Violence Against Women Act Expires:
Revision Strips Protections for Immigrant & Minority Women

by Amee Chew
October 5, 2005

Last week, Congress failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) before it expired on September 30 -- leaving millions of women without protection until another vote is scheduled. Every day that passes counts.

The Act failed to carry due to the objections of one Senator to voting: Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), intent on criminalizing immigrants, insisted on changing applicable portions of the bill. Making matters worse, the House had earlier passed legislation to reauthorize Justice Department spending through FY 2009 -- but with weakened language regarding help for minority women facing intimate violence. Language to provide adequate services to meet the needs of survivors of domestic and sexual violence from racial and ethnic communities was stripped.

Many women of color and immigrant women are already not receiving the services they desperately need. The government's neglect of culturally and linguistically appropriate counseling, legal advocacy, emergency assistance, and other aid is criminal. Moreover, it demonstrates how "interpersonal" violence is also really a form of structural violence shaped by the government's political priorities, exacerbated by state planning.

Likewise, after Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence issued desperate calls for help because services for violence against women had been devastated, while FEMA did nothing. They reported women living in homeless shelters who were forced to endure sexual and physical abuse they could not escape. While the media had a field day reporting abounding chaos, laced with racist undertones, progressives failed to draw attention to the role of state incompetance and neglect in perpetuating violence against women.

We need to see violence against women within the context of our society's economic and political priorities, exacerbated by racial injustice and imperialism. We need to name the perpetrators of this violence -- all the way up the hierarchy.

TAKE ACTION! Demand reauthorization of VAWA now, with provisions for women of color!