Legal Momentum Briefing Room

New Report Highlights Women's Advancements and Persistent Inequities in the United States

In 2009, President Obama created the White House Council on Women and Girls to ensure that the federal government provides a coordinated response to women’s issues. In honor of women’s history month, the Council, in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget and the Economics and Statistics Administration, released "Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being," a report analyzing five key issues facing women: demographic and family changes, education, employment, health, and crime and violence.

"Women in America" demonstrates that women have advanced dramatically in American society, particularly in education.  More than ever before, women, from diverse racial and ethnic groups, enroll in institutions of higher education. In 2011, there are more women than men in both undergraduate and graduate schools. Women also have higher graduation rates at all academic levels than men.
Despite this progress, female students score lower than male students in mathematics assessment tests. While science, math and technology careers are dominated by men, women comprise two-thirds of global graduates in the humanities. Gender segregation in career and technical education – the path to jobs in the skilled trades, which lead to occupations with high wages, benefits, and opportunities for professional growth – continues. Legal Momentum's Pipeline Program seeks to address this disparity, forging systemic change in educational institutions to end the long history of gender segregation in these schools and career fields, while increasing the earnings potential and future economic security of low-income women.

Today, women's advances in education do not always translate success in the workforce. The gender pay gap continues: among those working full time, women earn, on average, 80 cents for every dollar men make.

"Women in America" also addresses the impact of criminal activity in American communities. Women are disproportionately affected by certain types of crime, particularly sexual victimization and intimate partner violence.

A recent study by Dr. Dean Kilpatrick of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina, Drug-facilitated, Incapacitated and Forcible Rape: A National Study, found that "during the past year alone [2006], over 1 million women in the U.S. have been raped…Our estimates do not appear to support the widely held belief that rape has significantly declined in recent decades."

While sexual violence remains a persistent problem for American women, "Women in America" does note that the rate of nonfatal intimate partner violence against women declined by more than 50 percent between 1994 and 2008. 1994 marked the passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Legal Momentum was instrumental in passing VAWA and has advocated for its subsequent reauthorizations in 2000 and 2005. Since Congress passed VAWA in 1994, law enforcement and justice system officials have become increasingly involved in domestic violence cases, matters which were once perceived to be private concerns. The declining rate of intimate partner violence achieved by VAWA affects not only victims but their children as well. As "Women in America" explains, "Research demonstrates significant adverse impacts on children’s health and developmental well-being as a result of exposure to domestic violence."

"Women in America" finds that while women have achieved significant advances in education and employment, much work remains. Legal Momentum continues to confront the issues facing American women and children, from poverty to sexual violence. Learn more about Legal Momentum.

Authors of “No Tax Payer Funding for Abortions Act” Alter Language of Bill

In response to mass outrage from pro-choice advocates, media pundits, and Democratic politicians, the authors of "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act" have altered the bill's most disturbing language. Under the original version of the bill, federal abortion funding would be limited to victims of "forcible rape." If a woman couldn’t prove she'd been raped by force, her abortion wouldn't be covered, even if she’d been drugged, raped while unconscious, or the victim of incest.

But yesterday morning, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the lead sponsor of the bill and chair of the House pro-life caucus, announced he would remove the phrase "forcible rape" from the bill. The phrase will be replaced with the same wording used in the Hyde Amendment, a 30-year-old ban on the use of federal funds to finance abortions, renewed yearly. Sponsors hope to make the Hyde Amendment permanent, federal law. "The word forcible will be replaced with the original language from the Hyde Amendment," said Jeff Sagnip, a spokesperson for Smith.

This decision comes on the heels of immense protest to the bill's original phrasing, which encouraged the notion that rape is only rape if a woman is physically forced. But in fact, some experts suggest up to 70% of rape victims are not raped by forced. In response to the bill, Legal Momentum wrote, "H.R. 3 only serves to re-victimize rape survivors by forcing them into unwanted pregnancies. It empowers rapists who drug their victims and who rape women while they’re unconscious, and it empowers rapists who rape minors and family members. None of these rapes would count under this bill, unless they used 'force.'"

