[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 39 (Monday, October 2, 2000)]
[Pages 2205-2208]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Need for Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women 
Act in Santa Fe, New Mexico

September 25, 2000

    Thank you very much. Connie, you can drink my water anytime. 
[Laughter] Didn't she do a good job? [Applause] I was really proud of 
her. Thank you.
    Thank you, Greg Neal, for welcoming us here in this beautiful, 
beautiful center. I'd like to thank your Congressman, Representative Tom 
Udall, for joining us today. Thank you, Tom, for being here. And 
Attorney General Patsy Madrid, thank you for being here. A little bird 
told me this was your birthday today, so thank you for spending your 
birthday with us, in a worthy cause. Santa Fe Mayor pro tem Carol 
Robertson Lopez, thank you for being here. I thank the members of the 
city council and county commission and many others who have come here. 
Our former U.S. attorney, John Kelly, and my college classmate, thank 
you for being here. I've got a lot of other personal friends here, as 
well as those of you who are involved in these endeavors, and I thank 
you.
    But most of all I want to express my appreciation to the brave women 
in this audience who have survived the horrors and fears of domestic 
violence for being with us today and for being in this very public 
setting. Connie, I thank you for sharing your story with us and for 
somehow finding the strength to help other women deal with theirs.
    We are here today to salute your efforts, to recognize that progress 
has been made, and to remind all Americans that the struggle with 
domestic violence is far from over. We're also here because, on Saturday 
night, on the very eve of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, 
the Violence Against Women Act will actually expire without 
congressional action.
    We're here to say to Congress, we owe it to women like Connie 
Trujillo and millions of others and their children and families to 
reauthorize and to strengthen the Violence Against Women Act and to do 
it this week, now, before the clock runs out.

[[Page 2206]]

    For too long, women like those who have been victimized in this room 
today fought a lonely battle. For too long, domestic violence was an 
issue kept behind closed doors, treated as a purely private family 
matter. Despite the fact that it usually does occur at home, despite the 
fact that victims are almost always women and children, domestic 
violence is not just a family problem that neighbors can ignore, not 
just a woman's problem men can turn away from. It is America's problem.
    The statistics speak for themselves. Domestic violence is the number 
one health risk for women between the ages of 15 and 44 in our Nation. 
Close to a third of all the women murdered in America were killed by 
their husbands, former husbands, or boyfriends. Every 12 seconds another 
woman is beaten, amounting to nearly 900,000 victims every single year. 
And we know that in half the families where a spouse is beaten, the 
children are beaten, too.
    Domestic violence is a crime that affects us all. It increases 
health costs, keeps people from showing up to work, prevents them from 
performing at their best, keeps children out of school, often prevents 
them from learning. It destroys families, relationships, and lives, and 
often prevents children from growing up to establish successful families 
of their own. It tears at the fabric of who we are as a people and what 
we want for our children's tomorrows.
    For many years, when Hillary and I were living in Arkansas, we lived 
very close to the domestic violence shelter and center in our hometown. 
We spent lots of hours there, talking to the women and the children and 
listening to their stories. I'm very proud of the fact that after we 
moved to Washington, Hillary traveled all around the world to highlight 
the fact that violence against women and children is not an American 
problem. It's a global problem, with different manifestations, and in 
many places violent practices masquerade as cultural traditions. That is 
wrong.
    And I have to tell you that every time I come into a setting like 
this, I think about the encounters that--because of Hillary's efforts--
I've had with village women in remote places in Africa and in Latin 
America. And it is truly chilling to think about all the different 
rationalizations people have cooked up all over the world to justify men 
beating up on women and twisting the lives of their children.
    We have come a long way in the United States in recognizing that 
this is criminal conduct, that there may be deep-seated emotional 
reasons for it which treatment is a better answer for than incarceration 
in some cases. But it's a crime. And it's a crime against the people who 
suffer, against the children who are tormented by it, very often for the 
rest of their lives, and against the larger society that we are trying 
to build.
    For 8 years now, the Vice President and I have tried to convey this 
simple message. Our message to the perpetrators is that you should be 
punished, and to the victims is, we want you to have safety and 
security. No American should live in fear, least of all in his or her 
own home.
    The Violence Against Women Act was part of our landmark 1994 crime 
bill. It was the very first time in the history of America that the 
Nation's Government, in a comprehensive effort, joined those of you here 
and your counterparts all across America in standing up and making 
common cause on this issue.
    The Violence Against Women Act imposes tough penalties for actions 
of violence against women. It also helps to train police and prosecutors 
and judges so they can better understand domestic violence, something 
which, believe it or not, is still a significant problem all across the 
United States.
    It helps to train people to recognize the symptoms when they see it. 
It helps people, perhaps most important of all, to take appropriate, 
systematic steps to prevent it. The law gives grants to shelters who 
need more beds and better programs. It provides assistance to law 
enforcement, the courts, and communities, to help them respond to 
domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking when they occur. It 
established a 24-hour, 7-day, toll-free, national domestic violence 
hotline, to help women get emergency help and counseling, find a 
shelter, report abuse to authorities. Since 1996, this hotline has given 
more than 500,000 people a place to call to find help when they need it 
most.

