Reunion Online

Today I had the honor and privilege of testifying before the Hawai‘i State Legislature’s House Committee on Human Services in support of House Bill 1907, which would establish a system for tracking rape kits and mandate a deadline for the crime lab to process the evidence.

The Super Bowl 50 NO MORE ad highlights that recognizing the signs of abuse can potentially help someone. It demonstrates how starting a conversation that might help change—or even save—someone’s life begins with each of us.

Consent: the presence of a yes – not the absence of a no.

Your commitment, courage and determination inspire us to push ever onward on the path toward lasting change, and we are deeply grateful.

This holiday season, give in more ways than one.

The rape kit backlog—untested rape kits numbering in the hundreds of thousands across the country—represents a failure of the criminal justice system to protect survivors and to hold perpetrators accountable.

The stakes could not be higher. One in three women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend. Every two minutes, someone is sexually assaulted. More than five children die every day in this country as a result of child abuse and neglect.

If we have any chance of bringing real and lasting change, we have to take care of the people on the frontlines of helping survivors.

As we reflect on Joyful Heart’s journey, we feel deeply grateful to you—our joyful community. Together we are changing the way society talks about, thinks about and responds to victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.

We owe it to survivors—and ourselves— to improve the criminal justice response to these crimes. To ensure that police and prosecutors make every effort to ensure survivors’ safety and to hold offenders accountable to the fullest extent possible.