WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03) cast her vote to pass H.R. 1620, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021, bipartisan legislation to reauthorize and make vital improvements to the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA).
“During any given minute, nearly 20 Americans are victimized by domestic or sexual violence. This isn’t a problem unique to any one community or state, but rather a pervasive problem across the Commonwealth and around the nation,” said Congresswoman Trahan. “The Violence Against Women Act is one of the strongest tools we have to hold abusers accountable and ensure victims have the services and resources they need to recover and get back on their feet. Although we have been able to maintain funding for current VAWA programs, this reauthorization is more than two years overdue. Victims and those at risk of becoming victims simply cannot afford for another minute to pass before we get this legislation passed and signed into law.”
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 ushered in transformative progress by calling for the protection of all Americans from violence and abuse and working to ensure survivors had access to essential services and to justice. Every time Congress has reauthorized VAWA, they have strengthened it to improve protections and access to safety and justice for all survivors. Since 1994, the rate of domestic violence has declined by 63 percent. However, the extent of domestic violence remains far too high. Experts estimate that one in three women in the U.S. still experience domestic violence.
Specific changes in the reauthorization passed today include:
- New Investments in Prevention: Increases the authorization for the Rape Prevention & Education Program (RPE) to $110 million a year from $50 million a year and specifically includes prevention of sexual harassment to its authorized uses. It also increases funding for VAWA Consolidated Youth Grants, which fund prevention education programs that engage men and boys as allies and promote healthy relationships.
- Improved Services for Victims: Increases the authorization for the Sexual Assault Services Program to $60 million to address increased demand and waiting lists for services, authorizes funding for culturally specific organizations to provide victim services in Communities of Color, increases the authorization for Legal Assistance for Victims, and includes improvements to grant programs that provide services for disabled, deaf, and older victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
- Strengthened Criminal Justice Response: Reauthorizes the critical STOP (Services, Training, Officers, and Prosecutors) grants and allows the grants to be used to develop law enforcement tools and protocols for preventing domestic violence homicides and reauthorizes grants to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence, focusing on implementation of offender accountability and homicide reduction.
- Better Access to Survivor and Victim Housing: Increases the authorization for the National Resource Center on Workplace Responses that assists the victims of domestic and sexual violence, protects employees from being fired because they are survivors, expressly includes sexual harassment as part of sexual violence addressed by the National Resource Center on Workplace Responses, and prevents victims from being denied unemployment compensation should they voluntarily separate from employment if such separation is attributable to them being a victim of sexual or other harassment, or a survivor of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
- Improved Domestic Violence Response in Health Care: Broadens the reach of grants that support our health care system’s response to domestic and dating violence and sexual assault to develop services to address the safety, medical, and mental health needs of survivors. It also provides for the training of health care providers to better prevent, recognize, and respond to domestic violence.
- Support for Communities of Color: Establishes a Deputy Director of Culturally Specific Communities in the Office on Violence Against Women, increases access to grant programs for culturally specific organizations, including the Rape Prevention & Education grant-making process, increases funding to enhance culturally specific services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and requires that training includes prevention and cultural competence, is culturally relevant, addresses systemic racism and equity, and includes the impact of inter-generational violence.
- Closing Firearm Loopholes that Endanger Victims: To maximize the efficacy of federal laws prohibiting convicted abusers from purchasing firearms, it updates the definition of “intimate partner” to include dating partner and former dating partner, prohibits persons convicted of stalking misdemeanors from possessing firearms, and expands the current law that already prohibits those subject to most domestic violence protective orders from possessing a firearm to also include those subject to “ex parte” protective orders.
VAWA expired in 2018 under the previous administration and a unified Republican Congress. Trahan voted shortly after taking office in 2019 to pass the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act by a strong bipartisan vote of 263 to 158. The GOP-led Senate refused to bring up the bill for a vote. The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 is supported by the National Task force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women, a coalition of more than 200 organizations who advocate for the importance of VAWA and programs supported by it.
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