Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) was scheduled to receive the New York County Lawyers' Association's (NYCLA) Edith I. Spivack Award on Monday, May 1 at the NYCLA Home of Law.
Congresswoman Maloney, former co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, is being recognized for her championship of women's and family issues, with special emphasis on funding for women's health needs, reproductive freedom and international family planning. She authored and passed the Debbie Smith Act in 2004, which provides funds to eliminate the national backlog of unprocessed rape kits, trains nurses to collect evidence and standardizes kits, and the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act in 2005.
Ms. Spivack, who worked at the New York City Department of Law for 70 years and for whom the award is named, died last year. She was a driving force in establishing NYCLA's Women's Rights Committee.
At the awards ceremony, Congresswoman Maloney was scheduled to discuss Women in Politics: 2006. She was a member of the U.S. delegations to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and the International Conference on Population and Development.In 2002, she received the U.N.'s Women's Leadership Award.