Founder and Executive Director
Panayiota Bertzikis
Veteran, advocate, and founder of the Military Rape Crisis Center and the International Center for Survivor Justice. Two decades of work to end sexual violence in the military.
2006
Founded the Military Rape Crisis Center while on active duty
20 years
Leading nonprofit and advocacy organizations
600+
Trainings delivered to government, military, and civilian groups
800,000+
Service members, veterans, and families assisted by MRCC
About
Panayiota Bertzikis had a typical immigrant upbringing in Queens, New York. Her father had a third-grade education, and she went to New York City public schools in the 90s that the city had forgotten about. On college fair day at her high school, the military recruiters outnumbered the college counselors. Every branch was there except the Coast Guard, so she went on to enlist in the only one that hadn’t bothered to show up.
In 2006, while still on active duty in the United States Coast Guard, she founded the Military Rape Crisis Center from her barracks room at Coast Guard Base Boston. She started it after seeing firsthand how the Coast Guard mishandled sexual violence within its ranks, to support fellow Coast Guardsmen and members of every other branch. It turns out a barracks room makes a perfectly good headquarters.
Today she leads an organization that has grown into the largest dedicated to military sexual violence, with representatives in all fifty states and offices on three continents. The barracks room is no longer the headquarters.
She later earned advanced degrees and has spent about twenty years leading nonprofit and advocacy organizations.
Her work
The Military Rape Crisis Center
MRCC provides free, confidential case management, counseling, legal advocacy, discharge upgrades, and VA disability support. It is also the only rape crisis center to have opened offices in active war zones, in Iraq and Afghanistan. MRCC does not accept federal funding and takes no direction from the Department of Defense or any outside agency on what is best for survivors.
International Center for Survivor Justice
Launched in 2026, ICSJ works across borders with grassroots, women-led organizations in communities affected by U.S. militarization, and advocates for reparations, material support, and accountability for women and girls harmed by U.S. service members abroad.
Legislation
She advocated for the I Am Vanessa Guillen Act, signed into law in December 2021, which removes senior military officials from decisions in sexual misconduct cases. She has also advised on a wider body of military sexual trauma and veterans legislation.
Litigation
In 2011, MRCC sued the Department of Defense and Secretary Robert Gates in a landmark case challenging the military’s handling of sexual assault.
Training and advising
She has trained the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs, foreign militaries, veterans service groups, and the United States Congress.
Media and film
She advised on the documentary The Hunting Ground, about campus sexual assault, and has been featured in Glamour. MRCC’s work has been covered by CNN, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera, among others.
Who has worked with her
Her training and advisory work has included the U.S. Department of Defense, the British Armed Forces, the Royal Navy, the University of California system, Harvard, Boston College, the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan, K-12 schools, Condé Nast, and news media organizations.
She has also served on the National Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women.
Ideas she writes and speaks about
Her writing and advocacy focus on institutional betrayal, DARVO, survivor credibility, and how the media frames military sexual violence. She brings an intersectional, anti-colonial lens to education, military justice, and community organizing, and questions Western clinical frameworks that she sees as pathologizing survivors.
Media, speaking, and training requests
Email panayiota@stopmilitaryrape.org or visit stopmilitaryrape.org.
Military Rape Crisis Center
Free, confidential support for Active Duty service members, Veterans, and their loved ones. Supporting survivors, ending sexual violence.
Contact
Phone: (617) 299-0253
WhatsApp: (802) 578-4769
U.S.
2025 N 3rd St
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Japan
1-10-24 Matsuo
Naha-shi, Okinawa, Okinawa-ken 900-0014
© Military Rape Crisis Center. Funded in large part by the Global Women Impact Fund.
