The words victim and survivor carry different meanings, and people may have strong feelings about which best reflects their experience. The term victim may acknowledge the injustice experienced and refer to the right to seek legal redress for a crime, while survivor may emphasize agency, resilience, and life beyond that harm. Neither term fully captures every person’s experience.

Throughout this website, we generally use “survivor” to reflect our emphasis on agency, leadership, and the ability of people affected by atrocity to shape the systems and responses that affect their lives. But we do not believe there is a single “right” term. We affirm each individual’s right to describe their own experience in the language that feels most accurate and meaningful to them.