THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! BUSH HAS STOOPED TO A WHOLE NEW LOW! READ ON:
Money for women victims of crime goes missing
By Cheryl O’Neill
Published: February 19, 2008 04:38AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the news lately, there have been a couple of high-profile cases in which women have gone “missing.”
Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a pregnant Marine from Camp Lejeune near Jacksonville, N.C., went missing in the middle of last December. She disappeared just days after her meeting with a group of military prosecutors to talk about her allegation that Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean had raped her.
Charred remains of a woman and unborn child were found in Laurean’s backyard on Jan. 11. The woman was identified as Maria Lauterbach.
On the same day that Lauterbach was found dead, Leta Lynn Cordes, from Orange County, Calif., went missing on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. The story of her disappearance is still confused, and she has not yet been found.
These stories are tragic and frightening — but sadly, they are commonplace. In fact, the Department of Justice tells us that because of domestic violence alone, about three American women each and every day are murdered. In other words, they go “missing.” Pregnant women are not protected from this level of violence. In fact, homicide is a leading cause of traumatic death for pregnant and postpartum women in the United States, accounting for 31 percent of maternal injury deaths.
The story you may not have heard, however, is about the $1 million that has gone missing in Oregon this year. This is money that should have provided support to victims of crime and helped to end domestic and sexual violence. But money for the Victim of Crime Act has been cut back across the nation. These cutbacks translate to a potential loss of more than $100,000 in Lane County alone.
Even at current funding rates, the National Network to End Domestic Violence reported that, on the single day of the network’s One Day Shelter Count for 2007, nearly 8,000 adults and children had to be turned away because of a lack of adequate resources. In Oregon, the report tells us that there were 212 unmet requests for service that day due to lack of resources. Programs in Oregon reported a critical shortage of funds and staff to assist victims in need.
The tragedy of this is that the missing money should have come from the Victim of Crime Act’s crime victims’ fund, a fund that has been created through fining criminals specifically to support victims of crime. No taxpayer dollars are needed to maintain stable funding for victim support, but political maneuvering is threatening that stability. This is money that should simply not be up for grabs.
Next year looks even worse. In the budget that has been proposed by the executive branch for 2009, even more money will go missing — a devastating amount of money. The cap on allocations from the law’s crime victims’ fund will be the lowest in six years.
Even more shocking, the $2 billion reserve in the crime victims’ fund will, essentially, be stolen from the victims it was intended to protect. The White House also is recommending a $120 million cut in Violence Against Women Act. or VAWA, funding, reducing it by nearly a third.
Over the past 20 years, VOCA and VAWA money has been a major factor in the significant drop we have seen in domestic violence deaths across this nation. When this money goes missing, domestic violence shelters go missing, sexual assault hot lines go missing, access to protective orders goes missing, investigation and prosecution of crimes go missing, prevention programs go missing — and more importantly, women go missing.
Don’t let your voice go missing as well. Speak out in defense of victims of crime. Share this information with a friend or neighbor. Let people in your church or service club know what is happening to our services for crime victims. Take a minute to e-mail or call your representatives and ask them to support full funding for VOCA and VAWA.
HHHH
Cheryl O’Neill is executive director of Womenspace.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=66648&sid=5&fid=1&p=print
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2007 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA
.gif)
2 comments:
Finally It Happens: New York City Lawyer Challenges VAWA in Federal Court
Jim Peterson
February 21, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Federal lawsuit charges parts of the Violence against Women Act are unconstitutional. Attorney Roy Den Hollander filed on February 14th, a suit in the U.S. Southern District Court of N.Y. attacking sections of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and other U.S. statutes for violating the Constitutional rights of American men who marry alien females.
The defendants are the United States of America, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Executive Office of Immigration Review, No. 08 CV 01521. Roy Den Hollander is the sole plaintiff. Hollander has also sued in a New York State court to have Ladies Nights declared discriminatory in New York City nightclubs and bars.
