Action Alert

We received the following action alert from the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

We are in the final stretch of the budget process in the Georgia Legislature, so this is likely our LAST CHANCE to advocate on the funding issue. We need you to make calls to key legislators to ensure funding for domestic violence programs!

Unfortunately, the House Subcommittee on Human Services DID NOT restore any of the $3.7 million in state funding for domestic violence programs in their FY 2012 budget recommendation. However, there is still one last chance to get these funds restored in the FY 2012 budget as long as the Senate Subcommittee on Human Services includes it in their budget recommendation.

The Senate Subcommittee will be making its final budget recommendations within the coming days, so it is essential that these Senators hear from as many advocates and allies as possible.

Please take the time this week and early next week to call each of the Senate Subcommittee members and urge them to restore all $3.7 million in unrestricted state funds which are not being used for TANF MOE to Georgia's domestic violence programs in the Fiscal Year 2012 budget.

This is incredibly important. Women's Resource Center is large enough that we can find other funding sources to support our clients not covered by TANF (for example, DV survivors who don't have children), but other smaller shelters in the state cannot. Also, WRC as well as these smaller organizations rely on state funds for general operating, and TANF funds may not be able to be used for overhead. Visit GCADV's action alert via this link for a suggested script and a list of Senators to call.

Action Alert: State Funding for DV Services

The Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence has released the following Action Alert:

Because of YOUR phone calls last week, there are moves in the Georgia Legislature to restore a substantial portion of the state funds to domestic violence and sexual assault programs in the Fiscal Year 2011 Amended budget. This is FANTASTIC news!

However, the key legislators in the budget process need to hear from you THIS WEEK in order to ensure the restoration of these funds!

Please call each of the following State Senators, regardless of whether they serve your district. Thank them for restoring 2.5 million dollars in state funds to domestic violence and sexual assault programs in the Fiscal Year 2011 Amended budget, and urge them to adhere to this position in their budget negotiations.

• Senator Jack Hill, Chair of Senate Appropriations – (404) 656-5038


• Senator Chip Rogers, Senate Majority Leader – (404) 463-1378


• Senator Tommie Williams, President Pro Tempore – (404) 656-0089

Please call each of the following State Representatives, regardless of whether they serve your district, and urge them to adopt the Senate position for the restoration of 2.5 million dollars in state funds to domestic violence and sexual assault programs in the Fiscal Year 2011 Amended budget.

• Rep Terry England, Chair of House Appropriations – (404) 463-2245


• Rep Jan Jones, Speaker Pro-Tempore – (404) 656-5072


• Rep Larry O’Neal, House Majority Leader – (404) 656-5052

Background: The Georgia Senate and the Georgia House of Representatives are currently considering the Governor’s budget proposals for Amended FY 2011 and FY 2012. Included in each of these proposals is the elimination of all $4.5 million in state funds for domestic violence and sexual assault centers. In its deliberations, the Senate Appropriations Committee restored $2.5 million of those state funds. Unfortunately, the House Appropriations Committee did NOT recommend the restoration of these funds. Now, key legislators in the budget process are scheduled to come together early next week to make their final decisions about the FY 2011 Amended budget, based on the recommendations from the Senate and House. In order for this partial restoration of funds to become a reality, these six legislators must adopt the Senate position.

For additional information on how important it is to ensure that state funding be restored, please click here. Please make your calls as soon as possible.

Georgia House Bill Addresses Human Trafficking

On a better note than our last post about the Georgia legislature, a bipartisan group is tackling human trafficking and underage prostitution in our state.

According to the AJC, "House Bill 200 is designed to help law enforcement and prosecutors go after people who traffic in people, especially minors, for sexual servitude."

The proposal increases penalties for the crime to those similar to drug trafficking, with offenders facing up to 20 years in prison for human trafficking and 50 years in prison for trafficking in minors.

The bill also treats those in sexual servitude as victims, not criminals, by offering them recovery under the state crime victims fund and an affirmative defense when coming forward.

