Salon.com has an article by Lynn Harris today (9-11-08) raising the question whether Sarah Palin supported making rape victims pay for their own rape kits (cost $300-$1200) when she was Mayor of Wassila. The article also reflects on the fact that Senator Biden passed the Violence Against Women Act, legislation that not only protected victims from being billed for the kits/tests but also ensured that DNA evidence was taken immediately whether the victim was in a state of mind to be able to make a decision initially to prosecute or not. However, Harris does not provide evidence that as Mayor, Sarah Palin was directly responsible for requiring victims to pay for their own rape kits but makes this case: "One can only assume that she supported Wasilla's policy of billing rape victims for their own rape kits ... not only because Fannon (Wasilla Police Chief) was her appointee, but also because this was four years into her tenure as mayor and because, let's be honest: in a town of that size, the mayor doesn't get to plead ignorance of policies or public statements of her own chief of police." "As Broadsheet noted in May, a new provision in the 2005 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (why, hello, Sen. Biden!) requires that states -- in order to keep receiving VAWA-related funding for other services -- must (as of January 2009) find the money for those rape kits ... anywhere but the victims' pockets. (The provision does not require the kits to be anonymous, as was widely reported -- just that they be free for victims.)" Read more at:http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/09/10/palin_rape/index.html Senator Joe Biden, Violence Against Women Act"I consider the Violence Against Women Act the single most significant legislation that I've crafted during my 35-year tenure in the Senate. Indeed, the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 was the beginning of a historic commitment to women and children victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault. Our nation has been rewarded for this commitment. Since the Act's passage in 1994, domestic violence has dropped by almost 50%, incidents of rape are down by 60%, and the number of women killed by an abusive husband or boyfriend is down by 22%. Today, more than half of all rape victims are stepping forward to report the crime. And since we passed the Act in 1994 over a million women have found justice in our courtrooms and obtained domestic violence protective orders." – Senator Joe BidenEnding Violence Against Women: Senator Biden wrote the ground-breaking Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the 1990s that set the national agenda on criminalizing violence against women and holding batterers truly accountable. It encouraged states to set up coordinated community responses to domestic violence and rape; was the catalyst for passage of hundreds of state laws prohibiting family violence; and provided resources to set up shelters so battered women abused by husbands and boyfriends had a place to go. The law also established the national hotline that over 1.5 million abused women have called for help. By empowering women to make changes in their lives, and by training police and prosecutors to arrest and convict abusive husbands instead of telling them to take a walk around the block, domestic violence is down 50 percent and rape is down 60 percent nationwide. Read more on VAWA at:http://biden.senate.gov/issues/issue/?id=975b0cf4-ce25-42cc-b63d-072fb81e8618
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