[[Page 2207]]

    The act has offered hope to countless numbers of women by letting 
them know they are not alone. Police officers who often shy away from 
so-called family squabbles should now get involved. Physical violence is 
unacceptable in our homes.
    The law's impact is no clearer than here in Sante Fe, where the act 
and its much needed funding has helped make the city's streets, schools, 
and homes safer. With the act's help, Connie and her Esperanza Shelter 
for Battered Families provided counseling and shelter to nearly 2,000 
families last year.
    With the act's help, eight northern Indian pueblo councils here in 
Santa Fe now have the means to give legal advice and victims counseling 
to Native American women and proper training to tribal police 
departments, courts, and prosecutors. With the act's help, the Morning 
Star Program in Albuquerque provides safe houses and support groups for 
victims and their families. All told, the Violence Against Women Act has 
dedicated nearly--listen to this--$1.7 billion since 1994 to programs 
combating domestic violence around our Nation, including more than $173 
million this year alone.
    Today the Department of Justice will award nearly $2 million in 
Violence Against Women Act funds to combat domestic violence here in New 
Mexico, to strengthen tribal law enforcement, address child abuse and 
domestic violence in rural areas, and improve civil legal assistance 
programs.
    Now, has all this made a difference? Well, thanks to your work in 
programs like the ones here in Santa Fe, we know that the Violence 
Against Women Act is having a real impact on domestic abuse. According 
to a recent study from 1993 to 1998, violence against women by an 
intimate partner fell by 21 percent. In the years 1996, '97, and '98, 
intimate partners committed fewer murders than at any other time since 
1976, when there were far fewer people in this country.
    So while we have made strides in our war against domestic violence, 
you only have to look around to know we've still got miles to go. We 
cannot turn our backs on the millions of women and children trapped in 
the cycle of domestic violence. We can't allow them to face a nightmare 
alone.
    Let me say to you, this really shouldn't be a partisan issue. When 
Congress first passed the Violence Against Women Act, we had strong 
support from Republicans, as well as Democrats. This summer, in a 
bipartisan effort, both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees 
approved extending and reauthorizing and approving the Violence Against 
Women Act--both Republicans and Democrats.
    Why is this not law now? The committees have approved it. We have 
more than enough votes in both Houses to pass it. Because this issue, 
for reasons I cannot understand, has been used as a political football 
in Washington. All the congressional leadership has to do is to put it 
up for a vote, and it will fly through. And so again I implore the 
leadership of Congress not to play games with the safety and future of 
women and children.
    I ask all of you and those who will hear this message all across 
America tonight: Contact your Senators and your Representatives and tell 
them to ask the majority leadership in Congress simply to schedule this 
for a vote. This is not rocket science. There is no complication here. 
Everybody knows what this law is. Everybody knows what it will do. 
Everybody knows what it has done. Yes, we're close to an election, and 
yes, there are a lot of things that various people want to get done in 
Congress between now and the end of the session when they go home for 
the election. Nobody wants to get anything any more done than I do, but 
it is wrong to delay this one more hour. Schedule the bill for a vote.
    I have spent a lot of time in the last 8 years trying to make peace 
around the world, trying to get people from Northern Ireland to the 
Middle East to the Balkans to the African tribal conflicts to lay down 
their ancient hatreds and stop dehumanizing people who are different 
from them. I spent a good deal of time trying to make peace within our 
borders, trying to get people to give up old hatreds of those who are 
different from them because they're of a different race or religion or 
because they're gay, to give up all that.
    But it is very hard for us to make peace around the world, or even 
around the land, unless we are first committed to making peace within 
our homes. And I think we

[[Page 2208]]

should stay at this until the day when we are truly shocked if we hear a 
little boy or a girl say something at school about witnessing a violent 
incident in their home, when it is so rare, people gasp in astonishment.
    We're a long way from there. But we owe it to our kids and all the 
women and children who have already been injured to keep at it until we 
reach that day.
    Thank you very, very much, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:32 p.m. at the Genoveva Chavez Community 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to Connie Trujillo, executive 
director, Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families; Greg Neal, director, 
Genoveva Chavez Community Center; and New Mexico State Attorney General 
Patsy A. Madrid.