Violence Against Women Act of 1994

by

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Description of the Problem Statement1

REFERENCES8

Violence Against Women Act Of 1994

Description of the Problem Statement

The Violence against Women Act 1994 has been a groundbreaking legislative enactment in 1994, which was implemented for addressing the sexual and domestic violence. It was further reauthorized during 2000 and 2005. The act has taken numerous measures for protecting the victims of sexual violence and domestic violence, and preventing abuse (Nancy, 2001). The major reasons for the establishment of VAWA programs were to reduce, prevent, or mitigate the occurrences and effects of domestic and sexual violence. In spite of being introduced and enacted in 1994, the VAWA grants programs have not undergone any kind of scientifically large-scale and rigorous assessments for its effectiveness. According to the General accounting Office, it was concluded that through previous assessment VAWA programs were observed to depict a number of methodological limitations and shortcomings, indicating whether the assessments are producing any definitive outcomes or not (Espinosa, 2012). In spite of a number of argumentative attempts being made for the authorization of VAWA solely in terms of women's rights, majority of the modifications and amendments brought in had nothing to do with the rights of women, rather have blurred the concept and origin of the actual act without vitally enhancing its effectiveness and purpose. For instance, previous re-authorizations have extended the Violence against Women's' Act 1994 to include service covering the elderly as well the young people (Nancy, 2001). Fundamentally, the Act was intended to specifically focus on issues related to women, but it has been reauthorized and the changes in the law/ legislation has turned the act to focus both on women and men.

Furthermore, the steps which are taken by the implementation of Act for protecting the victims from domestic violence and preventing women from sexual abuse, the law has strengthened the actions taken in legal aspects against the actors or performers of domestic violence (Guerino & Beck, 2012). It also focused on providing services like hotlines, community-based support programs, rape crisis centers, for the victims of domestic and sexual violence. With the time of reauthorization occurring again, a debate has arisen since the expiration of the law in September. The law has come under political fire due to the fact that it has received bipartisan support previously. Some Republican lawmakers have been objecting the provisions which are added by democrats to this year's law authorization (Guerino & Beck, 2012). The objections made by critics are specifically made to those provisions which have expanded the coverage of the law to homosexuals, illegal immigrants and American Indians. The provision for American Indian will provide a greater authority for prosecuting the non-Indians who would commit crime against American India women. In addition to the protest of the Democrats over the lack of protections and provisions for the Native American women and LGBT victims, they have expressed specific concerns related to the Republicans, claiming that their bill measures are only related to illegal immigrants (Muhlhausen & Villegas, ...