When women are elected to office they make a difference for woman. Kamala Harris has been committed to resolving the rape kit backlog and ensuring an administrative and legislative system that brings justice to all who have been raped or sexually assaulted.
Author: Susan Rose
Susan Rose served for eight years on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and is the former executive director of the Los Angeles City Commission on the Status of Women. She is active with Human Rights Watch.
California Moves to End Rape Kit Backlog
TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT When someone is raped and wants the perpetrator caught and prosecuted, it’s essential that the victim provide forensic evidence of the assault to law enforcement. A “rape kit” is the collection of biological evidence that can lead to an identification of the perpetrator’s DNA. But tragically, rape kits are […]
Paid Family Leave in California: All is Not Well
Passed in 2002 and implemented in 2004, California’s Paid Family Leave Act, PFLA, provides unemployment disability compensation to employees who take time off from work to “care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent, domestic partner or bond with a newborn baby, adopted or foster.” But although awareness has increased over the years, research in 2011 […]
The 2012 Project: Women on Your Marks, Get Set, Run (For Office)!
A longstanding goal of the feminist movement has been to achieve gender balance in elected office. Today, women may be more than half of the population and the workforce, but they still hold only 17 percent of the seats in the U.S. Congress and 24 percent in state legislatures. [PDF] One explanation for this disparity […]