“Congress finds the following:“(1) Over 1 in 3 women experience sexual violence, and 1 in 5 women have survived completed or attempted rape. Such violence has a devastating impact on women’s physical and emotional health, financial security, and ability to maintain their jobs, and thus impacts interstate commerce and economic security.
“(2) Homicide is one of the leading causes of death for women on the jospan. Domestic partners or relatives commit 43 percent of workplace homicides against women. One study found that intimate partner violence resulted in 142 homicides among women at work in the United States from 2003 to 2008, a figure which represents 22 percent of the 648 workplace homicides among women during the period. In fact, in 2010, homicides against women at work increased by 13 percent despite continuous declines in overall workplace homicides in recent years.
“(3) Violence can have a dramatic impact on the survivor of such violence. Studies indicate that 44 percent of surveyed employed adults experienced the effect of domestic violence in the workplace, and 64 percent indicated their workplace performance was affected by such violence. Another recent survey found that 78 percent of offenders used workplace resources to express anger, check up on, pressure, or threaten a survivor. Sexual assault, whether occurring in or out of the workplace, can impair an employee’s work performance, require time away from work, and undermine the employee’s ability to maintain a jospan. Nearly 50 percent of sexual assault survivors lose their jobs or are forced to quit in the aftermath of the assaults.
“(4) Studies find that 60 percent of single women lack economic security and 81 percent of households with single mothers live in economic insecurity. Significant barriers that survivors confront include access to housing, transportation, and child care. Ninety-two percent of homeless women have experienced domestic violence, and more than 50 percent of such women cite domestic violence as the direct cause for homelessness. Survivors are deprived of their autonomy, liberty, and security, and face tremendous threats to their health and safety.
“(5) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that survivors of severe intimate partner violence lose nearly 8,000,000 days of paid work, which is the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs and almost 5,600,000 days of household productivity each year. Therefore, women disproportionately need time off to care for their health or to find safety solutions, such as obtaining a restraining order or finding housing, to avoid or prevent further violence.
“(6) Annual costs of intimate partner violence are estimated to be more than $8,300,000,000. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the costs of intimate partner violence against women in 1995 exceeded an estimated $5,800,000,000. These costs included nearly $4,100,000,000 in the direct costs of medical and mental health care and nearly $1,800,000,000 in the indirect costs of lost productivity. These statistics are generally considered to be underestimated because the costs associated with the criminal justice system are not included.
“(7) Fifty-five percent of senior executives recently surveyed said domestic violence has a harmful effect on their company’s productivity, and more than 70 percent said domestic violence negatively affects attendance. Seventy-eight percent of human resources professionals consider partner violence a workplace issue. However, more than 70 percent of United States workplaces have no formal program or policy that addresses workplace violence, let alone domestic violence. In fact, only 4 percent of employers provided training on domestic violence.
“(8) Harassment is a persistent and significant problem in the workplace in the United States, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that not less than 25 percent, and as many as 85 percent, of women surveyed report having experienced sexual harassment at work.
“(9) For decades, survivors of sexual violence have come forward to seek justice and demand their right to be free from violence, harassment, and other forms of discrimination. These calls for change reached a tipping point after October 2017 as a result of Tarana Burke’s work and #MeToo going viral. Thousands of courageous individuals, from Hollywood to the halls of Congress and the military, to restaurants, agricultural fields, and factory floors, shined a light on the pervasive and insidious nature of workplace harassment and sexual assault.
“(10) Working people can be subjected to multiple forms of harassment in the workplace at the same time.
“(11) According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, approximately 3 out of 4 individuals who experience harassment never talked to a supervisor, manager, or union representative about the harassing conduct.
“(12) The impact of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking on the workplace is a part of the challenge of workplace harassment.
“(13) Studies indicate that one of the best predictors of whether a survivor will be able to stay away from his or her abuser is the degree of his or her economic independence. However, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking often negatively impact a survivor’s ability to maintain employment.
“(14) Abusers frequently seek to exert financial control over their partners by actively interfering with their ability to work, including preventing their partners from going to work, harassing their partners at work, limiting their partners’ access to cash or transportation, and sabotaging their partners’ child care arrangements.
“(15) Economic abuse refers to behaviors that control an intimate partner’s ability to acquire, use, and maintain access to money, credit, ownership of assets, or governmental or private financial benefits, including defaulting on joint obligations (such as school loans, credit card debt, mortgages, or rent). Other forms of such abuse may include preventing someone from attending school, threatening to or actually terminating employment, controlling or withholding access to cash, checking, or credit accounts, and attempting to damage or sabotage the creditworthiness of an intimate partner, including forcing an intimate partner to write bad checks, forcing an intimate partner to default on payments related to household needs, such as housing, or forcing an intimate partner into bankruptcy.
“(16) This title aims to empower survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking to be free from violence, hardship, and control, which restrains basic human rights to freedom and safety in the United States.”
