Share Your Ideas with Vice President Biden

The White House, under the leadership of Vice President Biden, who has been a long-time ally to those of us working to end violence against women, has launched a new website called 1 is 2 many. '1 is 2 many' wants to engage a younger generation in creating innovative solutions to address dating violence and sexual assault in schools and on college campuses around the country.

The campaign also includes 'Apps Against Abuse' – a nationwide competition to develop an innovative software application that provides young adults with tools to help prevent sexual assault and dating violence. Since many incidents of dating violence and sexual assault occur when the offender, often an acquaintance, has targeted and isolated a young woman in vulnerable circumstances, the application the White House has envisioned will offer individuals a way to connect with trusted friends in real-time to prevent abuse from occurring.

This is your chance to be part of a solution. Talk about violence against women, tweet about it (#1is2many), and see what you can come up with. What we know if that violence against women won't stop end until all men choose to stop using violence. In a world full of prevention messages targeted toward women (always watch your drink, don't walk home alone at night, be careful what you wear), how can we target men? How can we make violence less cool and less socially acceptable? How do we teach respect to a new generation?

We can't wait to hear your thoughts.

White House Remarks for DVAM

President Obama made remarks today as part of a Domestic Violence Awareness Month event. Here is an excerpt:

Those stories remind us of how cruel, how menacing domestic violence can be -- because it happens at home, the place where you should feel safe. Because the abuse comes at the hands of the people who are supposed to love you and trust you. Because escaping domestic violence is not only associated with a great deal of fear but also incredible financial and legal challenges that often leave victims of abuse feeling trapped.

That’s what we have to change. And I say that not only as a President, but as a son, as a husband, as the father of two daughters. Now, we’ve made a great deal of progress in recent years. But everybody in this room understands that our work is not yet finished. Not when there’s more we can do to help folks looking to restart their lives and achieve financial independence. Not when there’s more to do to ensure that the victims of abuse have access to legal protection. Not when children are trapped in abusive homes -- especially when we know the lingering damage and despair that this can cause in a child’s life. Not when one in every four women experiences domestic violence -- and one in six women are sexually assaulted -- at some point in their lives.

The full remarks are available here.

At the event, the President also announced plans for a series of federal domestic violence initiatives. From Politico:

There are programs targeted at children, including a fund to assist pregnant women who are victims of domestic violence in five states — North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia and Washington — and Head Start centers in six states – Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico and South Carolina – will launch a program to help staff members identify signs of domestic violence in children and respond appropriately.

HUD will release guidelines for housing authorities and landlords who have tenants who may be victims of domestic violence, a move that codifies protections outlined in the Violence Against Women Act. The FDIC will expand its Money Smart financial literacy curriculum on Friday to include information for victims of domestic violence.

The Justice Department will announce the start of a pilot program intended to get more private lawyers to offer services to domestic violence victims pro bono. “Beginning in New Orleans and Baltimore, private law firms will hire law students who have participated in law school clinics and defer their start dates while they work at domestic violence service providers,” the White House fact sheet states.

The initiatives also include a new website, www.workplacesrespond.org, which will be up and running this week to help employers address the impacts of domestic violence in the workplace.

It is amazing what can be accomplished by a government that takes domestic violence seriously, and we applaud the Obama administration for these efforts.

Expanded DV Protections for Gay Couples

The US Justice Department has directed federal prosecutors to enforce the provisions of the Violence Against Women Act with gay and lesbian couples as well.

Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said that the office’s conclusion had been sent as guidance to federal prosecutors around the country.

Ms. Schmaler said she could not answer questions about the context of the request because it was a matter of internal deliberations.

But Brian Moulton, the chief legislative counsel of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy group, said his group asked the Obama transition team after the 2008 election to have the office “clarify” for prosecutors that the Violence Against Women Act covers violence that might arise in same-sex relationships.

“It’s a step towards equality and recognizing that our relationships exist and are subject to the same sorts of issues that face other committed couples,” Mr. Moulton said. “Unfortunately, sometimes that is domestic violence and other issues that need to be dealt with through the criminal justice system.”

Congress first passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. Among other things, its provisions made it a federal crime to cross state lines with the intent of committing domestic violence, stalking, or violating a protection order. Lawmakers have since expanded the act several times.

The federal government’s treatment of gay and lesbian relationships has been a matter of sharp dispute against the backdrop of efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.

