VAWnet News Blog

Its been 20 years since the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law. To honor that anniversary, officials from the Department of Justice are visiting outreach programs across the nation. Monday, they made several stops in Ouachita and Morehouse parish.

“All of you in this room who are doctors, nurses, researchers, social workers from all across the country, the fact that we are talking today about domestic violence as a public health epidemic is because of you,” he said.

In our nation, a woman is beaten every nine seconds. One in four women will experience severe physical abuse in their lifetime. Annually 10 million children witness their mothers being beaten inside their own homes. Approximately three women are murdered every day by those who promised to love them.

Teen dating violence is a pattern of controlling and abusive behavior used by one partner to gain power over the other. Such behavior includes physical, sexual, emotional, and/or psychological abuse. Tragically, research shows that too many of our young adults are in such relationships.

“The gray marks were something called postinflammatory hyperpigmentation, which is the result of repeated trauma. The tattoos were probably indicating she was property,” Chin says. “It just hit me. At church, we were looking at this as an international problem, yet it was right here under our noses.

Biden toured a Maryland State Police forensic laboratory in Pikesville on Monday and addressed the importance of clearing the backlog of an estimated 400,000 rape kits that remain untested throughout the U.S. Biden said the federal funding will help local and state law enforcement agencies test the kits and train personnel.