The D.C. Council unanimously approved legislation that expands the rights of sexual assault survivors on Tuesday.

Amid the provisions of the Sexual Assault Victims’ Rights Amendment Act of 2019 include the right for survivors age 13 and older to have access to a victim advocate, a professional trained to support a crime victim during interviews with law enforcement and prosecutors.

It also ensures that advocacy services are available at any District hospital; further codifies when D.C. police must update victims about sexual assault kit testing and toxicology reports; and ensures that sexual assault counselors are trained in trauma-informed care.

This legislation builds upon the Sexual Assault Victims’ Rights Amendment Act of 2014, which first established a survivor’s right to have an advocate present during hospital and police interviews, which began when a person was a legal adult; notification when law enforcement contacts suspects, and information about the processing of rape kits and toxicology reports.

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, says that the legislation is the culmination of five years of working with survivors and advocacy groups. “What we saw was survivors of sex violence who told us they felt almost an antagonistic relationship with so many of the varied agencies that are there to protect them and right the injustice they experienced,” Allen says. “Everybody came to the table, we worked hard, and we wrestled through a lot of tough issues.” Elements of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposals from 2017 and 2019 were incorporated, as well.

The 2014 bill was inspired by a near-200-page Human Rights Watch report published in 2013, which outlined the ways in which law enforcement was failing victims of sexual assault: “Sexual assault cases are too often not properly documented or investigated and victims may face callous, traumatizing treatment, despite official departmental policy to the contrary,” it read in part. (An independent review commissioned by the D.C. Council found flaws in that initial report.)

Allen was working as a council staffer during the 2014 version of the bill. “Now, as a councilmember, being able to have this expansion and update is something we’re very proud of,” he says. “We expand greatly where and when these rights kick in—with this second version, we’ve now been able to do what we weren’t before.” The idea, he says, is to ensure that no matter where survivors go to seek care, “there is no wrong door.”

One major push was ensuring that victims age 13-17 had access to victim advocates. “There are so many barriers for that young person coming forward,” says Allen. “They risk being disbelieved, they risk their friends’ and families’ responses. The sad reality is we see young people deciding not to report,” he says. “I do believe these new protections will change that—they will have advocates, they have supports, they have protections.”

Two years ago, Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed an expansion of sexual assault victims rights, which included a key component that would require prosecutors to give victims a reason why they’re not moving forward with the case. During a 2016 D.C. Council hearing, one survivor testified that her “experience with the U.S. Attorney’s Office can only be described as one of torment.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office told DCist that year that it “always made efforts to communicate this information to victims. However, since January of 2016, we have taken additional steps to improve our efforts to have communication with every victim, and to increase the quality of that communication.” A provision about the federal prosecutor’s office in D.C. did not made it into the final legislation, because the D.C. Council cannot make legislative demands of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. (The USAO of D.C. is the only U.S. attorney’s office that prosecutes local, in addition to federal, crimes.)

The mayor has signaled her support of this bill.

So far this year, there have been 175 reported cases of sex abuse in D.C., per data provided by the Metropolitan Police Department. However, the majority of sexual assaults are not reported to the police, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.