A 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act, requires the federal government to define legal terms like “marriage” and “spouse” as categories that can exist only with a union between one man and one woman.

But Mr. Barron argued in the memorandum that although the Violence Against Women Act defines possible victims as including the “spouse” of the abuser, the act also includes terms not covered by the Defense of Marriage Act, like “dating partner” and “intimate partner.”

Moreover, he noted, the text of the act uses gender-neutral language, like saying “another person” instead of “a woman.” He cited such language as proof that Congress intended the protections to cover same-sex couples as well as heterosexual ones.

Domestic violence in same-gender relationships is a serious issue that occurs at approximately the same rates as violence in opposite-gender relationships. Additional barriers exist for GLBT individuals, however, because they may fear homophobia from law enforcement, advocates, or even other residents of the shelter if they try to seek help. Regardless of your gender identity or sexual orientation, no one deserves to be abused. GLBTQQI survivors in the Atlanta area can call the United 4 Safety helpline at 404-200-5957 or our 24-hotline at 404-688-9436. We will help you create a plan that takes into account your unique needs and barriers and helps you create a new life of safety for yourself.

Latinas Less Likely to Report Stalkers

CBS Atlanta interviewed our partner agency Caminar Latino to discuss the murder of Angelica Robledo De La Rosa by her stalker. The interview focused on reasons why Latinas are less likely to report stalkers to the police.

Last week's killing of Angelica De La Rosa has sent shockwaves throughout the Latin community in Cobb County. A Hispanic group who that works to educate women about domestic violence said Friday that Latinas are less likely to report violence or problems to police.

Tuesday, a friend of De La Rosa dropped her off at work. Police said that's when Armando Soto, 46, shot and killed De La Rosa. The shooting happened on South Cobb Drive in front of the Brito Supermarket, the place where De La Rosa worked as a cashier.

“We have learned throughout the course of our investigation that De La Rosa and the armed male was a stalking situation,” Officer Joseph Hernandez said. “Investigators uncovered the male attempted to pursue a relationship with the victim; however, she continually denied his requests. A series of disturbing incidents, over an extended period of time, were initiated by the male towards the victim, however they were never reported to authorities."

The executive director for Caminar Latino, Jessica Nunan, sat down with CBS Atlanta News and told victims of stalking that there is help.

“Half of all Latinas don’t report incidences of violence,” Nunan said. “Unfortunately with the anti-immigration laws going on here in Georgia we see a lot of women not feeling safe enough to call police because they are worried they might lose their children if they are deported. Even though the Violence Against Women act protects her regardless of her status there is still that fear of being on the radar,” Nunan said.

Illegal or not, De La Rosa did not report her alleged stalker to police investigators, who said they worked together in the past.

De La Rosa was married with a teenage daughter. All of her family live Mexico, but her extended family in Georgia told CBS Atlanta News De La Rosa never told them she was
having any problems.

Soto was arrested in Gautier, Miss., during a traffic stop and is currently awaiting extradition back to Georgia. He is charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.

Visit caminarlatino.com for more information on assistance for Latina victims of domestic violence and/or stalking.

VAWA Joe Becomes Our New VP

As a non-partisan, 501c3 organization, Women's Resource Center does not endorse candidates, so rather than appearing to advocate a certain ticket, we refrained from posting about Joe Biden until after the race was over. Now, however, we can say how excited we are to have someone so dedicated to the violence against women movement in such a powerful position in our country.

Joe Biden, of course, is the author of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. VAWA legally protects women from domestic abuse and gender-based violence, and Biden has proclaimed it the "most important legislative accomplishment" of his Senate career.

In a piece in The New Republic, Fred Strebeigh writes about the history of the legislation.

In the spring of 1990, a new staffer in the offices of the Senate Judiciary Committee received a surprise project from her boss. Joe Biden wanted her to figure out what Congress should do to reduce violent crimes against women. Victoria Nourse, the staffer, was then just six years out of law school and unaware of Biden's past efforts along similar lines. In 1981, as he recalls in his 2007 memoir, Promises to Keep, Biden had pushed for a provision opposing laws that treat rape within marriage as a lesser crime than other rapes. Biden's effort led to a rebuff by Senator Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, who replied, "D*** it, when you get married, you kind of expect you're going to get a little sex."

