Violence Against Women Act

Floor Speech

Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I come humbly to the well today, under the ``E Pluribus Unum,'' to ask that there be swift bipartisan action in reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. VAWA's authorization, of course, lapsed at the end of the last fiscal year, on September 30, 2011.

Unfortunately, for every day that passes by, women pay the price. The annual National Census of Domestic Violence Services--a daily snapshot taken every year by the National Network to End Domestic Violence--found that in one 24-hour period in the United States, over 67,000 victims were served through emergency shelters, transitional housing, counseling, legal advocacy, and more. Over 22,000 hotline phone calls were answered and over 26,000 people participated in domestic violence prevention and education training.

For all these people who are served, unfortunately, in the same 24-hour period, there are nearly 11,000 unmet requests for services because these programs neither have the resources to help these victims nor the authorizations based on best practices on how we need to change VAWA in order to meet the needs of women.

Our colleagues across the Capitol in the Senate are on the cusp of passing a bipartisan VAWA reauthorization bill that contains these provisions to strengthen our ability to combat not only domestic violence, but also sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking. And I'm so proud to say that right here on this floor, 1 month ago, I introduced a companion bill to the Senate legislation that contains these badly needed updates to reflect the input of numerous stakeholders and lays a path forward for VAWA.

The vision is to protect all victims, no matter what their gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or whether or not they reside in sovereign territories or in States. These updates have garnered criticism from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that offer fundamental, simple rights that ought to be guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

For example, this bill would recognize the tribes' authority to prosecute non-Indians or Indians who abuse their American Indian spouses or dating partners on tribal lands. Fifty-two percent of women who are beaten, battered, raped, or stalked on tribal lands are not prosecuted because tribes have no authority. And on tribal lands, there is no follow-up and no prosecution.

The bill would also provide equal opportunity for areas that are in traditionally underserved areas, including those who have barriers because of their religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. It's absurd to say that because you are a homosexual that you don't deserve protection from being beaten, stalked, or raped. And, of course, the Hippocratic Oath would have us scoop up a person who may be lying in the street, hit by a truck. We don't ask people for their immigration papers in order to intervene in a lifesaving intervention. Why would we demand this of immigrant women?

We have got to ensure a more comprehensive response to the continuing problem of enforcement, reporting, and services for victims of sexual assault.

In spite of the strides we have made toward a new and improved VAWA, just yesterday the House Republicans put their so-called ``clean'' reauthorization bill on the floor. Let me tell you this: it's clean, perhaps, because we don't want to sully our hands dealing with the beaten, stalked, murdered, and bullied butch-batterers, because we don't want to deal with homosexuality. We want clean reauthorization, a sleight of hand that keeps immigrant women in the shadows and keeps their pain and their battery and their victimization in the shadows and makes them invisible. We're actually sanctioning the abuse that occurs on tribal lands and providing a sanctuary for assailants who commit these crimes on native lands by not providing this authority to tribal nations.

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