Rape. Stalking. Verbal Abuse. Intimidation. These are not the words that the holiday season should bring to mind. But because Congress has so far failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), millions of Americans face the prospect of losing programs that help victims of domestic violence find safety and rebuild shattered lives.
One in every four women and one in every seven men have experienced severe physical violence in their lives, and stalkers victimize approximately 5.2 million women and 1.4 million men each year. When I joined with a bipartisan coalition to write and pass VAWA in 1993, a woman was raped every six seconds, and a female was beaten every 15 seconds.
As we sat down to write the law, it was clear that something needed to be done. The results since then show that our actions have saved lives. Since VAWA was signed into law, more than one million women have used the justice system to obtain protective orders against their batterers, and cases of domestic violence have dropped by 67 percent.
Despite the very real impact of VAWA, this year Congress has failed to reauthorize the law. As I write, the protections that have prevented millions of cases of domestic violence are at risk.
Instead of simply and quickly reauthorizing a law that has saved lives, some in Congress decided to put politics first. They opposed an updated version of VAWA because the updated version would expand protections for the LGBT community, Native American populations and immigrant communities.
Excluding communities of people from protection under VAWA is not only dangerous, but morally wrong. Many of these communities are among the most likely populations to face the threat of domestic violence. For example, statistics gathered by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network reveal that thirty-four percent of Native American women are victims of attempted or completed rape -- a figure far higher than any other demographic group.
We should be providing more protections to victims of domestic violence, not denying assistance to those most in need. Fortunately, like-minded Members of Congress are fighting hard to overcome the extremists who stand in our way. Yesterday, I led a coalition of 120 colleagues -- including many prominent Republicans -- to demand our Congressional leaders reauthorize an inclusive and comprehensive VAWA as soon as possible.
In an age where gridlock and partisanship seem to rule the day, our bipartisan coalition believes we can succeed in passing a bill that protects every victim of domestic violence. For no matter our differences on issues like the fiscal cliff, there is no disagreement when it comes to saving lives.
Follow Rep. Louise Slaughter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/louiseslaughter
Kim Gandy: Intimate Partner Violence Report Proves VAWA Works
Soraya Chemaly: 50 Facts About Domestic Violence
Josh Sugarmann: Nevada Once Again Leads Nation in Women Murdered by Men
Previewing Your Comment.
This comment has not yet been postedAccording to the CDC stats, it's impossible for me to even go to a mall without seeing hundreds of women beaten bloody. When everywhere you go every woman looks like she just stepped out of a salon without so much as a single hair out of place, how can anything you so be believed?
The "official" stats also tell us that one out of four women are raped in college. Which would make US colleges, over four years, the most dangerous place for women in the world. Don't worry about war zones, impoverished ghetto's, it's colleges that are the most dangerous place for a woman to be raped.
Stop the lies.
Imagine a country where
you could be forced from your house and kids based solely on a lie.
you appear in court, guilty until you prove yourself innocent.
you if you cannot afford and attorney, one was not provided to you.
you cannot subpoena evidence by those that accused you.
your “Trial” is not done by a jury of your peers.
where even if you prove yourself innocent, your accuser is never held accountable for their actions.
You don’t have to imagine, it is the USA under VAWA.
VAWA has ruined more innocent lives than it has saved.
Unlike what HP wants you to believe, there's no argument over renewing the current VAWA. The argument is about the new provision granting visas to illegal immigrants that the Democrats just added. The Democrats know Republicans will object to that new provision and the Democrats are willing to let the VAWA expire to make their political point.
I challenge the Dems to ask for a vote on a straight renewal of the VAWA and introduce their new amendments for vote separately. Afterall, they claim to care about women. Show it by renewing the bill everyone already agrees on.
All this stuff about men being treated wrongly is just plain wrong - there is no evidence in this crime than it is in others that people lie. No one wants to do away with all other criminal prosecutions just those that women are the victims or if they are LBGT or if they are men beat by women (also covered in the law), or children who have been assaulted, etc.
I work with programs supported by this funding and it is a VERY rare occurrence that we find that someone lied. Usually they are in the hospital, beat up, raped, terrorized and sodomized. The perpetrator, usually a man, tries to terrorize the hospital, the workers, etc.
The workers who are trained are on to the scams and do everything to make sure their services and grant money is going to someone who deserves it.
More women are killed by their significant other, husband or boy friend than for any other attacks.
One of the leading causes of injury to women in domestic violence incidents is their own initiation of violence. She hits first and he retaliates with far greater force. Dr. Sandra Stith of Kansas State University has called it “a dramatically more important factor than anything else.” Studies conducted for the Centers for Disease Control show about 70% of reciprocal DV to have been initiated by the female partner. Meanwhile, about half of non-reciprocal violence is committed by women. But VAWA is based on the political ideology that men alone commit DV. The unsurprising result is that female perpetrators find it all but impossible to get the treatment they need to stop the behavior that often results in their own injury.
The Inspector General conducted a review of 22 VAWA grantees from 1998 to 2010. Of these 22, 21 were found to have some form of violation of grant requirements ranging from unauthorized and unallowable expenditures, to sloppy recordkeeping and failure to report in a timely manner.In 2010, one grantee was found by the Inspector General to have questionable costs for 93 percent of the nearly $900,000 they received from the Department of Justice. A 2009 audit found that nearly $500,000 of a $680,000 grant was questionable. We should make sure that VAWA money goes to the victims.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/
It indicated a 70% number that was for non-reciprocal cases only. Reciprocal cases numbers were lower.
...Speaking as a woman, I know I've always wanted to hit someone who was considerably bigger and stronger than myself so he'd think he was justified in beating me up. (irony laced with acid)
VAWA needs to be renewed.
VAWA allows women to make false allegations of domestic violence, and then petition for divorce and custody of the children. In some states, a father who has ever had a restraining order filed
against him is automatically rendered ineligible for joint custody of his children. Even though stats show 90% of the TRO's are uneeded and simply used as weapons in divorce and custody hearings.
The National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that domestic violence programs are frequently “driven by ideology and stakeholder interests rather than by plausible theories and scientific evidence of cause.” [Advancing the Federal Research Agenda on Violence Against Women, http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10849.html, p. 6]
VAWA funds educational programs that consistently depict men as perpetrators and women as victims of domestic violence. Most educational programs refer to the perpetrator as “him” and the victim as “her.”