The late '80s, Biden noticed, showed a rise in violent crimes against young women. Then, in December 1989, a man walked into a university classroom in Montreal with a hunting rifle, divided the students by sex, yelled that the women were all "a bunch of feminists," and killed 14 of them. Biden's aide Ron Klain handed the Senator an article in the Los Angeles Times by a friend who had clerked with Klain the year before at the Supreme Court, Lisa Heinzerling (now professor of law at Georgetown). Heinzerling connected that murder of "feminists" to a gap in U.S. law. Federal law tracking hate crimes targeted only, she wrote, a "victim's race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation." Thus, she argued, "if a woman is beaten, raped or killed because she is a woman, this is not considered a crime of hate"--a legal loophole "welcome to no one but the misogynist."

Biden posed a challenge to Nourse: figure out what Congress should do, and start by looking at the marital-rape issue he had tried to tackle a decade earlier. In the legal reading room of the Library of Congress, Nourse found a twist that shocked them both. Some states had extended the marital-rape exemption to become a date-rape exemption that downgraded a rape charge if a woman was a man's "voluntary social companion." One state that had done so was Delaware, where Joe and Jill Biden were raising a young daughter.

...When Nourse reported this to Biden, she saw a "look of horror on his face."

Looking for a solution, Nourse drafted a proposal for the "Civil Rights for Women" section of what would become VAWA. (The bill's other two parts, "Safe Streets for Women" and "Safe Homes for Women," proposed funding and legal support to assist law enforcement and protect women from domestic abuse.) The goals of the civil rights section were grand: make women "free from crimes of violence motivated by the victim's gender."

...As he listened to a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (where his son Beau was still a senior) talk about efforts to help victims of acquaintance rape, Biden became energized. After hearing the woman say that some male students had harassed her with "nightly phone threats," Biden launched into what Goldfarb believed was an unplanned but revealing narrative. He told of trying to convince his wife Jill, who drove to night school for her graduate degree classes, to park in a place that was safer but illegal. In response, he said he got "almost a punch in the nose." Trying to work out why, he spoke of his wife's "frustration and anger" that she should need to take precautions no man would take. He linked her anger to her sense of "lost control."

Goldfarb felt she was hearing a man grasp a fundamental understanding about "the lack of control that is experienced not only by women who are themselves victims, but by all the women who have to constrain their daily activities to avoid becoming a victim." Biden was expressing, she thought, the "basic insight of the civil rights provision--that violence against women deprives women of equality."

Biden, too, portrayed himself as a man surprised by new knowledge. In Delaware, he found that victims of rape were beginning to "literally stop me in the street" to tell their stories and give thanks for VAWA. More than half, he said, spoke of a "need to regain control," which Biden evidently understood. The loss of safety, home, and control that he had felt himself when he lost his first wife and daughter was something that these women had also been forced to grapple with in the wake of their rapes.

Though the civil rights portion of the law was eventually overturned, the remaining funding and protections have been invaluable to advocates doing this work. The following video was prepared by the Obama/Biden campaign to illustrate the impact:

A partner organization of WRC, Men Stopping Violence, honored Joe Biden a few years ago as a True Ally at their annual celebration event. In recognition of his election as Vice President, MSV recirculated his acceptance speech:

Fred Strebeigh concluded his article by saying:

Joe Biden may have lost in a titanic struggle to expand the civil rights of women. But, along the way, he showed himself ready to follow the lead of female attorneys and judges. As Victoria Nourse told me in a recent e-mail from her desk at Emory Law School, where she is now a professor: "[I]n a day and age when Senators were still fondling interns in the Senate elevator, he not only protected me, he listened to me, my legal advice, and by extension, all the women who talked to me."

No one can pretend that getting Biden as vice president lifts women's spirits as high as they may go with the election of the first woman president. But no one will doubt that, on that wet day on the slippery Supreme Court steps, beneath his senatorial umbrella, Joe Biden was there--trying to stand tall for the rights of women.

Update: RH Reality Check has more information on the work Senator Biden is doing related to an International Violence Against Women Act.

International Violence Against Women Act

Here in the United States the Violence Against Women Act has provided many invaluable resources to domestic violence survivors. While there is room for improvement, and an on-going movement to protect VAWA's funding, we must remember that violence against women is a global epidemic. Apart from being a gross human rights violation, widespread violence against women actually stunts the economic growth of a nation.

Violence prevents women from:

Working: Violence reduces a woman's ability to work and provide for her family. In India, for example, a survey revealed that women who experienced even a single incident of violence lost an average of seven working days.

