On March 7, 2013, President Barack Obama reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)—a law that funds prevention, protection and support programs for victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse. Many considered this to be a landmark victory, after the legislation was subject to more than a year of partisan controversy.
Last Friday, the one-year anniversary of the law’s reauthorization, leaders from women’s and immigrants’ rights organizations gathered at the George Washington University for a panel discussion to reflect on the progress that still needs to be made in order to end violence against women in the United States and abroad. “Violence Against Women as a Cross Border Issue” was hosted by the Global Women’s Institute and moderated by GWI Director Mary Ellsberg.
The panelists included Ashwini Jaisingh, lead organizer at CASA de Maryland; Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women; Archi Pyati, director of public policy at the Tahirih Justice Center; Maya Raghu, a senior attorney at Futures Without Violence; and Jessica Scruggs, a legislative and policy consultant at We Belong Together. Lynn Rosenthal, the first-ever White House adviser on violence against women, gave a keynote address.
The discussion focused on the relationship between comprehensive immigration reform and ending violence against women. Undocumented immigrant women who come to the U.S., often fleeing persecution in their home country, are frequently subject to sexual and physical abuse from their employers, husbands or partners. Fearing deportation or separation from their children, these women are forced to stay silent and endure the violence.
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| Mary Ellsberg, Director of the Global Women's Institute at GW |
“It is women and families who continue to bear the burden of our broken immigration system,” Dr. Ellsberg said on Friday.
While VAWA includes some provisions that meet the needs of immigrant women, Ms. Rosenthal called the passage of the law “a tough fight.”
“The pieces of VAWA that were most under attack last year were the immigration provisions,” she said. “But we fought hard, you fought hard, and we prevailed."
Since the passage of VAWA, annual rates of domestic violence have declined by more than 64 percent, said Ms. Rosenthal. However, there has been significantly less progress in reducing rape and sexual assault in the U.S., and violence against women remains an international epidemic. It is estimated that one in three women worldwide will be beaten, sexually assaulted or otherwise abused during her lifetime.
Comprehensive immigration reform, including the passage of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), could significantly help prevent women from becoming victims of violence, explained the panelists. They pointed to the ways that undocumented women are unable to live with equal access to basic needs like medical care and employment, meaning they become more vulnerable to the abuse. Ms. Pyati spoke of women who are “living in the shadows” and afraid to get help.
“Immigration reform is not a problem that is alone in a silo, while those of us who care about ending violence against women are over here in some other silo—these things are integrated,” Ms. Pyati said. Her organization, Tahirih Justice Center, provides legal services as well as social and medical service referrals to immigrant women and girls who are fleeing from gender-based violence.
“You can’t say, ‘Hey, I’m a feminist, but immigration reform is somebody else’s problem.’ Right?” she added.
While there are pieces of immigration law that offer critical protection to undocumented women, many of these protections are not being used effectively or appropriately for all women who need it, Ms. Pyati explained.
U visas, for example, offer protection to victims of certain crimes, giving them temporary legal status and work eligibility in the U.S. for up to four years. But there is a 10,000-person cap on how many victims of violent crimes can access this type of visa per fiscal year. It’s a number that Ms. Pyati said is “arbitrary.” Many of the women and girls whom the Tahirih Justice Center represent have to wait a year or more for their visas to get approved, due to the overloaded and backlogged system.
“If you put a cap on it, if you make women wait until the very end of this process to get a work permit—so they can work legally and pay their taxes and be part of our society in a way that makes them less vulnerable to discrimination and abuse—are we really living up to that standard that we are interested in protecting girls and women from abuse? I think not,” she said.
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| Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women |
Another problem undocumented women face is the restrictions in the bipartisan immigration reform bill, passed by the Senate in June, that emphasize work visas and limit family-based visas for adult siblings of U.S. citizens, said Ms. O’Neill.
She said this restriction would disadvantage immigrant women, who come to the U.S. on family visas (as opposed to work visas) because of educational and work discrimination in their home country. Additionally, women often rely on siblings to care for children and elders, as they work during the day.
“It’s really a double whammy of disadvantaging women,” she said. “It’s something we really need to address—valuing the work that women do and valuing the way women advance through the workforce, which is through a network of family members.”
So what can the average person do to make a difference, some members of the audience wondered.
The panelists encouraged everyone in attendance to keep informed, vote and stay politically active. Continuing the discussion on preventing gender-based violence worldwide, Dr. Ellsberg will be participating in two panel discussions at the 58th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, taking place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City this week.