“Human trafficking for sexual servitude is one of the most serious criminal problems facing our state,” said Lindsey, R-Atlanta. “[The bill is] designed to make it easier to go after this crime and treat the victims with compassion and give an avenue to get out of the trap that was laid for them.”

Atlanta is a nation-wide hub for human trafficking, and it is nice to see the problem being addressed on a statewide level. The focus on treating women and children who are trafficked and prostituted as victims of their traffickers is also a very welcome change. Though our organization focuses on violence against women by their intimate partners, all forms of gender-based violence are intrinsically linked, and we cannot have freedom from one while others still exists. To learn more, visit the Atlanta Human Trafficking Project.

Guilty Until Proven Victim

We're used to using and hearing the words "domestic violence victim" and "rape victim", but when does a person become a victim under the law?

According to Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta), a victim should not be called a victim until the person who victimized them is convicted of a crime. Therefore, you cannot be a victim of rape until a person is proven guilty of raping you.

It almost makes sense. After all, in this country, our legal system is meant to assume you are innocent until you are proven to be guilty. Therefore, until a crime is proven to be committed, there is no victim of that crime.

However, the lawmaker in question isn't applying his objection to the word "victim" to every crime. Robbery victims still get to remain victims. Trespassing victims are still victims. According to Representative Franklin, only the victimhood of rape, stalking, obscene telephone contact with a minor, and domestic violence victims should be called into question. We wonder why he chose those specific crimes.

Melissa at Shakesville has a theory.

Could it be because those are the only crimes around which we have narratives about multitudinous false accusations, despite the fact that false reports of sexual violence are lower than false reports of auto theft, and despite the fact that there is a higher threshold for convincing law enforcement to take action on reports of sexual violence and harassment than any other crime, and despite the vanishingly low percentage of reports that go to trial and the minuscule conviction rates?

Could it be because implying that people who report sex crimes and/or harassment are liars is an integral tool and prevalent narrative of the rape culture, which exists to protect rapists—a pretty significant constituency of any politician, since around 12% of men (pdf) have, by their own admission, committed sexual assault or rape, which is certainly much higher than the percentage of the population who commits auto theft, or bank robbery, or fraud?

Georgia ranks 11th in the nation for incidences of forcible rape and 10th in the nation for the number of women killed by men. We cannot afford laws that further stigmatize the reporting and prosecution of crimes against women by assuming that victims are liars. If you think our state congress should concentrate more on protecting women than on men who have been accused of committing a crime, call them and tell them so. Visit congress.org to find your representative.

Firearms in the Home Make DV Murder More Likely

The Federal Way Mirror reports on a study from the New England Journal of Medicine that found that having a gun in your home makes it three times more likely that you or someone you care about will be murdered by a family member or partner.

Another study published in the Journal of Family Psychology shows a higher likelihood for children to experience behavior problems once they have witnessed firearm-related domestic violence. One East Coast state, however, did consider enacting legislation that would make it easier for domestic violence victims to obtain firearms — only to face denunciation from domestic violence victim advocacy groups that instead support stronger legislation against gun ownership for abusers and from various police agencies that were not eager to have more weapons being introduced into volatile situations that often require police intervention.

The position in a Sept. 11 Federal Way Mirror column by Mark Knapp — that since laws designed to reduce the frequency and severity of domestic violence crimes don't always work, and that potential crime victims should be trained in the use of firearms (and encouraged to get firearms by government attorneys) so that these potential victims can enact vigilante justice — is sending the wrong message to our community. This is not an issue of the proper exercise of a Second Amendment right. This is an issue of the responsible exercise of a Second Amendment right. Study after study shows introducing more firearms (by a perpetrator or a victim) into a domestic violence situation normally results in an escalation of that violence.

Many people we talk to at community education events say that if they were ever in an abusive relationship, they would get their own gun and fight back. These studies prove what a bad idea that can be. Instead of introducing more guns into homes where violence is taking place, we should support the enforcement of the guns laws we have in place to remove guns from batterers' reach entirely.

