Siena Nesbitt-Fox (she/her) has lived in Portland her entire life and currently studies English Literature at Reed College, where she will graduate in May of 2019.  Siena is the Advocate Program Coordinator for her campus’ Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program and the Training and Communications Assistant at the National Crime Victim Law Institute. Additionally, she is fluent in Spanish, is proficient in Standard Arabic, and spent her 2017 summer working closely with and translating for a Senior Associate Counsel at a domestic violence law firm in New York City.  Siena is grateful for her time as a House Advisor with Reed College’s Residence Life department over her sophomore and junior years, and is appreciative of her experience from the Center for Women’s Leadership’s NEW Leadership Oregon program: an opportunity to learn from and with talented and inspirational women in Oregon.  As a Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Advocate with legal privilege and a certified Restorative Justice Facilitator, Siena has a passion and dedication to uplift, empower, and serve oppressed populations in her anti-violence work, and makes an effort to increase accessibility to all underrepresented identities and incorporate anti-racism into all of her work.  After graduating, she hopes to continue to serve survivors in both local and global communities, and is considering pursuing law.  In her free time, she likes to cross-stitch, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, listen to ABBA, and spend time with her chosen family, partner and cat.

Read on to learn a little more about Siena in her own words!

Who or what inspires you?
Survivors and their resilience inspire me.  People worry about how second-hand trauma affects people who work as victim advocates, attorneys, or program coordinators, but they often forget to take into account the way that survivors’ determination, persistence, and strength influence people who work with them.  Almost everyone I know who works with survivors has experienced trauma and violence, and this shows that many survivors are willing to put themselves back into the battlefield to do this strenuous work for other people, not in spite of, but rather because of their trauma.  I am constantly reminded of the strength and power that builds up the community of anti-violence work, and I am proud to be a part of it and inspired to cultivate a world based on consent.

What areas of growth would you like to see continue in the current victims’ rights environment, be it legal, political, public recognition, victim social/psychological services, etc.?
One area of growth in the current victims’ rights environment would be to require every organization that works with victims and survivors to be accessible to and have specific resources for survivors of color, LGBTQI+ survivors, male survivors, survivors who are sex workers, survivors who are disabled, immigrant survivors, and other survivors that are disproportionately subject to victim-blaming and have difficulty finding resources.  I think that if people want to fight violence and oppression and become inclusive and accessible, then they need to do the work to actively eliminate the idea of what a victim looks like.

Another area of growth would be to make space for the survivors that are interested in pursuing non-punitive solutions for perpetrators to take accountability for the crimes they’ve committed. Many survivors want their communities to demand accountability from the people who have harmed them. Numerous survivors have felt this community support through the punitive justice system, and I think that the victims’ rights environment could grow by including more non-punitive solutions to complement the resources it offers survivors. Violence is woven into our society to the extent that it perpetuates harm, and there are people who have harmed that are victims of trauma as well. Going forward, I think that as a community, victims’ rights advocates need to consider how we can address, advocate for, and support all crime victims and survivors.

What would you most like NCVLI or the victims’ rights movement to accomplish in the next five years?
Destroy Rape Culture