Today the Senate passed a strong bipartisan bill to reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act. This important step shows what we can do when we come together across party lines to take up a just cause. The bill passed by the Senate will help reduce homicides that occur from domestic violence, improve the criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault, address the high rates of dating violence experienced by young women, and provide justice to the most vulnerable among us. I want to thank Senator Leahy and his colleagues from both sides of the aisle for the leadership they have shown on behalf of victims of abuse. It’s now time for the House to follow suit and send this bill to my desk so that I can sign it into law.

Click here to go to the White Houe website.

NO MORE shines a spotlight on these issues. Each of us can use NO MORE to stop the stigma, shame and silence for good. Like the peace sign, the “support our troops” ribbon or the AIDS ribbon, our goal is to use the NO MORE symbol to help unify all people and organizations who want to end domestic violence and sexual assault.

NO MORE was created by 50 individuals from many different backgrounds who were frustrated by the fact that even though domestic violence and sexual assault are devastatingly pervasive and widespread– impacting rich, poor, young , old, male, female, white, brown, black, from every region and religion– they aren’t a priority in this country.

It’s time to change that. It’s time to say NO MORE.

Follow this link to visit NO MORE.

National Task Force Statement on Passage of H.R. 4970
May 16, 2012

The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women is a diverse coalition of thousands of national, state and local organizations and individuals across the country unified by our commitment to end violence against women. Today, we express our deep disappointment over the House of Representatives’ passage of H.R. 4970. This legislation weakens or deletes entirely some of the vital improvements in the “real VAWA” passed by the Senate last month by a resounding bipartisan vote of 68-31. Grace Huang, Public Policy Director of the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence said, “We are devastated that provisions that will endanger vulnerable immigrant victims passed in the House today. For the first time in nearly 20 years, this bill would weaken crucial protections in VAWA for battered immigrants, putting them at risk of retaliation by their abusers and undermining law enforcement and public safety.” “Today’s vote ignored the reality of LGBT survivors of violence and would deny them the support and services that every survivor needs,” said Sharon Stapel, Executive Director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which coordinates the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP). “Native women aren’t safer as a result of the passage of H.R. 4970. In fact, the tribal provisions included in this bill create additional hurdles for Indian women seeking protection from violence on tribal lands, and that is unacceptable,” said Juana Majel-Dixon, 1st Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and co-chair of the NCAI Task Force on Violence Against Women.

The House bill passed ignores the needs of vulnerable communities, rolls back years of progress aimed at protecting victim safety, weakens provisions in the Senate bill to protect victims in public housing and on college campuses, and strips the rights of community stakeholders to give input on VAWA programs. The bill has been soundly rejected as dangerous to victims by more than 325 diverse organizations and leaders representing millions of constituents throughout the country. Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said “The passage of H.R. 4970 ignores the expertise of hundreds of organizations working to end violence against women.” Moreover, the President issued a statement saying if presented with the bill, his senior advisors would recommend a veto.

Despite today’s 222-205 vote, we applaud the courage of the Republicans who crossed party lines to vote against this dangerous bill and the Democrats who stood with all victims of violence. The outcry from advocates from across the country resulted in significant bipartisan opposition to the bill and this swell of support will continue as the House and Senate meet in conference to reconcile the two bills. “On behalf of advocates and rape crisis centers, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence commits to working with all members of Congress to finalize VAWA legislation this year that upholds provisions in the Senate bill that ensure community stakeholders have a voice in the funding process and protect vulnerable populations while maintaining criminal justice improvements for victims of sexual assault,” commented Monika Johnson Hostler, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence President. The National Task Force will continue to work towards a strong, bipartisan final bill that builds on VAWA’s successes andstrengthens protections for all victims of violence. “The best post-Mother’s Day gift that Members of Congress can give to their neighbors, daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers is to support a bipartisan VAWA that protects women from all backgrounds,” said Gloria Lau, YWCA USA CEO.

For updates from the National Task Force, please follow us on Twitter @NTFVAWA, on Facebook or visit 4vawa.org.

WE ARE GRATEFUL to the House champions who voted AGAINST H.R. 4970 — and who stood with victims in the fight to end domestic violence, dating

violence, sexual assault, and stalking! THANK YOU for voting to protect ALL victims of these crimes!

The Senate bill that was passed on Thursday was the product of significant input from experts in the law enforcement and advocacy fields, and was only introduced after the many interested communities had had a chance to review it, and offer suggestions, and improvements, and raise concerns. While there are portions of the House bill that mirror the Senate bill and are supported by the field, we continue to oppose the problematic sections included in it. The House has the opportunity to conduct a similarly deliberative process, and we hope that like the Senate, the result will be a strong bi-partisan bill that strengthens protections for all survivors of violence.

