Assembly Member Amy Paulin has fought to protect survivors of domestic violence throughout her 20-year political career, and even before that, when she worked for an organization that offered support to survivors. She could never have imagined that her own daughter would become a domestic violence survivor. But, in fact, one in four women and one in ten men will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetimes.

Amy Paulin joined In Focus to talk about her very personal connection to the issue of violence against women, and the numerous bills she has sponsored in the assembly to offer protection to victims and survivors. 

She talked about her bill that prevents abusers in New York State from owning guns, which became part of last year’s budget, a pre-cursor to the “boyfriend loophole” that has become a controversial part of the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act that was just passed by the House and is now awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Paulin also spoke to the dangers survivors faced in the pandemic, explaining that isolating with an abuser who may have lost a job, never leaves the home and is facing financial hardship placed the victims in an even worse position than they were in before.