Big Win for GCFV!

Thanks to everyone who responded to our call to help save the Georgia Commission on Family Violence. Your efforts worked!

The House and the Senate passed a budget that moves funding for the Commission over to the Judicial Council, where it can best be protected. And instead of zeroing out their budget, as originally proposed, the legislature made sure the Commission maintained 90% of its funding - which, in today's climate, is another huge victory.

To learn more about the Commission and the work that they do, visit their website.

GCFV Needs Your Help

Last year, advocacy organizations, legislators, and voters fought hard to keep the Georgia Commission on Family Violence alive. This year, their continued existence is being threatened again. The Commission provides valuable services for the state such as certifying all of the state's batterer's intervention programs. We cannot afford to have the power over certification moved to another state agency without a thorough knowledge of domestic violence and the tactics of control that batterers use.

The Georgia Senate budget recommendation that was just released shows that the Commission is in danger of having its funding zeroed out, which means that the Commission would cease to exist as of July 1 of this year. Their fate now rests in the hands of the 3 Representatives and 3 Senators on the budget conference committee that will work out the differences between the House and Senate budget bills. Please call or email these conferees, as well as the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of House, to ask them to Agree with the House’s FY 2011 Budget Recommendation for the Commission.

The talking points and contact info distributed by the Commission are as follows (note that the talking points are slightly different for the House and the Senate):

House:

Rep. Jerry Keen: Phone: 404.656.5052 jerry.keen@house.ga.gov
Rep. Jan Jones: Phone: 404.656.5072 jan.jones@house.ga.gov
Rep. Ben Harbin: Phone: 404.463.2247 ben.harbin@house.ga.gov
Speaker of the House David Ralston: Phone: 404.656.5020

House Talking Points: Thank you for working to preserve the Commission on Family Violence, by moving its funding to the Judicial Council. Please stand strong on this position in the conference committee - maintaining this position is vital for victims of domestic violence in Georgia.


Senate:

Sen. Jack Hill: Phone: (404) 656-5038 jack.hill@senate.ga.gov
Sen. Chip Rogers: Phone: (404) 463-1378 chip.rogers@senate.ga.gov
Sen. Tommie Williams: Phone: (404) 656-0089 tommie.williams@senate.ga.gov
Lt. Governor Casey Cagle: Phone: (404) 656-5030 FAX: (404) 656-6739

Senate Talking Points: It is crucial that the Senate agree with the House recommendation for the Commission on Family Violence in the FY11 budget -- to move the funding for the Commission to the Judicial Council. The Commission on Family Violence is the only state agency committed to this issue, and has helped to dramatically reduce Georgia's domestic violence homicide rate. If the Senate's recommendation were to prevail, the good work of the Commission would be lost. We urge you to preserve this vital agency by agreeing with the House recommendation for the Commission on Family Violence for FY11.

Bill Would Protect Pets From Domestic Violence

A bill up for consideration in the Georgia Legislature this year would add pets as protected parties under domestic violence protective orders.

Animal rights advocates and domestic violence prevention groups have united behind the bill. They say it will help prevent situations like the vicious beating of a pet dachshund that occurred in Gwinnett County last week. Dainley Green, accused of beating his family's pet dachshund in front of his children, was charged in the case.

The dog was still bleeding and had bloodshot eyes from being strangled when deputies arrived at the Lawrenceville home. Authorities were tipped off to the abuse when Green's wife filed for a temporary protective order.

"If you think about it in a domestic violence way, people are so attached to their pets now," said state Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta), who sponsored HB 429. "One way to really hurt the person you're trying to control is to go after the pet."

The bill, which made it out of a House committee last year but missed the deadline for crossover to the Senate, would let judges order an alleged abuser to refrain from harming family pets. It also would allow the judge to direct the care, custody or control of a pet. The law would not apply to livestock, working animals, laboratory animals or sport animals.

