President Joe Biden on Thursday commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, hailing it as his “proudest legislative accomplishment” during his more than five decades serving in political office in Washington.
“The Violence Against Women Act broke the dam of congressional and cultural resistance, brought this hidden epidemic out of the shadows, and began to shift the legal and social burdens away from the survivors and onto the perpetrators where they belonged,” Biden said on Thursday, addressing survivors, advocates and allies on the South Lawn at an event commemorating the law.
The president also announced a series of new efforts to curb gender-based violence, saying his administration is “issuing new policies to expand housing protections to survivors, give law enforcement more tools to move guns from domestic abusers, and we are we’re tackling the next frontier of gender based violence and abuse: Deep fake images and videos generated by artificial intelligence.”
The Justice Department on Thursday announced $690 million in grant funding for this year administered by the agency’s Office on Violence Against Women, and detailed funding efforts for a new national resource center to tackle cyber crimes against people, including cyber stalking and the sharing of intimate images without consent.
“Thirty years ago, VAWA transformed our national response to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday.
“Today, officers, prosecutors, judges, families, and society at large understand what should have always been clear: these crimes cannot be cast aside as somehow distinct or private,” he continued. “Instead, we recognize that they are among the most serious crimes that our society faces and that we must continue to improve access to justice, safety, and services for survivors.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development also marked the occasion by issuing a joint statement with four other federal agencies highlighting VAWA’s housing provisions.
Biden is seeking to cement his record in the final months of his term in office after he dropped out of the presidential race in July.
“The Violence Against Women Act is my proudest legislative accomplishment, in all the years I’ve served as senator, vice president, president,” Biden said on Thursday. “I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
In 2022, he signed a law reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which he first introduced when he was a senator in 1990.
The initial legislation, which was passed through a bipartisan crime bill in 1994, included the first National Domestic Violence Hotline.
The expanded 2022 legislation included provisions to protect against harassment and abuse online.
Biden’s American Rescue Plan also included investments targeting gender-based violence. The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act program reported that roughly $1 billion in supplemental funding has supported 252 tribes, 1,500 domestic violence programs and 1,400 sexual assault programs.
CORRECTION (Sept. 12, 2024, 8:40 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Biden dropped out of the presidential race. It was in July, not June.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