The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, S. 1925, has passed the Senate by a 68 to 31 vote!

Check the vote count, and call your Senators that voted yes to tell them how proud you are that they supported the bill written by more than 2,000 professionals serving victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and supported by more than 1,000 national, state and local programs. Let them know you are glad that they voted to protect ALL victims of these crimes!

For more information visit www.4vawa.org for fact sheets, press coverage, support letters and updates.

“I wish it were true that sexual violence is being overstated”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) which illuminates the alarming scope of sexual violence in the United States. The number of adults who have endured some type of sexual violence during their lifetime is shocking and should cause us all to stop and take note and to ask questions.

I do not, however, agree with the premise of Christina Hoff Sommers who accused the CDC, in her January 27 editorial in The Washington Post, of overstating sexual violence and of having some other agenda. I work with the CDC and find them to be rigorous and neutral in their research. Of course, every research study has limitations and deserves scrutiny, but I believe the CDC exercised due diligence to provide a current picture of the scope of sexual violence victimization in this country.

Those of us who work to prevent sexual violence know that it is a difficult and sometimes confusing topic to understand. There are several reasons why the NISVS research reports a higher prevalence of sexual violence in the United States than does the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and other studies:

• NISVS asked about many types of sexual violence, which is an umbrella term. Rape is one type, but there are many other types of unwanted sexual behaviors that cause people to feel violated or unsafe. The FBI’s UCR statistics only measure rape. Furthermore, until quite recently the definition of rape used by the FBI was quite narrow and left out many instances that will be counted in the future.

• FBI statistics only measure reported rape. Since 1929, crime data, such as reported rapes, has been submitted voluntarily by police departments. The data becomes a part of the federal report known as the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). Through the UCR, the FBI issues guidelines and definitions related to processing sexual assault cases, but not all police departments follow these guidelines.

• Rape is the most underreported crime in the U.S. for several reasons (fear, shame, embarrassment, worries about being disbelieved or further traumatized, etc.). The majority of sexual assaults, an estimated 63 percent, are never reported to the police (Rennison, 2002).

• NISVS asked not only about incidences that had occurred in the past year but also about victimization that occurred any time in the participant’s lifetime. This, of course, includes child sexual abuse, which is quite prevalent. About one in three girls and one in seven boys will be sexually abused before the age of 17 (Briere & Elliott, 2003).

The editorial by Ms. Sommers criticized the research for using behaviorally-specific questions, rather than asking participants to define their own experiences as rape, stalking, or some other category. Rather than being a weakness of the study, this is actually one of its strengths that makes the data more reliable. Not everyone agrees on what label to give a particular experience, but by breaking it down into specifically-described behaviors, the researchers can be more confident that they are accurately
comparing similar types of victimization. In this regard, NISVS data is much more accurate than the previous National Crime Victimization Survey which simply asked women if they had been raped; and also only looked at the prior year.

The results of the NISVS victimization survey differ from other reports for another very fundamental reason. The CDC is not examining the problem of sexual violence from a criminal justice viewpoint, but rather from a public health perspective. This is a broader approach, looking at not only the prevalence of victimization, but also the impact and health consequences over time. This non-criminal framework may increase participant’s comfort level in talking about their experiences.

Both men and women are victims of sexual violence; and men and women both perpetrate sexual violence; but studies continue to show that the majority of perpetrators are male and the majority of victims are females and/or children. The fact that there is a relationship between gender and sexual violence cannot be denied. But regardless of one’s gender, philosophy, or political views, I think we all want to live in a community that is safe and that treats everyone with dignity and respect. No matter which study you choose, it’s clear that we have a problem with sexual violence in this country and we need to figure out how to turn that around. I really wish that Christina Hoff Sommers’ assessment was correct and that the problem is not really that big; unfortunately the facts don’t seem to be pointing in
that direction. The sooner we get our heads out of the sand and accept that reality, the sooner we can begin working together to find effective solutions.

Karen L. Baker, LMSW
Director, National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC)

Citations

Briere, J., & Elliott, D. M. (2003). Prevalence and psychological sequelae of self-reported childhood physical and sexual abuse in general population. Child Abuse & Neglect, 27, 1205-1222. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2003.09.008

Rennison, C. A. (2002). Rape and sexual assault: Reporting to police and medical attention, 1992-2000 [NCJ 194530]. Retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsarp00.pdf