Cooper said the bill went back to the Judiciary Non-Civil Committee, where she will ask for it to be resurrected this year.

Batterers often use pets to control family members, domestic abuse experts say. According to a national survey of family violence shelters conducted by university researchers in 1997, 71 percent of victims reported that their abusers threatened, injured or killed the family pets.

Nicole Lesser, director of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said securing protection for pets is a big issue in the field of domestic violence.

"I don't think you'll hear any opposition to that in the domestic violence world," Lesser said. "I've had many clients say, ‘If I can't take my dog, I can't leave.'"

The Ahimsa House is a Decatur-based nonprofit organization that takes in the pets of domestic violence victims, providing shelter for them in a network of foster homes and boarding facilities. The organization's president, Maya Gupta, said it has received 709 crisis calls and sheltered about 150 animals since 2007. A majority of the pets they see have injuries or illness resulting from neglect, Gupta said.

"It's such an under-recognized thing that people don't realize," Gupta said.

In issuing a protective order, courts can order a person to refrain from domestic violence, authorize a dangerous person to be evicted from a home or force them to provide housing elsewhere for a partner, and set up child and spousal support payments. Cooper's bill would allow pets to be included.

Eleven states have already passed similar pet-protection laws, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Chesta Drake, a retired school counselor who volunteers for the Humane Society, and others involved with the organization will be at the Capitol next week urging passage of Cooper's bill. She said what happened to the Green family's pet dachshund shows just how timely the legislation is.

"So many times animals are used just like this to threaten or control or horrify the family," Drake said.

We'll have more updates for you on ways you can take action to help pass this bill.

No Health Insurance for DV Victims

It sounds too ludicrous to be true, but according to a press release issued by the Service Employees International Union, it is legal in DC and eight other states for insurance companies to refuse service to women if they have ever experienced domestic violence. In 1994, an informal survey conducted by the Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that 8 of the 16 largest insurers in the country used domestic violence as a factor when deciding whether to extend coverage and how much to charge if coverage was extended. DV is labeled by these companies to be a preexisting condition.

Regardless of your opinion on healthcare reform, we hope you share our view that this is unconscionable. Insurance companies are further victimizing a group of women who need healthcare the most due to injuries that are not their fault. Women in violent relationships frequently sustain injuries and experience illnesses that require medical attention. According to the US Department of Health, domestic violence is one of the most powerful predictors of increased health care utilization.

Many sources have commented on this issue, and the most common defense of the insurance company is to blame the victim. Commenters argue that people who scuba dive or bungee jump regularly have higher rates or are denied coverage because they put themselves in high risk situations. Therefore, they argue, women who put themselves in the high risk situation of being battered should also share the burden for their increased medical costs. The women should bear that burden, not their batterers.

Amanda at Pandagon reminds us that this policy has additional consequences.

Obviously, the major one is that the fear of losing insurance coverage might drive victims to avoid reaching out for help, and it may even mean that they don’t get treatment for their injuries after an abusive incident. And of course, the less a woman reaches out for help, the less likely she is to get out of the situation. In addition, one form of control that abusers use over their victims is financial dependence, and impoverishing a woman by denying her health care coverage will only make her more dependent on the abuser. I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised to find out if abusers often use health insurance as leverage over their victims, especially since a much higher percentage of women than men are covered through a spouse’s employer-provided insurance.

The report I link is heavy on screening recommendations, which is already a point of tension between people who look at these issues from a public health perspective and individual providers. After all, it’s both true that screening for domestic violence at the doctor’s office would help lower the overall incidence of it and that having those individual conversations is a miserable event for everyone involved. But obviously, providers can be convinced to set aside their reservations and do the screening if there’s an overall benefit to their patients. The problem, though, is if you include screening questions about domestic violence, you’re helping put your patient in danger of losing her insurance coverage or being accused of defrauding the insurance company if it comes out that she has been victimized, but declined to admit that in the screening process. More than anyone, doctors are sensitive to the importance of not provoking insurance companies to deny coverage, and I doubt they’ll eagerly sign up for further screening programs that could create financial problems for their patients.