Staying at Work: In Kenya, 95 percent of the women who had experienced sexual abuse in their workplace were afraid to report the problem for fear of losing their jobs.

Getting an Education: Research shows that violence against women - including sexual assault, intimidation, and abuse - takes place in schools. Girls who are exposed to or experience violence are less likely to complete their education. A study in Nicaragua found that children of female victims of violence left school an average of four years earlier than other children.

Building Strong Communities: Women who experience violence are less able to benefit from and contribute to healthy communities.

The international situation parallels the plight of domestic violence survivors in the United States. According to StopFamilyViolence.org, studies show that a domestic violence survivor's degree of financial independence is the best predictor of whether or not she will return to her abuser. The CDC estimates that, "Victims of intimate partner violence lose 8,000,000 days of paid work each year--the equivalent of over 32,000 full-time jobs and 5,600,000 days of household productivity."

The good news is that violence against women is preventable and that there are proven solutions that work. The International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), if passed, would, for the first time, comprehensively incorporate these solutions into all U.S. foreign assistance programs - solutions such as promoting women's economic opportunity, addressing violence against girls in school, and working to change public attitudes. Among other things, the IVAWA would make ending violence against women a diplomatic priority for the first time in U.S. history. It would require the U.S. government to respond to critical outbreaks of gender-based violence in armed conflict - such as the mass rapes now occuring in the Democratic Republic of Congo - within two months. And by investing in local women's organizations overseas that are succesfully working to reduce violence in their communities, the IVAWA would have a huge impact on reducing poverty - freeing millions of women in poor countries to lift themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty.

We have the power at home and abroad to send the message that violence against women will not be tolerated. For a concise explanation of IVAWA and to sign the petition of support, please visit Women Thrive Worldwide.

Victory and New Call to Action: Deadline March 13th

This is an e-mail from Irene Weiser concerning the new amendment to fund VAWA that is going to be voted on tomorrow. Act Now!

Hello Stop Family Violence Activists!

First of all - GREAT JOB to those of you who responded to yesterday's alert urging your Representatives to sign on to a "Dear Colleague" letter supporting full funding for VAWA. By mid-afternoon today 30 additional reps had signed on as a result of your messages!

NOW there's something URGENT and EXCITING happening in the SENATE.

Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), the author of the Violence Against Women Act, has put forward an amendment that will add $100 million for VAWA to the Senate's budget proposal.

The Budget Committee will be voting on the Biden Amendment on THURSDAY MARCH 13!!

ACT NOW!!!

CLICK HERE to learn more and to tell your Senators to Vote YES on the Biden Amendment.

LET'S PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS ON THIS ONE!!!

Our strength is in our numbers!! Please pass this message on to everyone you can!

Together, we can... stopfamilyviolence.org

Irene Weiser

Call to Action: Deadline March 14th

President Bush's 2009 budget proposal will make devastating cuts (almost one-third of the funding or $120 million) to the Violence Against Women Act program.

Why should you care and what can you do?

"The Administration's budget for Violence Against Women Act programs is an outrage," said Sen. Joe Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act. "Domestic violence impacts one in every four women, yet the Administration proposes cutting spending by almost a third. If allowed to go forward, this Administration's disastrous budgeting priorities could roll back more than a decade of success in investigating, prosecuting and preventing domestic and sexual violence."

Stop Family Violence.org is mounting a campaign to prevent these budget cuts from becoming a reality. Recently, the House of Representatives has provided an opportunity for opposition to these cuts to be heard. Below is an excerpt from open letter written by StopFamilyViolence.org's Executive Director, Irene Weiser.

If allowed to go forward, this Administration's disastrous budget priorities could roll back more than a decade of success in investigating, prosecuting and preventing domestic and sexual violence.

But something hopeful is happening in the House of Representatives!!

Leaders from the Victim’s Rights Caucus and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues are circulating a 'Dear Colleague" letter (congress' version of a petition) urging other members in the House to support full funding for the Violence Against Women Act.

The deadline to sign the Dear Colleagues letter is Friday March 14. For more information and to send a pre-written e-mail to your representative, click here .

Since this is such short notice we don't have time to outline the many important things that VAWA does and the horrible consequences the proposed changes will bring. Fortunately, StopFamilyViolence.org has outlined all of those things at the above link.