US Vice President calls for efforts against sexual assault

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday met in the Executive Office Building next to the White House with student advocates, survivors and educators who are working to improve sexual assault policies and practices, asking for their "best sense" of what a White House Task Force on sexual assault can accomplish. Addressing the group assembled, Biden said "for a lot of folks, " the number of sexual assaults on campuses are "statistics." But he noted every single one of these numbers is a young woman, and warned that many victims of sexual violence can suffer long term physical effects, from heart disease to chronic ailments. The White House hopes to do more to bring the numbers of assaults down, he said. "We can do a great deal more than we're doing," he said, adding that there's a long history of women being treated as "chattel" and that the culture needs to change. Although statistics have shown that violence against women has dropped as attitudes have changed, Biden called it particularly troubling that violence against women between the ages of 14 and 24 has actually increased. He called for people who witness women being assaulted to intervene -- calling it the measure of a man. "Looking the other way is wrong, simply wrong," he said. "If you see someone in trouble, a man has an obligation to help, to speak out." He said the group has until April to pull together a set of recommendations.