Even though Georgia is not one of the states who allows domestic violence to be categorized as a preexisting condition, our own Senator Johnny Isakson voted against a proposed 2006 amendment to the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act that would have required insurers to stop ignoring state laws that make it illegal for them to deny coverage to domestic violence survivors, ostensibly reopening Georgia to the practice.

To encourage Congress to pass a healthcare reform bill that includes protections for domestic violence survivors, sign the petition here.

Project VoteSafe Becomes Law

From ABC:

Georgia voters who have endured an abusive past now no longer have to worry about exposing their identities when voting, according to a news release sent to NewsChannel 9:

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel today announced enactment of Project VoteSafe, a program to ensure that individuals under protective orders or residents of family violence centers are protected from having their addresses exposed during the voting process. Governor Sonny Perdue signed the enabling legislation, House Bill 227, into law Friday.

Project VoteSafe, sponsored by Rep. Katie Dempsey (R-Rome), applies to citizens who have received a protective order issued by a court and to residents of family violence shelters. These individuals would be eligible to confidentially register to vote without their voter registration information becoming available as public information.
"I want to thank Governor Perdue for signing this important legislation and Representative Dempsey for her leadership in passing Project VoteSafe," Secretary Handel said. "Georgia citizens should not fear for their safety while trying to exercise their right to vote."

House Bill 227 received overwhelming support in the Georgia General Assembly, passing by a margin of 155 to three in the House and 50 to zero in the Senate.

Representative Dempsey said, "I'm delighted that Governor Perdue signed this common sense bill into law. It has been an honor to work with Secretary Handel to ensure that individuals in need of protective orders, such as victims of domestic abuse or stalking, have the opportunity to register and vote without the fear of being located by those wishing to do them harm."

The Project VoteSafe legislation allows the Secretary of State's Office to implement the mechanism by which an individual's information will be kept private.

Please click here for more information on HB 227 from the Georgia General Assembly website.

Afghan President Legalizes Rape

Critics claim that Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, helped rush a bill through parliament which legalizes rape in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.

In a massive blow for women's rights, the new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman's right to leave the home, according to UN papers seen by The Independent.

The bill lay dormant for more than a year, but in February it was rushed through parliament as President Karzai sought allies in a constitutional row over the upcoming election.

The most controversial parts of the law deal explicitly with sexual relations. Article 132 requires women to obey their husband's sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least "once every four nights" when travelling, unless they are ill. The law also gives men preferential inheritance rights, easier access to divorce, and priority in court.

A report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Unifem, warned: "Article 132 legalises the rape of a wife by her husband".

The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to also contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission and that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission.

A briefing document prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.

Update: About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times larger than their own, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal the law. Counter protests hurled stones and yelled insults and threats while female Afghan police officers joined hands to form a human chain around the women to try to protect them.

No Guns for Batterers

From the JD Journal:

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided in favor of a law barring people convicted of domestic violence crimes from owning guns. In a 7-2 decision, the court said laws against battery do not need to specifically mention domestic violence to fall under the domestic violence gun ban. That ban was enacted in 1996.

The case centered around Randy Edwards Hayes, a West Virginia man who had previously been convicted of domestic violence. Thus his ownership of a gun lead to a federal felony indictment for gun possession.

“If the case had gone the other way, there are thousands of people who currently are prohibited from buying guns who would have been allowed to buy guns. Women in abusive situations would have been more at risk. Police officers responding to domestic violence calls would have been more at risk,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The two dissenting opinions in the case were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anton Scalia.

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.

Open Season

In March, we brought you the story of Ricardo Ferrante, 34, who was acquitted of any wrongdoing by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals after he snuck up behind a 16-year old in a Target and took photos under her skirt without her permission. The Court stated that this did not constitute a crime because the girl was in a public place and therefore had no reasonable expectation of privacy. The lone dissenting voter, Judge Gary Lumpkin, wrote "...it is open season for peeping Toms in public places who want to look under a woman's dress." He appears to have been correct.

