WASHINGTON: Hollywood actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a tearful speech of support to renew a long-lapsed law to strengthen domestic violence protections.
Angelina Jolie visited Capitol Hill to help a bipartisan group of senators roll out a new version of the Violence Against Women Act. Jolie, who brought daughter Zahara along with her to Washington, got emotional when addressing a packed press conference and shamed Congress ‘silence’ on the matter as they’ve not reauthorised the bill in nearly a decade.
“Most of all, I want to acknowledge – most of all, I want to acknowledge the children who are terrified and suffering at this moment,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘And the many people for whom this legislation comes too late,” she said.
“The women who have suffered through this system with little or no support, they still carry the pain and trauma of their abuse,’ the A-list actress continued. ‘The young adults who have survived abuse and 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,” she 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 legislation stalled in Congress amid partisan disputes over access to guns and transgender issues.
Four senators opened the program – Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein and Republican Sens. Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski – and said they believed the bill they were introducing could get enough bipartisan support to override a filibuster threat.
Jolie, who’s no stranger to Washington or political causes – and even met with Environmental Protection Agency head Michael Regan before her appointment on Capitol Hill – fussed at lawmakers for not reauthorizing the bill since 2013.
“The reason that many people struggle to leave abusive situations is that they’ve been made to feel worthless,’ she 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 abusers right. I guess I’m not worth very much,” the actress continued. “That’s why passing this law is one of the most important votes US senators will cast this year,’ she told the lawmakers.
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.
Biden said in a statement he was “grateful that this critical bipartisan bill is moving forward, and I look forward to Congress delivering it to my desk without delay.”
