[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

  (Mrs. MORELLA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, domestic violence knows no socio-economic, 
ethnic, or racial bounds. In this country, every 5 minutes a woman is 
raped and every 15 seconds a woman is beaten by her husband. This year, 
2.5 million women will have sustained violent acts of physical, sexual, 
and emotional abuse committed against them by someone in their family. 
Of these, 25 to 30 percent of the atrocities will have been due to 
repeated abuses to the woman. Battery is still the single major cause 
of injury and domestic terrorism, to women, more prevalent than rape, 
mugging, or auto accidents, one in every four women in America will be 
assaulted by a domestic partner in her lifetime.
  In my State of Maryland, 16,834 spousal assaults were reported to law 
enforcement agencies in 1992, for which the last formal report was 
written. This figure is thought to be less than 10 percent of the 
actual assaults that occurred within Maryland. Last year, according to 
the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, a woman was battered to 
death by a domestic partner every 5 days in Maryland.
  Women are not the only ones affected by domestic violence. Nearly 
half of all incidencies of child abuse occur in the context of 
battering. Men who are abusing women are often abusing children as 
well.
  In addition, domestic violence is a major health issue for women. Our 
health care system provides a critical juncture between the opportunity 
to both prevent domestic violence and the intervention to end physical 
and emotional trauma. The violence Against Women Act declares crimes 
motivated by a victim's gender as a bias crime and allows a woman to 
bring suit against her attacker. The legislation also provides funding 
for shelters and the direct services of counseling and prevention 
training to the victims of domestic violence.
  Domestic violence does not limit itself to the physical and emotional 
trauma of its victims. It has a powerful impact on our country's 
economic health:
  The United States spent $5.4 billion on violence-related health care 
last year alone; As the incidence of domestic increases, the demand on, 
and cost to, our health care system will also rise; today 1 out of 
every 4 health care dollars goes to pay for preventable, socially 
learned behaviors.
  With the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act, we have begun 
to make progress in providing our law enforcement community and health 
care providers with the skills needed to identify, treat, and to 
intervene on behalf of battered women. As we work toward ending the 
terrible scourge of domestic violence, it is critical that private 
industry and the media join our fight in increasing the public's 
awareness of domestic violence.

                          ____________________