The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence is a nationwide network of approximately 2,000 domestic violence shelters, programs and individual members working on behalf of battered women and their children. My role here today is to advocate for increased safety for battered women and other stalking victims. Battered women and their children, as well as other victims of stalking, are very much at risk of harm when their location is revealed. We are concerned about the circumstances under which personal information can be released under the new regulations of the United States Postal Service. Each year, 1.4 million Americans are stalked.
Stalkers can be very persistent, especially domestic violence stalkers.
Because of the nature of domestic violence and the difficulty in apprehending and prosecuting stalkers, a domestic violence or stalking victim must take steps to protect herself where we cannot protect her. When Jane left her batterer, he became her stalker. She moved and obtained a post office box in order to keep her new address secret, but her batterer found her and was waiting for her at her post office box. She moved to another state and got a new post office box, but again, her batterer was waiting for her when she went to pick up her mail. Jane moved numerous times, from state to state, only to be found again and again.