Angelina Jolie has asked the Senate to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which she believes is necessary to provide survivors of abuse with fundamental safeguards.

Jolie, who was joined by a handful of senators during a press conference at the Capitol, chastised Congress for allowing the statute to expire.

The 1994 statute featured provisions for federal prosecution of interstate domestic violence and sexual assault crimes, as well as financing for shelters, rape crisis centers, and community organizations. It was last reauthorized in 2013, however it ran out of money in 2019 and has since been dormant.

“The reason that many people struggle to leave abusive situations is that they’ve been made to feel worthless,” Jolie said. “When there is silence from a Congress too busy to renew the Violence Against Women Act for a decade, it reinforces that sense of worthlessness. You think, ‘I guess my abuser is right. I guess I’m not worth very much.'”

"One of the most important votes senators will cast this year," she remarked, referring to the law's passage.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), announced on Wednesday that a bipartisan deal had been achieved on restoring the statute. According to CNN, a provision that would have prohibited unmarried partners from possessing firearms if they were found guilty of domestic abuse was withdrawn.

Jolie made a number of trips to Washington, D.C. last year, including a meeting with Press Secretary Jen Psaki at the White House, where the law's passage was a major issue.

Jolie cited several provisions in the law in her remarks to the media, including funding for "non racially biased forensic evidence collection" and the "jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indian perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse and sex trafficking on tribal land," as well as Kayden's Law, which prohibits certain alleged and convicted abusers from having unsupervised parenting time with their children.

At the end of her words, Jolie began to cry as she addressed the children "who are terrified and suffering at this moment."

She went on to recognized “the many people for whom this legislation comes too late, the women who have suffered through the system with little or no support, who still carry the pain and trauma of their abuse, the young adults who have survived abuse and have emerged stronger, not because of the child protective system but despite it, and the women and children who have died who could have been saved.”

Jolie also met with Michael Regan, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to address environmental stressors and children's health.

“We know these issues are interconnected, and that’s why our @EPA team is taking a holistic approach on environmental justice to protect ALL children and ALL communities,” Regan wrote on Twitter.