Nearly three decades after the passage of the landmark Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), gender-based violence remains an epidemic in the United States. Despite our significant progress in curbing domestic violence and sexual assaults, we must do more to ensure that all Americans are protected from abuse and that abusers are held accountable for their crimes. In order to combat the crisis of gender-based violence, we must strengthen VAWA by expanding the funding of programs that have proven effective in reducing violence, ensuring that women living in rural areas can access assistance, extending the law’s protections to LGBTQ+ families, speeding up the timeline for prosecuting sexual assaults, and preventing domestic abusers from accessing firearms. To protect women from violent partners, we must strictly implement the recently passed bipartisan Safer Communities Act which closes the boyfriend loophole. With deadly consequences, this gap in federal law has allowed domestic abusers to keep their guns when they were not married to or had no children with their victims.
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