Despite the phrase change, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act" still includes several provisions that appear to significantly expand federal limits on abortion funding. Indeed, Talking Points Memo writes, "The new version of the bill apparently retains the clause that limits the incest exemption to girls under the age of 18 and language that makes it tougher for women to obtain abortion coverage through their private insurers." Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said, "Look, my reaction is this is not really changing things that much. This exposed them for what their true intentions are. Now that they're exposed they're trying to put the genie back in the bottle, and it's not going to work." And Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) noted, "It's still a totally flawed bill. I would call it the deepest attack on a woman's right to choose in my lifetime." Indeed, H.R. 3 is yet another tactic in a long campaign to limit abortion rights. As we recently wrote, conservative lawmakers and governors have introduced legislation to limit abortion access in many states across the country. These measures are just stepping stones on the path to achieving anti-choice advocates’ final goal – banning abortion entirely. Any attempt to make abortion less accessible to women is an attempt to eradicate the right to choose completely.

• Learn more about Legal Momentum's work on behalf of women victims of violence.
• Learn more about Legal Momentum's history of work for reproductive rights.

Congress Introduces Bill That Sharply Limits Abortion Coverage for Rape Survivors

According to 174 members of Congress, a "real rape victim" is one who is assaulted by force. Yes, despite the fact that a great many victims - some experts suggest up to 70% - are raped by intoxication or incapacitation, Congress recently unveiled the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 3), a bill that would limit federal abortion funding to victims raped by force.

Federal law already prohibits the use of federal dollars to finance abortions, except for pregnancies that are the result of rape, incest, or pregnancies that endanger the mother's life. But this new legislation, introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and 173 co-sponsors, and considered a top priority for Congress by House Speaker John Boehner, limits the federal abortion funding even further. Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown explained:

Under this new bill, the only rape survivors who would be able to receive funding would be those who were able to prove that their rapes involved "force." If your rapist drugged you, intoxicated you, or raped you while you were unconscious, you don’t get coverage. If your rapist used coercion, you don’t get coverage. If this is a case of statutory rape — that is, if you are a thirteen-year-old child, raped by someone outside of your family — you don’t get coverage. If you’re an incest survivor over the age of eighteen — if, say, years of abuse only culminated in a pregnancy after your nineteenth birthday — you just don’t get coverage.

H.R. 3 also redefines abortion funding for mothers who whose lives are endangered. "Endangerment" now only refers to physical threats. Mental health issues are, yet again, marginalized.

As Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post wrote, "'Forcible rape'? The very concept is offensive on its face. How is that even defined? There is no definition in the bill…rape isn't sex, it's violence. But if a woman or girl gets pregnant through incest or rape (in all ways it is defined or understood) the government should not limit her choice by withholding the funding she could use to end the pregnancy -- if she chooses to do so.”

Mother Jones tells the story of a 13-year-old girl who is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult. Under the bill, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. And because the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, the victim's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. Nor would they be able to deduct the abortion cost or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense. While health insurances costs are typically tax-deductible for employers, under H.R. 3, those that opt for insurance plans that cover abortion will no longer be eligible for the deducation.

H.R. 3 only serves to re-victimize rape survivors by forcing them into unwanted pregnancies. It empowers rapists who drug their victims and who rape women while they’re unconscious, and it empowers rapists who rape minors and family members. None of these rapes would count under this bill, unless they used “force.”

H.R. 3 is yet another tactic in a long campaign to limit abortion rights. Last week, we blogged about anti-choice state governors' efforts to restrict reproductive autonomy.

Make your voices heard by contacting your representatives, especially if they are among the Democrats who have signed on to the bill or Democrats who are likely to speak out against it. But either way, please contact your congressperson – preferably by calling them – and ask them to vote against it. If you’re on Twitter, tweet at Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) and use the hashtag #DearJohn.

• Learn more about Legal Momentum's work for victims of gender-based violence.
• Learn more about Legal Momentum's history of work on Reproductive Justice and Sexuality and Family Rights.

High School Cheerleader Dismissed From Squad After Refusing to Cheer for Her Rapists

In 2008, a sixteen-year-old cheerleader reported that she was raped by a basketball player at her school. The girl, known as H.S., said that she was at a party when Rakheem Bolton and a fellow athlete pushed her into a bedroom and locked the door. They proceeded to sexually assault her. Bolton was arrested, but not charged.

