[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 24 (Thursday, March 7, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFINGS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DANNY K. DAVIS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 7, 2002

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, The narrator in the PBS 
documentary written by Mary Dickson, ``No Safe Place--Violence Against 
Women,'' began by relating that:

       In the early hours of a hot August morning, three men 
     pulled a woman from her car after a minor traffic accident. 
     The men threatened her with a crowbar, made her strip, then 
     chased her until she jumped off a bridge to her death in the 
     Detroit River. None of the 40 or so passers-by tried to help 
     the 33-year-old woman. Some reports say onlookers cheered as 
     the men taunted her.

  A judge in New Bedford, MA, sentenced the confessed rapist of a 14-
year-old girl to probation. He then said that the victim ``. . . can't 
go through life as a victim. She's 14. She got raped. Tell her to get 
over it.''
  The San Francisco Chronicle reported that:

       Cassandra Floyd was a respected physician, a single mother 
     living in an affluent San Jose suburb, and ardent volunteer 
     and a role model for young black women. The 35-year-old was 
     also the victim of domestic violence . . . when her ex-
     husband shot and killed her as their 4-year-old daughter 
     slept nearby and shot and wounded Floyd's mother. He then 
     fled and killed himself.

  These are not isolated incidents selected to cause sensationalism. 
Violence against women is a worldwide epidemic.
  According to the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund,

       Violence against women--rape, sexual assault and domestic 
     violence--affects women worldwide, regardless of class or 
     race. Violence not only affects women in the home, but in the 
     workplace, school and every arena of life.

  The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) at the Johns Hopkins 
School of Public Health found that

       Around the world at least one women in every three has been 
     beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her 
     lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own 
     family. Increasingly, gender-based violence is recognized as 
     a major public health concern and a violation of human 
     rights.

  The dimensions of this issue were illustrated in a joint study by the 
Jacobs Institute of Women's Health and the Henry J. Kaiser Family 
Foundation, which made the following conclusions:
  In 1998 there were approximately 2.8 million assaults on women. The 
Journal of the American Women's Association reported that those most at 
risk are ``. . . younger, separated or divorced, of lower socioeconomic 
status and unemployed.'' The risk of assault by an intimate partner 
increases when a woman is pregnant.
  Just four in ten women who are physically injured by a partner seek 
professional medical treatment.
  Women are more likely to be the victim of rape or sexual assaults by 
an intimate partner or acquaintance, rather than by a stranger.
  The National Violence Against Women Survey found that one out of 
every 12 women, a total of 8.2 million women, has been stalked at some 
point in their lives.
  Women are more likely than men to be killed by someone they know, and 
nearly one-third of women are killed by an intimate partner, compared 
to approximately four percent of men, according to the Bureau of 
Justice Statistics.
  Black women are more likely than White or Hispanic women to be the 
victims of nonlethal violent crimes.
  These statistics are appalling. Just as we have come together with 
our allies to declare war against terrorism, so too must we unite and 
declare war against this form of terrorism--violence against women.

                          ____________________