Biden: Women who report abuse 'raped again by the system'

Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke at a benefit for the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project, and said his work on domestic violence has been "the single most important cause of my life."

Biden described his introduction of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) when “nobody thought very much of it," reports The Hill. Biden authored the original legislation in 1994, providing federal funding to aid the prosecutions of domestic and sexual violence cases.

The DC Volunteer Lawyers Project offers free legal services to low-income D.C. residents in family law cases, and co-chair Kathleen Biden said VAWA was one of her father-in-law's "proudest moments."

But the Vice President said the law wasn't just meant to be procedural, but to initiate cultural change on the treatment of women. Biden said abused women often don't leave home and get help because they would be shamed. "They don't want to get raped again by the system," he said, according to a White House pool reporter.

President Obama signed a bipartisan bill earlier this year to reauthorize VAWA, ending a year of debate over renewing the legislation, which now includes aid and protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered men and women. The new version also aids prosecutions on Native American reservations of non-native perpetrators of violence.