Together We Will Build a Better Future

Current initiative:

NM Family Law and Child Advocates to incorporate "coercive control" in NM family law & domestic violence statutes

Where

New Mexico

When

January 19, 2027

Join Us for Supporting Our Initiative

New Mexico's family courts currently have no legal definition for coercive control — the pattern of systematic deprivation, phycological manipulation, isolation, financial, digital, and litigation-based abuse that too often gets misread as an ordinary "high-conflict divorce." We're working to close that gap in the 2027 legislative session, and we need people with different kinds of expertise and experience to make it happen.

Here's how you can help:

Bill Language & Legal Drafting

Have experience with legislative drafting or family law statutes? We're building draft language for NMSA § 40-13-2 and § 40-4-9, modeled on recent reforms in California, Colorado, and Arizona. Help us get the wording right before it goes in front of a sponsor.

Pro Bono / Volunteer Legal Review

Family law attorneys and law students: we're looking for a legal sanity-check on our proposed statute language — making sure any definition of coercive control is precise enough to hold up in court, not just in principle.

Coalition & Interested Parties

Organizations, advocates, and community groups working on domestic violence, child welfare, or family law reform — join our coalition. We're stronger in front of legislators with more voices behind this effort.

Survivors of Domestic Violence & Coercive Control

If you've experienced coercive control in a custody or divorce case, your story matters. With your consent, survivor experiences help legislators understand why this gap in the law needs to close — and you decide how much or how little you want to share.

GET INVOLVED

"Think of change as a tree - it doesn't grow from the top down, so we shouldn't be waiting for somebody to tell us what to do. It grows from the bottom up, and we are the roots of change."

Gloria Steinem

Where:

When:

January 19, 2027

12pm

Address:

490 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501

About the Initiative

New Mexico's family court statutes define domestic abuse almost entirely as discrete incidents — a hit, a threat, an act of stalking. What they don't recognize is coercive control: the ongoing pattern of systematic deprivation that strips away a person's independence, freedom, and sense of self; phycological manipulation; financial abuse, monitoring and tracking; micro-managing daily life; isolation; intimidation and threats; litigation abuse that often does the most lasting damage, and that rarely leaves a single, provable incident behind.

Because New Mexico law has no definition for this pattern, family court judges are left without the legal tools to name it. Too often, coercive control gets misclassified as an ordinary "high-conflict divorce" — and custody gets awarded to the controlling parent, compromising the safety and stability of the children involved.

This isn't a hypothetical gap. California (2021), Colorado (2024), and Arizona (2026) have all passed bipartisan legislation explicitly incorporating coercive control into their domestic violence and custody statutes. New Mexico is behind.

Our initiative is working to change that — advocating for New Mexico to amend NMSA § 40-13-2 (the Family Violence Protection Act) and § 40-4-9 (child custody standards) to name coercive control for what it is, and give judges, evaluators, and protective parents a statute that actually reflects how this kind of abuse works.

We're building the case, the coalition, and the legal language ahead of the 2027 legislative session — and we're looking for legislative sponsors, legal reviewers, coalition partners, and the survivors whose experience makes this reform necessary in the first place.