United States government statistics revealed the most grueling picture: one in every four women becoming target of domestic violence and approximately 1.3 million women have been physically assaulted by her intimate partner.But women in rural areas facing sexual assault, domestic or other kinds of violence are more vulnerable than their counterparts in cities.
Rural women have to face many hurdles while receiving assistance; even service providers have to face barriers in the form of geographic location, social and cultural pressures, economic structures and absence of available resources.
To overcome these hurdles and make the waves for the service providers to address the grievances of the victim rural women, Federal government established the Rural Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking Assistance Program popularly known as Rural Program in 1994.
Its scope was expanded under Violence against Women Act of 2005 (VAWA 2005) and included stalking and sexual assault under its preview and revised the criteria of eligibility as well as the statutory purpose areas under which programs must be executed.
The Office on Violence against Women (OVW) administers this grant and has currently 18 grant programs at its anvil, which are being executed under the authorization of Violence against Women Act of 1994 and successive legislation.
These grant programs have been constituted with the purpose to strengthen capacity and capability of the nation to reduce above said domestic turmoil by empowering services to victims and detaining culprits accountable for their misdeeds.
Collaboration is encouraged under this program between advocates of victims, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, personnel of pre-trial service, judges, probation and parole officers and leaders of faith- and/or community-based organizations to tackle the problems of violence and it is also being assured that safety of victim is foremost while administering services to victims and their children.
It is also mandatory for the Rural Program to keep aside about 25 to 40 percent of funds for those projects that consciously address sexual assault.The applicants eligible for such grant programs are States, local governments, Indian tribes, private or public nonprofit entities inclusive of nonprofit tribal organizations and faith-based or community organizations.
Another such grant program is S T O P Violence against Women Formula Grants. The grant is bestowed to the states and territories to increase the powers of the criminal justice system’s response to violence against women and to give all support and increase services for the victims.
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Free Government Grants For Business,Women,Housing,College and Personal Needs