “the intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately.” We cannot address domestic violence without addressing all other forms of intersectional oppression.
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