By Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday will deliver remarks on the Violence Against Women Act, which he renewed a day earlier while signing a massive spending bill into law, as an alarming spike in domestic violence coinciding with the coronavirus pandemic has added urgency to the issue.
The law expands protections for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, broadens access to legal services for survivors and provides more resources and training programs for law enforcement, among other steps.
Every month, an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner in the United States, according to a new report https://everytownresearch.org/report/guns-and-violence-against-women-americas-uniquely-lethal-intimate-partner-violence-problem/#the-nexus-of-intimate-partner-violence-and-guns that claims intimate partner violence and gun violence in the U.S. are inextricably linked.
“The law has saved lives, and that’s helped women rebuild their lives and make children a heck of a lot safer,” Biden said on Tuesday while signing the spending bill, which reauthorized and strengthened the law.
He said the law will now do more for survivors in rural areas and in underserved communities. For example, tribal courts will now be able to exercise jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault and sex trafficking, he said.
The law was first written by Biden in 1994 when he was a senator. It expired under then-President Donald Trump in 2019.
In 2018, the United States was named as the only Western nation among the 10 most dangerous countries for women in a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of global experts, after the #MeToo campaign triggered a flood of complaints about sexual harassment and assault.
Biden will deliver remarks on the topic at a White House event scheduled for 1:45 p.m. ET (1745 GMT).
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
