; Whereas nearly 1 in 3 college women say they have been in an abusive dating relationship; Whereas 1 in 12 high school students has experienced violence, either physical or sexual, from a dating partner in the past year; Whereas more than 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped, and more than 8 in 10 will experience violence in their lifetimes; Whereas African-American women experience intimate partner violence at a rate 35 percent higher than that of White women, and about 2.5 times the rate of women of other races, but African-American women are less likely than White women to use social services or battered women’s programs or to go to the hospital because of domestic violence; Whereas in an Asian and Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence survey, 16 to 55 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander women reported experiencing domestic violence (physical, sexual, or both) during their lifetimes; Whereas, according to the National Intimate and Sexual Violence Survey, 42.1 percent of Latina women are victimized by intimate partner violence in a lifetime, defined by rape, physical assault, or stalking; Whereas one study of 2,000 Latinas found that 63.1 percent of women who identified being victimized in their lifetime reported having experienced more than one victimization, with an average of 2.56 victimizations; Whereas victims of domestic violence report hesitation calling law enforcement and accessing victims services due to uncertainty arising from fear of prosecution for unrelated activities, including immigration status; Whereas the average cost of intimate partner violence over a victim’s lifetime for medical and mental health care services is $103,767 for women and $23,414 for men; Whereas of women who die by homicide, 34 percent are killed by an intimate partner or former intimate partner; Whereas women victims are more vulnerable to contracting HIV or other STIs due to forced intercourse or prolonged exposure to stress