Instead of advocating for the victim and working to create a safe educational environment, officials at H.S.'s school encouraged her to avoid the cafeteria and homecoming so as not to raise attention to the issue. But she declined to take part in the school officials' "out of sight, out of mind" approach, and instead refused to cheer for Bolton. She sat on the sidelines while her teammates cheered "Two, four, six, eight, ten, come on, Rakheem, put it in." She was dismissed from the team for her actions. "As a team, I cheered for them as a whole. When he stepped up to the free-throw line, it didn't feel right for me to have to cheer for him after what he did to me," she said.

Bolton eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, and H.S.'s family sued the school district for inhibiting free speech. But the suit was dismissed as "frivolous" and the family was ordered to reimburse the school's costs. A Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, "stating that a cheerleader serves as a 'mouthpiece’ for the school' and that H.S.'s refusal to cheer "constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, [she] was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily."

Now, her lawyer, Laurence Watts, is appealing the case to the Supreme Court over whether or not her refusal to cheer in fact constituted "substantial interference with the work of the school." The case also has implications for student free speech.

"All I wanted was for somebody to come forward and say, 'Yes, it happened,'" H.S. said. But it's clear that for school officials and the Court of Appeals, this was not their intention. Instead, they attempted to protect "the work of the school," which meant glossing over rape accusations, criminalizing victims, and fostering an educational environment where students are discouraged from addressing sexual assault and violence head on. 
   
In December, Legal Momentum reported on efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to address shocking rates of sexual violence on college campuses across the U.S. In addition to direct measures by the Department, a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act), a bill that would expand and clearly define the expectations of colleges and universities in their approach towards the prevention and response to sexual assault. This aggressive approach towards combating sexual violence must be enacted throughout all educational institutions, including secondary education.

The ongoing existence of sexual assault within educational institutions is a fundamental human rights abuse that must not be tolerated. Rather than victimizing survivors of sexual assault, educational institutions must work to fight against rape culture and create safe learning environments for all students. Ensuring that students, especially women, are able to live and study free of sexual harassment, sexual violence, and fear is a critical component of any successful educational institution.

• Learn more about Legal Momentum's work on behalf of women victims of violence.

Congress Reauthorizes Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act

Congress recently reauthorized the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), which includes the critical Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA). This legislation will help raise awareness about domestic and sexual violence, which continues to devastate the lives of countless women, men, and children across the nation.

FVPSA is the only federal funding source dedicated to domestic violence shelters and services, supporting emergency shelters, crisis hotlines, counseling services, victim assistance initiatives and programs for underserved communities. The reauthorized bill also includes new provisions, allowing for improvements to the National DV Hotline, teen dating violence initiatives, services for our nation's territories, and programs for children who witness violence, among many others. In addition to CAPTA’s work addressing child abuse, neglect, and sexual violence, the bill will now improve services for both victims of these crimes.

Despite the substantial progress that has been made in ending violence against women and children, domestic violence still affects 1 in 4 women. 20 million U.S. women will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. The last two years have seen a rise in domestic violence, despite decreasing rates during the previous fifteen years. Since September 2008, 75% of our nation’s domestic violence shelters have reported an increase in women seeking assistance, with 73% of these shelters crediting this rise to financial problems. The National Domestic Violence Hotline answers more than 22,000 calls for help each month, and serves as a link between these callers and battered women’s shelters, whose doors are kept open by FVPSA.

Despite this troubling increase, services for domestic violence victims have been depleted. This year, California, which accounts for 13% of emergency domestic violence calls, cut $2 million from the state budget that was used for financing 94 domestic violence centers and shelters. Similar cuts have occurred in West Virginia and Illinois, the latter of which has reduced financing for domestic violence programs by 75%. "Domestic violence is up, and while the poor economy that helps drive the violence is still not rebounded, states are drastically slashing funding for domestic violence services," said Sheryl Cates, Chief Executive of the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline.

The desperate need for increased funds and assistance is all too clear for victims of domestic violence. The reauthorization of FVPSA/CAPTA will serve as a lifeline for these individuals. Indeed, Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said, "In these grueling economic times, our community battered women's shelters were facing severe funding cuts and service reductions at the hands of state and private funders trying to staunch budget shortfalls. Reauthorizing FVPSA will ensure the funds reach the states and programs so that families facing domestic and sexual violence have an escape path."

Legal Momentum applauds the reauthorization of FVPSA/CAPTA as a critical and necessary step towards ending all violence against women and children. The desperate need for services, assistance, and funding for victims of domestic violence has been heightened in the past year, and our nation must act accordingly. We eagerly await the President’s signing of the bill.

