Are you wondering what, exactly, VAWA does — and how it helps? Here are a few of its key parts.

As part of its renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, the House of Representatives today passed the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting (SAFER) Act, which will help eliminate the backlog of untested DNA evidence from unsolved rape cases and take countless rapists off the streets

The U.S. House of Representatives today followed the Senate in voting to renew the Violence Against Women Act, sending it to the president to be signed into law. VAWA, which has helped reduce the level of sexual violence in the US, expired more than a year ago.

In a strong bipartisan act today, the Senate voted to renew the landmark Violence Against Women Act.

Reps. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) today introduced the SAFER Act of 2012, a bipartisan bill that will help fix the backlog of untested DNA evidence from unsolved rape cases.

The US Supreme Court this month announced that it will decide whether it is legally permissible for police to take DNA samples from suspects arrested for violent crimes.

The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved the SAFER Act (S. 3250), critical legislation that addresses the backlog of untested DNA evidence from unsolved rape cases

Each year, thousands of women become pregnant as the result of rape, and many more survivors are faced with PTSD, depression and other long-term results of the crime.

Critical evidence from the attack on Lavinia B. Masters, a member of RAINN’s speakers bureau, sat on a shelf for over two decades before it was tested. In the meantime, the rapist had struck again, attacking several more women.