COMMENTARY: Biden stands up for domestic violence victims

[George II]

By Jill Biden Special to the Review-Journal

Earlier this month, I visited Nevada and heard a heartbreaking story of a woman whose sister was killed by her abusive husband. I learned that Nevada has some of the worst rates of homicides among women victims murdered by men. It’s an important reminder for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which concluded on Thursday, of how far we’ve come and how much we still have to do.

In 1991, a woman named Marla Hanson took the stand before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at the request of the committee chair, my husband, Joe Biden. She was a model in New York who had been attacked by men hired by her landlord after she refused his advances. She told the senators of the 150 stitches she needed after their razors cut her face and how, when her case went to trial, she was the one blamed by the public, defense lawyer, and even her own family for being out alone at night in the city.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the signing og the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)—the legislation that grew out of Ms. Hanson’s testimony and that of other abuse, assault and rape survivors. It was their stories, courage and grit that inspired my husband to sit down with his staff and write the bill in his own hand. But it didn’t pass the year Ms. Hanson testified, or the year after, or the year after that.

Why?

Many of Joe’s colleagues were set against it. They thought we shouldn’t so harshly punish what they saw as a “private family matter.” The U.S. Department of Justice opposed the bill. Even the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court tried to stop the law before it was passed.

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https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/commentary-biden-stands-up-for-domestic-violence-victims-1884627/

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. K&R

[Cha]

2. Thank you for this important issue from Dr Jill Biden,

George