[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 27 (Wednesday, March 9, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

  (Ms. LEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise to commemorate this week as Lifetime's 
Violence Prevention Week and to call on this Congress to support 
legislation that will truly protect victims of violence and not punish 
them. It is time for the administration to get serious about protecting 
victims of abuse.
  The President, quite frankly, failed in his proposed fiscal year 2006 
budget. He cut funding to the Violence Against Women programs by $19 
million. For public assistance recipients, the President has requested 
zero funding for domestic violence counseling and services.
  How can he ignore the studies that find that up to 83 percent of 
mothers in the welfare system are victims of domestic violence. And to 
add insult to injury, the President proposes battered women and 
battered mothers with children be required to attend faith-based 
marriage classes or lose all of their welfare benefits.
  Marrying an abuser to keep benefits is not the way to build healthy 
families and healthy communities. This standard of morality really 
hurts victims of abuse. We must reauthorize the Violence Against Women 
Act and the Welfare Reauthorization Act, and we must be in the business 
of protecting the most vulnerable and the abused. That should be our 
standard of morality.

                          ____________________