• To learn more about Legal Momentum’s work through our Women and Violence project, click here.
• Learn more the National Judicial Education Program’s sexual assault resources.
• To read more about the passage of FVPSA/CAPTA, click here.

Administration, Congress Take Critical Steps Towards Combating Sexual Assualt on College Campuses

Sexual violence has long been a major problem on college campuses across the U.S. It is now finally receiving the attention it so desperately deserves. Joseph Shapiro of National Public Radio reports, “The United States Department of Education is announcing ‘voluntary resolution agreements’ with two schools that had been criticized for the way they'd handled assaults. And new legislation in Congress would expand and clarify the responsibility of colleges and universities.”

A U.S. Department of Justice funded study estimates that one out of five college women will be sexually assaulted, usually when alcohol is involved. Last winter, Shapiro, along with other journalists from the Center for Public Integrity, investigated the failure of schools and the government agency that oversees them to adequately address sexual assault on their campuses in a series called “Seeking Justice for Campus Rapes.”

The cases that prompted the investigation occurred at Eastern Michigan University and Notre Dame College of Ohio. In December 2006, 22-year-old Laura Dickinson was raped and murdered by a stranger and fellow Eastern Michigan University student after he broke into her dorm room. The convicted man had already been arrested for break-ins on campus and kicked out of school dorms, yet was allowed to remain a student. For 10 weeks, campus officials led Dickinson’s family to believe she died from natural causes.

The second incident occurred in 2006 at Notre Dame of Ohio, when two students told the dean of students that they had been sexually assaulted by the same man. It took weeks for the assaults to be reported to the police, because the dean said she was asked by the women to keep the information confidential. The dean was eventually indicted but later acquitted of failing to quickly notify law enforcement authorities.

Under the federal Clery Act, schools have an obligation to warn other students of crimes on campus. Under Title IX, schools must act swiftly and effectively to end and prevent sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape.

In response to the series, Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, discussed new actions developed to address this crisis with NPR and the Center for Public Integrity. Information provided in the discussion includes:

- Eastern Michigan University and Notre Dame College of Ohio taking measures to prevent sexual assault and to investigate assaults when they do happen. The agreements between the Department and the schools also issues for officials from the Department to regularly visit the campuses to ensure progress is being made.

- Ali's department has begun two similar investigations at Ohio State University and of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, in Richmond, California. The second investigation was prompted by an alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl after she attended a homecoming dance.

- Offers from Ali to the University of Notre Dame in investigating a recent rape allegation by a student who later committed suicide.

Perhaps most notable is the recent move by a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act), a bill that would expand and clearly define the expectations of colleges and universities in their approach towards the prevention and response to sexual assault. The bill’s provisions include –

- “Anytime a student reports being a victim of sexual violence — including stalking and date or domestic violence — schools are then required to explain, in writing, their rights to notify law enforcement and receive help from the school to report the incident. Schools must also tell students their rights to obtain a protective order from a local court. And the school is then obligated to help enforce those protective orders. Schools would be required to hold prevention campaigns, to help students avoid sexual violence and to know how to report it and get counseling if they become a victim.

- The bill would also require schools to start teaching what's considered one of the best approaches to prevention: something called ‘bystander education.’ The idea is to teach everyone — men and women — that they can prevent sexual assaults, and that they have a responsibility to do so. It's similar to campaigns to stop drunk driving by spotting a friend who's had too much to drink and hiding his car keys, giving him a ride or calling a taxi.”

S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus, an advocacy group for ending campus violence, helped develop the bill and says it is a critical component of ending campus-based violence. Without a bill, the federal government’s approach is not sufficient to effectively address the nationwide problem. "Without a clear national framework set in statute and regulation, it's still going through one school at a time. And not making these changes across the board, which is what we really need to do if you're going to change the big picture,” he said.

Legal Momentum heralds this aggressive approach towards combating sexual violence. The ongoing existence of sexual assault, especially on college campuses, is a fundamental human rights abuse that must not be tolerated. The U.S. Department of Education’s measures and SaVE Act are critical steps towards ensuring the safety of all students.

- To read "Administration, Congress Take Steps to Address Sexual Assaults On Campus,” click here.

- To read “Seeking Justice for Campus Rapes,” click here.

- To learn more about Legal Momentum's Violence Against Women Program, which combines public policy advocacy, education, and precedent-setting litigation to expand and enforce laws aimed at preventing sexual assualt and protecting victims, click here.