Via Feministing

Charges against Brian Presken, 32, of Florida have been dismissed. Presken used a mirror to look under a woman's skirt at a Barnes & Noble in Pensacola last Summer. His attorney did not argue that he was innocent, but that the victim had no expectation of privacy in a public space.

Defense attorney Katheryne Snowden argued that the voyeurism charge should be dropped because Presken's accuser didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place under Florida law.

The law under which Presken was charged states, 'It is illegal to secretly observe someone with lewd, lascivious and indecent intent in a dwelling, structure or conveyance, and when such locations provide a reasonable expectation of privacy.'

Judge George J. Roark III agreed and dismissed the case. Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcille stated that while he does not plan to appeal this decision, he will ask the Legislature to consider amending the statute during the next session to include incidences such as these. Marcille also intends to move forward on a disorderly conduct charge that is still pending against Presken.

It appears that this lack of protection under the law is a widespread problem. If you know of similar instances please contact your representatives to lobby for a change.

New Law in Connecticut Allows DV Survivors to Teleconference Court Proceedings

The Connecticut Post reports

Victims of domestic violence and their children will be able to avoid face-to-face courtroom encounters and instead use teleconferencing to testify in divorce and custody proceedings, under a new law.

In reaction, Susan DeLeon, director of The Umbrella, which has a walk-in center in Ansonia and a shelter at an undisclosed location, agreed Monday that the new law is bound to help protect women and their children.

"I think it's a great idea," DeLeon said in a phone interview after [Governor]Rell signed the bill. "It will relieve a lot of anxiety for a victim who moves away." She said that some women might avoid getting a divorce because they know it means seeing their abusive spouse again, even if it's only in court.

The new law was inspired by the murder of Jennifer Magnano who returned to Connecticut from California last August for divorce proceedings and was murdered by her husband, Scott Magnano. Two of Jennifer Magnano's three children attended the signing.

Jennifer Magnano's death was a horrible tragedy, but the law it inspired has the potential to save the lives of others.

Victims of Domestic Abuse Face Housing Bias

Sylvia Moreno at the Washington Post has written an article about the results of a fair housing study conducted by the Equal Rights Center this year.

The investigation was initiated by the Equal Rights Center, a Washington fair-housing advocacy group that has conducted civil-rights testing for 25 years. The study, done in January and February, covered 93 rental properties. It found that in 65 percent of the cases of domestic-abuse victims seeking housing, they were denied it outright or offered disadvantageous conditions to get an apartment.

The study was intended to calculate the extent of the problem one year after a law took effect in the District to protect victims of domestic violence from being denied rental housing, said Rabbi Bruce E. Kahn, the center's executive director. The legislation was designed, in part, to stem homelessness among women and children, who make up about half the city's homeless population. The leading cause of homelessness among women is domestic violence, advocates say.

The center had a staff person pose as an advocate calling on behalf of domestic violence survivors to various leasing agents. In 9% of cases she was denied an apartment, and in 56% of cases she was offered adverse terms and conditions for occupancy. The same leasing agents were then contacted by another woman on the same day who stated that she was looking for an apartment for herself. She was always offered the apartment though the study controlled for factors other than family violence.

Kathy Zeisel, a lawyer with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, said the bias landlords and leasing agents have against victims of domestic violence comes from the stereotypical images that exist in society at large.

"They think that the mere presence of a victim of domestic abuse will cause danger to everyone around them in the apartment building," Zeisel said. "The stereotype is that they will invite the batterer back into the household or that they'll just continue to get into the same bad relationships. . . . But safe housing is really a key part in [the victim] being able to get away from that situation."

This same bias was shown in Wisconsin when the Safe Housing Act was enacted. Opponents to the bill worried that allowing victims of domestic violence to leave their lease would not "protect the other tenants."