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Legal Momentum President & CEO Carol Baldwin Moody spoke with the New York Times about the current effort to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and the fact that on April 4, the 2019 VAWA reauthorization bill passed the U. S. House of Representatives. Carol's quote below:
The act has established the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice, and myriad programs to train victim advocates, police officers, prosecutors and judges on gender-based violence. Since it was created, more than $7 billion in federal grants has been given to programs that prevent domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. It has also funded shelters, community programs and studies tracking violence against women.
Addressing gender-based violence seems like it “would be a bipartisan issue,” said Carol Baldwin Moody, president and chief executive of Legal Momentum, one of the organizations that has spent the last two years drafting language for the latest reauthorization of the act.
In the last quarter-century, as sexual violence on college campuses and harassment in the workplace have sparked widespread discussion and the #MeToo movement, the act has been changed, tweaked and fought over. Here is a look at its evolution.