 

 

Working in the Shadows: Immigrant Women Sexually Victimized on the Job

Over four million undocumented immigrant women currently live in the United States. Many of these women are employed in the U.S. food service industry, and, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), many of these women suffer sexual harassment and sexual violence on the job.

Injustice on Our Plates demonstrates what Legal Momentum’s Immigrant Women Program has often found in its efforts across the country: that undocumented immigrant women are forced to work for little pay in a shadow economy, exploited by their employers while remaining invisible to most Americans.

In June, Legal Momentum released Reforming America’s Immigration Laws: A Woman’s Struggle. We noted that undocumented women migrants are "vulnerable to sexual violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other gender-motivated exploitation in the workplace. Absent any fear that employees will report these actions and crimes, employers continue to take advantage of immigrant women."

Injustice on Our Plates echoes Legal Momentum’s findings in the U.S. food service industry. The SPLC interviewed 150 immigrant women working throughout the United States. The vast majority of the women the SPLC interviewed said that they suffered sexual harassment and/or sexual violence on the job. At the Agriprocessers Inc. meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa – the site of one of the largest federal immigration raids in history in May 2008 – the women workers described sexual harassment by their male supervisors as “widespread and constant.” According to the SPLC, this type of exploitation is common across the country:

In Salinas, Calif., a worker told the EEOC that farmworkers there referred to one company’s field as the field de calzon, or “field of panties,” because so many women had been raped by supervisors there. In Florida, women farmworkers dubbed fields “the green motel” for the same reason. In Iowa, women said they had encountered the problem so often that they believed it was a common practice in the United States to exchange sex for job security.

Immigrant women are the silent victims of the broken immigration system. Legal Momentum’s Immigrant Women Program advocates for comprehensive immigration reform that considers how even facially gender-neutral laws create more hardship for immigrant women. Congress must create paths to legalization that equitably value women’s work, eliminate 287(g) and/or Safe Communities Programs that often harm immigrant women crime victims, and eradicate backlogs in the family immigration system.

The women profiled in Injustice on Our Plates are the backbone of the U.S. economy, yet they live in the shadows. Comprehensive immigration reform must include provisions to ensure that these women are able to live and work free of sexual harassment, sexual violence, and fear.

Hollaback Challenges Street Harassment as Component of Gender-Based Violence, New York City Council Takes Notice

“Women don’t put up with harassment in the workplace or the home, why are they still putting up with it on the street?” That’s the question asked by Hollaback, a group confronting street harassment using technology, which is geared towards recording and sharing incidents of street harassment with others in efforts to end the pervasive practice. Now, the group has developed an i-Phone application, making responses to harassment even more accessible and quick to disseminate.  Through the website or i-Phone application, individuals are encouraged to recount their experiences, identify the location of the incident, and even share pictures of the perpetrators in efforts to help prevent more harassment and hold perpetrators accountable.

The group was created in response to the widespread phenomena of street harassment and the recognition of this act as one of the most common, yet unchallenged forms of gender-based violence. “Street harassment teaches us to be silent,” said Emily May, the executive director of Hollaback. “It teaches us to walk on. That is the very last thing we want to be teaching women and girls."

The group’s message is not just being heard by users of the website or application, but by the New York City Council Committee on Women’s Issues, who held its first hearing on street harassment last month. The committee chairwoman, Julissa Ferreras, a Democrat from Queens, has vowed to pursue all three demands by a group of activists at the hearings - a study examining street harassment, an advertising campaign, and the establishment of “harassment-free zones” around schools. “Ms. Ferreras called the hearing after visiting a high school in Elmhurst, Queens, where instead of requesting computers or supplies, female students asked her to stop the mechanics in a nearby garage from making inappropriate comments directed at them. Their stories hit close to home for the councilwoman, who grew up in the district and still remembers the ‘speed walk’ to and from school, when she would try to avoid a group of men who stood outside one particular bodega,” writes Karen Zraick in the Times piece. Ms. Ferreras, who understands the pervasiveness of street harassment, said she was even harassed on her way to the hearing.

Challenging and prosecuting street harassment is an essential component to ending all violence against women and LGBTQ individuals. As Hollaback’s website states, “Everyone has a right to feel safe and confident without being objectified. Sexual harassment is a gateway crime that creates a cultural environment that makes gender-based violence OK. There exists a clear legal framework to reproach sexual harassment and abuse in the home and at work, but when it comes to the streets—all bets are off. This gap isn’t because street harassment hurts any less, it’s because there hasn’t been a solution. Until now.”

