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"Are you shocked to learn that 35 percent of heterosexual women have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner? We were too, after reading The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's first-ever national report on sexual violence.The numbers are pretty disturbing: In addition to 35 percent of straight women, 44 percent of lesbian women and 61 percent of bisexual women had need raped, physically abused, and/or stalked by someone they knew.In light of the CDC report, though, comes the House's final approval yesterday to renew the Violence Against Women Act, the l994 law created to assist victims of domestic and sexual violence. Conservatives in the House were holding up passage of the law, proposing an alternative last week that wanted to limit protection of LGBT groups and American Indian women on reservations. \n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nFortunately, that hold-up failed, and the new legislation provides new and expanded federal programs to help local law enforcement and victims of domestic and sexual abuse (including gay, bisexual, transgender victims and American Indian women.) All good news.\n\nBut is VAWA enough to keep us safe? In her Time article, \"What's Wrong with the Violence Against Women Act?\", writer Kate Pickert points out how some feminist researchers criticize VAWA's mandatory arrest laws for doing nothing to address the causes of intimate partner violence.Under the mandatory arrest law, police responding to domestic-violence calls are obliged to make an arrest, which may \"remove the preferences of abused women from a process that can leave them financially strapped and worried that the state will take custody of their children,\" writes Pickert. Atlantic writer Molly Ball cites a study from 2007 in which the law backfired, leading to an increased number of intimate-partner homicides in states where mandatory arrest is exercised. At best, the VAWA cash would be spent on law enforcement as well as prevention and services to empower women who are suffering to feel free to leave unhealthy relationships. At least the passing of the new legislation is a step in the right direction.(See our round-up of personal safety apps here.)Follow Jessica on Twitter."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a11908/cdc-stats-on-rape/>