The VAWA infringes American mens rights to freedom of speech, freedom of choice in marital relationships, right of access to deportation proceedings, procedural due process, and equal protection under the law in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The unconstitutional statutes, enacted at the behest of the feminist lobby, create a fast track to permanent U.S. residency and citizenship for alien wives or ex-wives of American husbands whenever the alien female alleges abuse. Once she mentions the magic words -battery- or -extreme cruelty-, the Government institutes secret, -Star Chamber- immigration proceedings to determine whether the citizen husband is responsible, and, if yes, grants the alien female permanent U.S. residency. The American husband or ex-husband receives no notice of the proceedings, has no opportunity to defend his name, and the Government's findings of abuse are based almost exclusively on what the alien female says. The feminist lobby created the statutes in order to deter American men from looking overseas for wives. If a marriage to a foreign wife does not workout, the alien female can falsely and opportunistically accuse her American husband of -battery- or -extreme cruelty- and he will have no opportunity to prove his innocence. The husband is barred from the proceedings that are conducted behind closed doors and any evidence that the Government might receive from him is discarded. So not only is the husband presumed guilty, but he is not even allowed to prove differently.
Hollander says -the feminists did not create these statutes out of bleeding hearts for alien wives but to intimidate American men into shopping at home for wives. He notes that, if an American wife accuses her husband of abuse, he at least gets his day in court and the abuse has to fit specific legal definitions. But under the VAWA, a husband can be found guilty of -battery- and -extreme cruelty- for anything from an -offensive- remark to felony assault.
While the VAWA would not send an American man to jail or fine him…not yet anyway, his rights are violated with impunity and his reputation destroyed. Both his alien wife or ex-wife and certain feminist groups can release what happened in the secret proceedings, and in New York State, the husband will have no recourse to a defamation, false light or prima facie tort cause of action no matter how false or harmful the accusations against him. Hollander says that even terrorists have more rights than American men accused of abuse by their alien wives.
Players in Minnesota
Civil Society Helps
1st National Bank Building
332 Minnesota St, Suite E-1436
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101
Phone: 651.291.0713
Fax: 651.291.2588
Web: http://civilsocietyhelps.org/
Attorney Martha J. Sullivan
Phone: 651.438.9992
1317 Vermillion Street
Hastings, Minnesota 55033
Web: http://www.marthasullivanlaw.com/
Casa de Esperanza ( Hope House )
1515 East Lake Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55407
Phone: 651.646.5553
Web: http://www.casadeesperanza.org/
Judge Michael Sovis
1560 W. Highway 55
Hastings , Minnesota
Phone: 651.438.8100
Thanks for your opinion. I don't happen to agree. But I will say this. If a man experiences domestic abuse and violence to the degree that I used to (and never will again), they should have the same rights and protection as women who are victims of such. I would speak out as vociferously for a male victim of domestic violence as I would a woman. Because domestic abuse and violence used to be deemed a "private, family matter" by the police, many thousands of women had no recourse. Now they do. It is a societal problem, and needs societal answers and guidelines.
I do not believe feminists created VAWA or anything else to "keep men shopping at home for a husband" or to discriminate again immigrants. I will never believe that. Any statement that makes a whole, like in this article,"feminists" did this or that, blah, blah, blah, assumes that all feminists did this. Indeed not. Please cease using such wide generalizations. I never say "all men" are domestically violent because it is not true. Some men are, and they encompass all races, creeds, ethnicities, religions,and citizenship.
Neither would I lie about receiving abuse. I never had to. One look at me by the police was enough. It usually is. On the other hand, attempts by my ex (lying, of course) to say I had hurt him were deemed false by the police, who found that my ex had not even a scratch on him. My ex was arrested, did go to jail, and that was the end of our relationship. I was never charged with anything. My health, however, was ruined by the violence, and I lost my ability to work, lost the home I owned, and had to live in a battered women's shelter with my (mine, not his) two youngest children. I had to start life over in a different area and lose many precious friends due to the risk of the ex finding me through them. I now live on disability in an apartment in basic poverty, all due to domestic violence. Before I met my ex and married him, I was healthy and took no medications. Since then, I have to take approximately 10 medications a day to stay alive. Some months I have to decide between buying my medications and eating. Look at what domestic violence has cost me, just one person. But I am alive and able to think and verbalize my opinions.
I wish more women would leave violent relationships after the first incident of violence, but unfortunately too many women return to the abuser over and over, until their lives are ruined or even their lives are taken from them. I have heard of male domestic violence victims, but the numbers do not show that men die of domestic violence at the rate women do.
Roy Den Hollander in this article you posted sounds like a woman hater or perhaps just a hate filled person. Filing frivolous lawsuits does not impress me. Give me a break! This article is not newsworthy, in my opinion.
Post a Comment