According to the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center, one in three women and one in six men are impacted by stalking in the United States. Forty percent of stalking victims are stalked by a current or former intimate partner and 31% of women who are stalked experience sexual assault.
There is a strong connection between stalking and intimate-partner and/or gender-based violence.
Stalking can lead to violence towards the person who is being followed, and quite often, the crime gets ignored due to lack of evidence.
In Our Own Voices is a non-profit which works with LGBTQ+ communities of color. The organization ensures that survivors of stalking and domestic or sexual violence are able to find help and take charge of a situation that may feel out of their control.
"When an abuser, when somebody who is committing offending acts has power and control over an individual, they're trying to ensure that this other person is unable to leave them, is unable to make decisions on their own, to be a separate and whole person without the abuser involved. When that's the case, it makes sense to me then that stalking statistics are as high as they are, because that is another form of power and control that you can exert over another person,” said Nitasha George, director of Anti-Violence Services at In Our Own Voices.