• To read more from "Phone Apps Aim to Fight Harassment," click here.
• To learn more about Hollaback or to report your own experiences, click here.
• To learn more about Legal Momentum’s work through our Women and Violence project, click here.

Legal Momentum Attends First-Ever White House Roundtable on Sexual Violence

Legal Momentum's National Judicial Education Program Director Lynn Hecht Schafran recently attended the first-ever White House national roundtable on sexual violence, sponsored by the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) and the White House Council on Women and Girls. The Roundtable included sexual violence experts from a range of disciplines from all parts of country. Representatives from several federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Education, Defense; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and the Office on Juvenile Justice and Detention Prevention, also attended. Because sexual violence affects women in every area of their lives – from health to education to employment – OVW seeks to mobilize all government agencies in a national campaign against this pervasive problem.

The discussion centered on strategies to educate the public about the realities of sexual assault as opposed to the myths, prevent sexual violence, ensure that victims have access to effective service providers, and hold perpetrators accountable. At the Roundtable, NJEP Director Lynn Hecht Schafran and NJEP Project Attorney Claudia Bayliff also emphasized the importance of accurate data collection by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, public education, and professional education for judges, prosecutors, law enforcement, and probation officers about the myths and misconceptions that undermine victims’ access to justice in these cases.

In conjunction with the event, President Obama announced a national campaign to reduce sexual violence:

“The Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) is launching a new national campaign to reduce sexual violence in the United States by improving the criminal justice system response, increasing services for victims, and changing attitudes. Today, the White House Council on Women and Girls and the Department of Justice held the first ever national roundtable on sexual violence at the White House. Over the next six months, OVW will hold regional forums around the country to engage the public in their sexual assault reduction campaign. In the 2011 budget, [I have] proposed doubling funding for VAWA sexual assault program.”

The President also announced increased funding for the Sexual Assault Kit Backlog Action Research Project. The Project was launched to eliminate the enormous backlog of untested rape kits in crime labs across the country. This funding will allow jurisdictions to create multidisciplinary teams to audit their rape kit backlog and devise and implement long-term strategies to solve the backlog problem.

NJEP Director Lynn Hecht Schafran also attended a White House Council on Women and Girls-sponsored event to commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Month. President Obama and Vice President Biden highlighted the Obama Administration’s exceptional effort to mobilize all government agencies – from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Department of Health and Human Services – to protect victims of domestic and sexual violence and hold perpetrators accountable.

NJEP has recently undertaken an advocacy campaign to change the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) methods for collecting sexual assault data. The media shapes public attitudes toward sexual violence and reporters depend on government statistics about the crime. Unfortunately, BJS’s methodology sharply underestimates the number of rape victims in the general population. Thanks to NJEP’s efforts in conjunction with a number of experts on this issue, the White House now relies on the uncontested expert in the field, Department of Justice-funded Dr. Dean Kilpatrick and his team at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Kilptarick and his team have studied this issue for decades. Their most recent study found that approximately 20 million U.S. women will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. This statistic was widely reported by the White House in the publicity surrounding this event.

Learn more OVW’s national campaign to reduce sexual violence in the United States.

Learn more about the Event to End Violence Against Women, sponsored by the White House Council for Women and Girls.

Learn more the National Judicial Education Program’s sexual assault resources.

Learn more about the National Judicial Education Program.

Workplaces Respond to Domestic and Sexual Violence: A National Resource Center

On October 27, 2010 the White House and U.S. Department of Justice announced the launch of Workplaces Respond to Domestic and Sexual Violence: A National Resource Center. The Resource Center was created and funded as a result of Legal Momentum’s advocacy during and after the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 2005.

The Resource Center provides tools for employers to obtain information and assistance in creating workplace policies addressing domestic, sexual and dating violence and stalking. It explains what employers can do to help their employees, and contains model policies designed to address the realities of domestic, sexual and dating violence and stalking in the workplace. Employers can obtain information on safety planning and find the resources that best fit their needs.

The Resource Center is the result of a collaboration among Legal Momentum and six other organizations, including the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and its National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the Resource Sharing Project of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence, and the Victim Rights Law Center.