Rosa: Globalize Anti-Violence Law

A law that has protected American women from rape should help women around the world, New Haven’s U.S. Congresswoman declared Tuesday.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro promised to help make that happen as she spoke at an event at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) held in conjunction with Domestic Violence Awareness Month. She joined SCSU students have been doing their own work to stop date rape. She also joined Democratic attorney general candidate George Jepsen, for whom the press conference was largely a campaign endorsement; Jepsen spoke of his own efforts to combat violence against women.

When DeLauro (pictured) spoke, she credited the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed by Congress with making improvements in the lives of women who are terrorized by threats or violence from intimate partners.

She said despite statistics that one in three females in the U.S. will experience a sexual assault in her lifetime, ​“collective action can make a difference. [The law] has made a real difference. It changed the landscape for American women, giving survivors of domestic violence, of dating violence, sexual assault and stalking the ability to protect themselves.” She noted that $225 million in stimulus funding has gone to the Office on Violence Against Women.

DeLauro is one of the sponsors of a bill now in Congress — the International Violence Against Women Act —that would provide some of those same protections to women abroad.

She urged people present to contact other Congressional offices to try to get more cosponsors on board to move the bill forward.

“At least one out of every three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime, with rates of domestic violence reaching 70 percent in some countries,” according to Amnesty International’s website.

DeLauro’s bill would instruct the federal government to increase support for agencies that work with victims of domestic violence and rape around the world; and to respond more quickly ​“humanitarian emergencies” and regional conflicts in which women and girls are being abused.

Swinging into Jepsen campaign mode, DeLauro added that when a Virginia college student tried to sue two men who raped her for violating her civil rights, under a provision of VAWA, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that provision unconstitutional, saying it violated states’ rights. She said Jepsen’s opponent in the attorney general race, Martha Dean, in a debate the previous day had said she supports the concept of nullification — of states’ right to nullify, or declare invalid, federal legislation.

She gave another example of an important federal law: the new health care law requires that insurance companies stop considering victims of domestic violence as having a pre-existing condition for the purpose of denying them coverage.

“The Republican candidate for attorney general, Martha Dean, has actually invoked the doctrine of nullification to stop these laws from being enforced. It says that states can just ignore any federal law they do not wish to support.” She said Dean’s support for it shows ​“how radical she has become.”

Reached by phone later, Dean said of the federal Violence Against Women Act, ​“I can’t speak to that because I haven’t studied the statute, but women will not find any more vigorous advocate for women than me. I’ve had several close encounters myself; a relative was brutally beaten and raped. It’s a very serious issue to me. It’s one of the reasons I support defending the Second Amendment. It’s one of the ways in which women can protect themselves. Women are fairly defenseless and I support their right to carry firearms. A large number of women are advocating to allow women to carry guns on campus. I think it’s wrong that they can’t.”

Regarding the health reform law, she said, ​“I haven’t studied the whole law, but the provision that people must purchase coverage, yes, I would support the legal fight against that.”

She gave another example of her own, saying she supports the State of California’s current fight to defend its law allowing residents to grow a small number of marijuana plants for their own use to deal with pain, against federal infringement.

At SCSU, Jepsen was presented as a champion of the issue for the suite of bills he helped usher to passage while a state senator in 1993 that required campuses to report date rapes, added a $20 surcharge on marriage licenses to fund domestic violence shelters, stopped hospitals from charging women for rape kits, and made it easier to get restraining orders against abusive partners. He credited his wife’s involvement with domestic violence services in Stamford with raising his consciousness.

To the students and dignitaries gathered outside the women’s center at the intersection of Fitch and Crescent streets, he said, ​“Students need to report abuse in any form, because abuse short of violence can very soon escalate to violence.”

Asked about the state laws Jepsen championed, Dean said, ​“I don’t know if I support those laws, but in general anything that protects women without imposing on the free market, I support that. The tax [marriage license surcharge] might be an inappropriate use of government power.

“Red Flag” On Campus

College students are the population most vulnerable to date rape, so activists at SCSU are taking the issue on with a Red Flag Campaign to ​“flag” the warning signs of looming partner violence and stop it in its tracks.

Southern student Melissa Richard (pictured at podium, with Jepsen behind her) heads up a peer group on campus focused on education about and prevention of sexual assault on campus. All six peer educators are female. Richard said they partner with a ​“Male Initiative” that meets at the women’s center ​“trying to take responsibility, getting together as men, trying to end violence against women. We have different programs on campus that the men’s initiative carries out.”