National Stalking Awareness Month, 2025

Proclamation 10879 of December 31, 2024

National Stalking Awareness Month, 2025

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

During National Stalking Awareness Month, we honor the
courage and resilience of the millions of people in
America who have suffered from stalking and recommit to
ensuring every American feels safe and protected from
this abuse. And we recommit to building a world where
every person can walk through life knowing they are
safe, secure, and will be treated with respect.

For the one in three women and one in six men who have
endured stalking, the fear it causes can be all-
consuming. No matter where it was committed or who it
was committed by--at home, at work, online, or by a
stranger or a neighbor--stalking can destroy a person's
sense of security and safety. And it can have immense
consequences on their lives: some have to leave
everything behind to flee at a moment's notice or are
haunted by their experience forever. It is wrong.

For too long, people refused to talk about stalking and
other forms of gender-based violence, leaving survivors
feeling alone, isolated, and forgotten. That changed
with the passage of the landmark Violence Against Women
Act more than 30 years ago--a law I was proud to write
and champion as a United States Senator. It helped
shine a harsh light on the scourge of gender-based
violence in America and ensured that survivors were
getting the support they needed. In 2022, I signed a
reauthorization of the law, giving survivors of
stalking more support and cracking down on
perpetrators. It expanded the jurisdiction of Tribal
courts to prosecute non-Native perpetrators of stalking
and other gender-based violence, while ensuring
survivors can bring a civil lawsuit in Federal court
against someone who shared intimate images of them
online without their consent.

My Administration has taken action to crack down on
stalking and gender-based violence in America. We
released our Nation's first-ever National Plan to End
Gender-Based Violence, laying out a strategy to best
support survivors, work on prevention, and ensure
perpetrators are held accountable. The Department of
Justice's Office on Violence Against Women has
continued providing grants to community organizations,
prosecutors, and law enforcement to stop stalking and
other gender-based crimes. And to ensure victims have a
safe place to call home and rebuild their lives, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development has
provided tens of thousands of emergency housing
vouchers. Furthermore, I established the White House
Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse to
make sure we are stopping gender-based violence
committed online.

My father used to say that one of the greatest sins a
person could commit is the abuse of power--and that is
fundamentally what stalking is. During National
Stalking Awareness Month, we recommit to supporting
survivors of stalking and reaffirm that harassment,
abuse, and violence have no place in America.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of
the United States of America, by virtue of the
authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws
of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2025
as National Stalking Awareness Month. I call on all
Americans to speak out

against stalking and to support the efforts of
advocates, courts, service providers, and law
enforcement to help those who are targeted and send the
message to perpetrators that these crimes will not go
unpunished.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
thirty-first day of December, in the year of our Lord
two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of
the United States of America the two hundred and forty-
ninth.