Slain Senator’s Daughter Blasts Rights Abuses

Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, said Tuesday that violence against women in the United States had become “an epidemic” and urged Americans to take a stance against abuses at home and abroad.

“Sexual assault is nothing less than an epidemic” with one in five American women subjected to sexual assault, the human rights activist said in a speech to the National Press Club.

“We have more animal shelters in this country than battered women shelters,” she said.

Kennedy Cuomo described the stories of 14 women she knows who were raped in the United States--only one of whom felt comfortable enough to tell her story to police--and said if this is the situation in the United States, “imagine what it means to be a victim of rape in Pakistan,” where laws and freedoms are much less favorable.

Kennedy Cuomo, wife of U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo and niece of the late President John F. Kennedy, has just written a book titled “Speak Truth to Power,” with prize-winning photographer Edie Adams, about 50 human rights defenders around the world.

She said the death penalty and police brutality were among the human rights violations in the United States. But while working to improve the situation at home, Americans also have a responsibility to speak out against abuses overseas because this has a positive “ripple effect,” she said.

She lamented that Congress’ approval of permanent trade relations for China will take away a vehicle for annually debating China’s human rights record and urged that the United States make Tibet a more central element of U.S. talks with Beijing.