Angelina Jolie Appears On Capitol Hill To Urge Senate To Pass Violence Against Women Act

UPDATED, with info on EPA meeting: Angelina Jolie urged the Senate to renew the Violence Against Women Act, making a plea for lawmakers to reauthorize the law she said was essential to offer basic protections to survivors of abuse.

Speaking at a press appearance at the Capitol along with a group of senators, Jolie also called out Congress for letting the law lapse.

The law was first passed in 1994, and included provisions for federal level prosecution of interstate domestic violence and sexual assault crimes, as well as support for shelters, rape crisis centers and community organizations. It was last reauthorized in 2013 but expired in 2019, and has since languished.

“The reason that many people struggle to leave abusive situations is that they’ve been made to feel worthless,” Jolie said. “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. You think, ‘I guess my abuser is right. I guess I’m not worth very much.'”

She said that passing the law “is one of the most important votes senators will cast this year.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Wednesday that a bipartisan agreement had been reached on renewing the law. (read the text here) That came after a provision was dropped that would have restricted unmarried partners from having guns if they were found guilty of domestic violence, per CNN.

Jolie had a series of visits to D.C. last year, including a meeting at the White House with Press Secretary Jen Psaki, where passage of the law was a central topic.

In her remarks to the media, Jolie singled out several provisions in the law, including funding for “non racially biased forensic evidence collection,” and the “jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indian perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse and sex trafficking on tribal land.” She also cited Kayden’s Law, which restricts certain alleged and convicted abusers from having unsupervised parenting time with their children.

Jolie began to choke up at the end of her remarks, as she acknowledged the children “who are terrified and suffering at this moment.”

She went on to recognized “the many people for whom this legislation comes too late, the women who have suffered through the system with little or no support, who still carry the pain and trauma of their abuse, the young adults who have survived abuse and have emerged stronger, not because of the child protective system but despite it, and the women and children who have died who could have been saved.”

Jolie also met with EPA Administrator Michael Regan to discuss environmental stressors and children’s health.

“We know these issues are interconnected, and that’s why our @EPA team is taking a holistic approach on environmental justice to protect ALL children and ALL communities,” Regan wrote on Twitter.

Thank you, Angelina Jolie, for stopping by to discuss environmental stressors and children’s health.

We know these issues are interconnected, and that’s why our @EPA team is taking a holistic approach on environmental justice to protect ALL children and ALL communities. pic.twitter.com/mLLd9ML3iV

— Michael Regan, U.S. EPA (@EPAMichaelRegan) February 9, 2022