The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is a landmark piece of legislation. Passed by Congress in 1994, it fundamentally changed the way our society responds to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. VAWA was groundbreaking because it demonstrated, for the first time, the federal government's commitment to ending violence against women by ensuring that victims no longer suffer in silence, and survivors have the services they need in their community.
VAWA makes it possible for community partners to work together to save and improve lives of battered women and their families. Specifically, it deals with the inadequacies of the criminal justice system in dealing with these all too prevalent crimes, and provides a comprehensive solution for survivors and their families by bringing together, for the first time, the systems that affect families ravaged by violence. Social services, non-profit organizations, law enforcement, and legal services work together under VAWA to form a coordinated community response.
VAWA works because it takes a comprehensive, "full-service" approach to ending violence against women. It provided hundreds of millions of dollars to states, created new federal funding and grants, changed laws to better prosecute perpetrators, and took into account the particular needs of women of color, American Indian and Alaska Native women, and immigrant women. In addition, the authors of VAWA understood that violence against women has effects above and beyond the immediate health and safety of victims. VAWA provides for transitional housing, promotes supervised visitation programs for families experiencing violence, offers legal assistance to survivors, and options for battered immigrant women to stay safely in the United States.
