A bipartisan group of US senators on Wednesday day agreed on a deal to re-new a long-lapsed law to strengthen domestic violence protections, just hours after Hollywood actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a tearful speech of support. Jolie's voice broke as she acknowledged the women and children "for whom this legislation comes too late" in a speech in Washington D.C. "Standing here at the center of our nation`s power, I can think only of everyone who has been made to feel powerless by their abusers by a system that failed to protect them," Jolie, wearing a black suit and pearls, said.
The Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of 2018
and U.S. President Joe Biden,
who originally
sponsored the bill
as a senator in
1994, had campaigned on renewing it.
The House of
Representatives
approved its renewal in a 244-172
vote almost a year
ago, but the legislation
stalled in Congress
amid partisan disputes over access to guns and transgender issues. "The reason many people
struggle to leave abusive situations is that they have been
made to feel worthless. When
there is silence from a Congress
too busy to renew the Violence
Against Women Act
for a decade, it reinforces that sense
of worthlessness,"
said Jolie. "You
think, I guess my
abuser is right. I
guess I`m not worth
very much."
Republican Senators Joni Ernst and
Lisa Murkowski and
Democrats Dick
Durbin and Dianne Feinstein issued a joint media release confirming they had reached a "compromise" deal to get the bill moving.(Agencies)
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