Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MYRICK. I would like to thank the Judiciary Committee for bringing this bill forward and a special thanks to Sandy Adams for the incredible work she's done on this bill. It took tremendous courage on her part to produce a good bill in the face of tremendous relentless partisan attacks. Sandy has seen the challenges women face daily as a former law enforcement officer.

As a woman, I'm proud of this bill. It reauthorizes the Violence Against Women Act programs for 5 years and provides more than $600 million per year to help prevent domestic violence and protect those victims of abuse. For almost two decades, VAWA provisions have helped women across the country, and Congress needs to continue these important initiatives.

Most of us know of domestic violence situations that take place in our districts all the time, unfortunately. Again, unfortunately, this problem is increasing all across the country. The need for help is huge. So it's very important that we provide the resources to the women who are being abused, and they can have a place to go and someone to help them get through what has to be an absolutely horrible experience in their life. Thank goodness I have never experienced it.

Our bill offers significant improvements. There is greater accountability and transparency with the funding of these programs. We have strengthened the penalties against abusers, which is so important, and we've improved the services and protections for younger victims. Lastly, we've streamlined and updated the immigration provisions in the bill to address considerable fraud while still offering protections under the Violence Against Women Act, the statutes that are there to protect immigrant victims.

So I'm very proud to offer my support for the bill, and I'm very proud to be a cosponsor. I would urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this reauthorization.

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