Michelle Kuiper
Survivor Advocate, Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs
Michelle LeAnn Kuiper from Kentucky in the United States is a Survivor Advocate at the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs. She volunteers her time educating audiences at schools, churches, and other community-based institutions on how to change the language around sexual assault and rape. She has worked on a non-partisan basis with the state legislatures in Kentucky and Indiana to pass six major reform laws in three years, all while attending college full-time. In Indiana, the laws she helped pass require DNA to be collected at felony arrest as well as audits for rape kits. Currently, she is working on a bill that would track rape kits and change the definition of rape. In Kentucky, she audited and worked on clearing a backlog of rape kits, and also worked on rape kit reform, testing and tracking, and helped pass a law that changes the definition of rape.