Advocates now call on Congress to assure programmes are fully funded
By Lisa Anderson
NEW YORK (TrustLaw)—After months of battling legislative delays, women’s rights groups Thursday lauded the robust bipartisan vote in the U.S. House of Representatives that reauthorised the Violence Against Women Act and sent it to President Barack Obama to sign into law.
“Congress came together today and put partisan politics aside to protect victims of violence,” said Meghan Rhoad, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.
“We should not have had to work so hard and for so long to get such a bill passed,” said National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O’Neill, in a statement.
The landmark 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the primary federal law affording legal protection and assistance to counter domestic abuse, sexual violence and stalking, had been reauthorised twice without incident before partisan differences allowed it to expire last year.
At stake was nearly $700 million in federal funding for programs dealing with violence against women around the country, including legal assistance, domestic violence shelters and hotlines, law enforcement education and a stalker database. Had the bill not been reauthorized, funding for these programs might have started drying up by the end of March.
The problems came from conservative House Republicans who balked at a new U.S. Senate version of the bill that expanded protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) victims of violence, immigrant women, Native American women and sex trafficking victims.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill last year but the House failed to do so after coming up with its own watered-down version which eliminated the expanded protections in the Senate bill.
House Republicans particularly objected to a provision that would allow Native American courts to try non-Native Americans accused of violence against Native American women instead of having all such cases referred to often distant federal courts.
After reintroducing its bill, albeit with some very slight modification to mollify House Republicans, on February 12 the Senate again resoundingly passed the bill, . On Feb. 22, House Republicans came up with another weakened version of the bill. But this time they did so with the knowledge that it would almost surely fail a vote in the House where members, battered by their foot-dragging on VAWA during last year’s election campaign, increasingly were pressuring leadership to pass the Senate bill.
The House version of the bill was indeed defeated Thursday by a vote of 257-166. Members then immediately voted on the Senate version of the bill, handily passing it by a vote of 286-138.
“This legislation is vital to helping not only victims who seek safety and protection from their spouses or intimate partners, but also family members and communities affected by domestic violence. Children exposed to violence stand a greater chance of attempting suicide and abusing drugs and alcohol,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Advocates for the LGBT community expressed relief at the bill’s passage. LGBT people, particularly lesbian and bisexual women, suffer a high level of domestic abuse and violence according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This legislation will make a real difference in the lives of tens of thousands LGBT people each year,” said a statement by Sharon Stapel, executive director of the Anti-Violence Project (AVP). “This legislation ends the silence that so many LGBT survivors have felt, makes LGBT survivors visible and central to our national response to domestic and sexual violence, and says to all survivors of violence: you matter and there is support for you.”
The next challenge is to make sure the funding is delivered, said NOW’s Terry O’Neill.
“While we celebrate today’s victory, we must begin immediately on the work of ensuring that VAWA’s authorized programs are fully funded,” she said.
“Women’s lives are on the line. How could we settle for anything less?”
(Editing by Stella Dawson)
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