Committee on Women and Gender Equity

Good afternoon. Committee. Good afternoon and welcome to the New York City Council vote for the Committee on Women and Gender Equity. At this time, please put all devices on silent and no one to approach the dais. Chair, you may begin. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Councilmember Amanda Farias, and I'm the chair of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity.

Welcome to today's vote. First, I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues who are present: Councilmembers Felder, Alderbol, Santos-Suoso, and Gutierrez. Thank you all for being here today.

The committee will be considering proposed introduction number 296-A, sponsored by Councilmember Farah Lewis, in relation to increasing access to data regarding gender-based violence. October is recognized as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. During this month, it's important that we as a city acknowledge domestic violence survivors and be a voice for its victims. But underreporting of domestic and gender-based violence incidents to the police makes it difficult to understand the true scope and trends of this type of violence in our city.

People deserve to have their needs acknowledged before a situation escalates to police intervention, but a lot of our city's reporting on domestic and gender-based violence only uses public New York Police Department data. This fact hinders the development of effective prevention programs and resource allocation for service providers and law enforcement. Thank you. Proposed Intro Number 296A would require the Mayor's Office to End Gender-Based Violence, or NGBV, to compile and review all existing data related to gender-based violence and then develop a report with recommendations for agencies to improve the collection and integration of data on gender-based violence.

It would also require NGBV to develop a data dashboard to share data from city and state agencies around gender-based violence. Finally, It would require reporting from the Administration for Child Services and the Department of Housing Authority about screenings for gender-based violence and when they have referred individuals for services specific to gender-based violence. Gender-based violence continues to plague our city.

We need a better and deeper understanding of who is affected to properly and adequately address ways to prevent such violence and meet victims' needs. Thank you. The bill sponsor is not present today for remarks, but we thank her for moving this bill along. Finally, I would like to thank my own staff, Dan Curtin and Josephine Karras, and the members of the Women and Gender Equity Committee staff, Senior Committee Counsel Julia Goldsmith-Pinkham and Legislative Policy Analyst Katie Salina and Financial Analyst Ali Soffer, who worked to prepare this meeting.

Clerk, we are ready to begin the vote. The vote is now open. Thank you. Good afternoon. William Martin, committee clerk. Roll call vote. Committee on Women and Gender Equity. Proposed introduction 296A. Chair Farias. Aye. Gutierrez. Aye. Schulman. Alderbol. Aye. Santos Suoso. Aye. With a vote of 4 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, and no abstentions, item has been approved by the committee.

Thank you, Clerk.

This vote is now adjourned.