LEGISLATION
These are uncertain times, and too many people are struggling. Every day I hear from small businesses, school officials and our mayors about the enormous challenges they are facing due to the pandemic. We need to get Covid-19 under control, restore our economy and get our lives back.
Sadly, in the midst of these challenges, many existing issues are being exacerbated, including domestic violence and sexual assault. In the throes of the pandemic, too many survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault have been trapped at home with their abusers.
Even before Covid-19, the National Domestic Violence Hotline showed that one in four women and one in seven men in the U.S. have been victims of severe physical violence by a partner, and each year approximately 12 million Americans are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by a partner.
After hearing from sexual assault survivors, I wrote a law to give survivors new legal rights. Under my legislation, survivors of sexual assault can no
longer be denied a medical forensic investigation and have a right to
preserve the critical evidence from their assault. I’ve also introduced
legislation to protect victims of domestic and sexual violence from
housing discrimination. Survivors should not be victimized twice.
This
is not a new problem, but it is getting worse because of the pandemic.
Speaking to this urgent need to support survivors in New Hampshire,
Amanda Grady Sexton of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and
Sexual Violence said, “We are witnessing the decades of work to
eradicate violence against women unravel before us. Survivors will feel
the impact of this pandemic on their lives for months to come; the time
to intervene is now.”
Our local organizations are making a big difference for survivors, and providing them with the resources they need is among my top priorities right now.
I
have helped secure urgently needed funding for Bridges: Domestic and
Sexual Violence Support Services in Nashua and HAVEN Violence Prevention
and Support Services — located in
Portsmouth, Epping and Rochester — to provide transitional housing and
other housing assistance to domestic and sexual violence survivors and
their children. In previous years, I have consistently fought to secure
record levels of funding for the Department of Justice’s Office on
Violence Against Women, and I know we need to do more to help survivors
now.
In September, we
marked 26 years since the Violence Against Women Act was signed into
law. This landmark legislation has done so much to support survivors and
prevent and curb violence over the last twoand-a-half decades.
Shamefully, the Violence Against Women Act expired more than a year ago.
This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and it’s so disappointing to see
Mitch Mc- Connell and Washington Republicans refuse to reauthorize the
Violence Against Women Act, which is so effective at combating domestic
violence and sexual assault.
When
Covid-19 first hit the U.S. economy, we worked across the aisle to help
Americans who were struggling, including our most vulnerable
populations. I teamed up with Republican and Democratic senators to
hammer out a small
business program that has helped save more than 200,000 jobs in New
Hampshire, and we delivered an initial round of funding to support
survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. It’s making a
difference, but we need more. Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell has decided he won’t work with us to deliver another
round of relief to our communities that are struggling. In September, he
tried to ram through a partisan Covid package that had zero dollars for
our hospitals and healthcare workers, zero dollars in food assistance
for families and zero dollars for survivors.
Partisan
politics shouldn’t get in the way of addressing the Covid crisis, and
it shouldn’t stop Republican leadership from working with us to support
survivors and prevent domestic and sexual violence. I’ll continue to
call for my Republican colleagues to stop obstructing, and help us
ensure that the American people’s government again starts to work for
the American people.
Jeanne Shaheen is New Hampshire’s senior U.S. senator.
