African-Americans for VAWA Reform

A call for change

African-Americans for VAWA Reform is a national organization of women and men, community leaders who have united to inform their fellow Americans of the devastating effects of the Violence Against Women Act on African-American communities.

"Criminalization of social problems has led to mass incarceration of men, especially young men of color, decimating marginalized communities."

Ms. Foundation for Women

AAVR is lobbying the U.S. Congress for reform of this flawed legislation.

Domestic violence is a significant health and social issue in the African-American community. Analyses show that domestic violence programs and services funded by VAWA have been ineffective in stopping domestic violence, have not helped victims, and in many instances have created a new class of victims who have been falsely accused and deprived of their civil rights.

VAWA-funded domestic violence programs and services that are culturally-sensitive are scarce.

In dealing with allegations of violence, VAWA-funded programs and services use biased arrest policies and disregard the Constitutionally guaranteed due process of the law.

In domestic violence cases where the victim is male, VAWA-funded programs practice gender-based discrimination. Other harmful effects of VAWA on the African-American community include:

• One study found that protection order statutes were associated with an increase in the number of African-American women killed by their unmarried partners;
• Columbia University law professor Kimberle Crenshaw has noted that many women of color are reluctant to seek intervention by the police, fearing that contact with law enforcement will only worsen the system's assault on their own lives;
• According to FBI statistics, African-Americans are disproportionately affected by mandatory-arrest policies. African-Americans represent 23% of all spouses and 35% of all boyfriends or girlfriends arrested for domestic violence; and,
• A recent Harvard University study found that mandatory arrest laws yielded a 54% increase in intimate partner homicides.

"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The social and legal remedies intended by this law are denied to all of us, as African-American children are forced to grow up in fragile, fragmented, single-parent households, or as wards of the state. Thus the cycle of violence is perpetuated.

VAWA was signed into law in 1994 as the nation's response to domestic violence. In 2010, VAWA is due for reauthorization. American families of all ethnicities have been abused by the inequities forced upon them by this flawed legislation, but African-American families have suffered far more than most. AAVR has declared that the time for VAWA reform is now.