NEWS

Rep. Zoe Lofgren and 111 of her Democratic colleagues introduced the VAWA 2005 Reauthorization Act

VAWA REAFFIRMED
On January 5th, President Bush signed into law legislation that pays for new and existing programs that aid victims of domestic violence. The bill reauthorizes funding for the Violence Against Women Act, originally passed in 1994. It authorizes $3.9 billion in funding over five years, a 20 percent increase over the amount authorized in 2000. Actual funding levels will be determined by appropriators. 

Intimate violence is primarily a crime against women. Women ages 16-24 experienced the highest per capita rates of intimate violence (19.6% victimizations per 1,000 women)

Intimates (both current and former spouses, boyfriends and girl friends were also identified as the perpetrators of about 1% of all workplace violent crime.   (Dept. of Justice)

That's why it is so important for people to know about places like Haven House  in Pasadena before it is too late!  Their hotline is 323-681-2626, 24 hrs a day!

However, as happens with most legislation, there are other things attached to the Violence Against Women Act.  In this case, it is the expansion of the collection of individuals' DNA for a federal database and may chill anonymous online speech.

Title X of the reauthorization bill allows law enforcement to collect   the DNA of anyone arrested and store the DNA in a federal database. Those who are not U.S. citizens or   permanent residents can also have their DNA collected and stored any time they are detained under U.S. authority. This greatly expands the   number of people who have their DNA catalogued by the FBI's database, as   the previous law only allowed the collection of DNA from people
convicted, indicted, or charged with crimes.

Another problematic provision potentially threatens the ability to send anonymous communications over the Internet. Section 113 of the Act,  entitled "Preventing Cyberstalking," broadens an anti- telephone harassment law by applying it to Internet communications. The law   originally prohibited calling someone anonymously "with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass" someone. The new provision prohibits anonymously contacting someone over the Internet with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass them. While the change appears to be  an attempt to close loopholes that stalkers could exploit, such as using voice-over-IP to harass a victim, the new provision, if read broadly,  could criminalize web pages or blogs that criticize, lampoon, or otherwise "annoy" someone. 

NYU economist Ed Wolff tracks an indicator he calls "asset poverty," which is on the rise among women. People who are asset poor would be unable to subsist for three months at the federal poverty level if they lost their income. Asset poverty among women is twice as pervasive as income poverty among women. If they only had their net worth to survive, nearly a third of women could not survive three months at the federal poverty level. Were they to rely on strictly liquid wealth, almost half of women would be asset poor.

The problem becomes even more acute in retirement. Retired men are twice as likely as women to be collecting a pension (43 percent vs. 21 percent.) And the minority of retired women fortunate enough to benefit from an employer pension isn't benefiting much; the typical pension income for women is $6,000, compared to $10,800 for men.

Because of trends in the labor market and wealth accumulation, women stand to risk the most--and lose the most--with any shift toward private accounts in Social Security. Seventy five percent of retired women depend on Social Security for more than half of their income, and nearly 44 percent depend on it for more than 90 percent of their income. The outsized role Social Security plays in women's retirement has actually grown over the years, even as the income gap between men and women has narrowed, albeit slightly. And even Social Security wealth is inequitably distributed between men and women, with typical benefits for women averaging only 70 percent of men's.

Part of the increased reliance on Social Security income during retirement can be attributed to employment trends of women in low wage and part-time work, which offer few or no benefits. While the percentage of women who participate in pensions when offered by their employer (56%) nearly matches that of men (59%), women are less likely to work in jobs that offer such benefits. When all workers are included, both full and part-time, the pension participation rate declines to 45 percent for women compared to 54 percent for all men.

There are a number of policies that would increase wealth accumulation for women. First, implement a $1 for $1 match in savings for workers making less than $25,000 per year to encourage new savings in existing tax-preferred savings accounts, which few workers use to their full potential now. Second, make all tax benefits in tax-preferred savings vehicles refundable, so that the increasing number of workers--particularly women workers-- who work hard for low wages, can build wealth for the future.

Women Owned Businesses 
 U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Jan. 25 indicate that women started businesses at double the national rate between 1997 and 2002. The number of female-owned companies increased by 20 percent during this five-year period. By 2002, 6.5 million, or 30 percent, of all non-farm businesses in the U.S. were owned by women.

The majority of these businesses were single-person enterprises but the number of mid-size and large companies owned by women also rose. Female-owned companies with more than $1 million in revenue went up by 18 percent and those with more than 100 employees went up by 10 percent during the same period. 

Sex Offenders -  How Close Are They?
Thanks to Barry Allen for sending this information:
Enter your address ... it will show your house on a map ... all the little colored boxes are Sex Offenders near you ... click on them and you get a name, address & picture of the person along with his crime ... pretty amazing and scary...it shows you where they live in proximity to your home and the local schools.

< http://www.familywatchdog.us/Search.asp

Anti-Prostitution Effort Targets Pimps and Johns

U.S. Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio)	U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY)

You may have heard me say that we often look in the wrong direction when it comes to violence against women, saying for instance, that "a woman is raped every 7 seconds," rather than "a man rapes a woman every 7 seconds."

I was delighted to read, therefore, that Ohio Congresswoman Deborah Pryce had introduced a bill in the House, which passed out to the Senate, that would grant state and local law enforcement agencies fund to investigate and prosecute the men - the brothel owners and the pimps.

Traditionally, women have been blamed as the source of the problem. But Pryce calls prostitution "modern-day slavery" in which teenage girls are exploited and men fuel the crime.

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