Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to join with my colleagues, Senators BOXER, KIRK, MENENDEZ, and SHAHEEN, in introducing the International Violence Against Women Act of 2014. This bill makes ending violence against women and girls a top diplomatic priority. It would permanently authorize the State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues and the position of the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues.

It requires the administration to develop and implement an annual strategy to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls for each of the next 5 years. This legislation will ensure that the efforts begun under President George W. Bush and continued by President Barack Obama to combat gender-based violence will be a priority for future administrations as well.

We have witnessed great strides in women's equality in our own country and in much of the developed world over the past century. Across vast swaths of the globe, however, violence against women and forced marriages are everyday occurrences. One out of three women worldwide will be physically, sexually or otherwise abused during her lifetime, with rates reaching 70 percent in some countries.

This violence ranges from domestic violence to rape and acid burnings, to dowry deaths and so-called honor killings. Such violence is often exacerbated in humanitarian emergencies and conflict settings. Violence against women and girls is a human rights issue, a public health epidemic, and a barrier to solving global challenges such as extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS, and conflict.

The world has just seen an appalling example of women and girls being treated as property and bargaining chips in Nigeria, where the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 school girls and is threatening to sell them into sexual slavery and into forced marriages. Tragically, there are reports that some have already been sold into child marriages. Boko Haram's leaders said the girls should get married and never be educated. He has said:

I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of 9.

In fact, the very name of this terrorist group roughly translates to the phrase ``Western education is sinful.'' Sadly, this is a viewpoint that is not just limited to terrorist leaders, though it is difficult to think of a more egregious example of abuse against girls than what we have just witnessed in Nigeria. The International Center for Research on Women says that one in nine girls around the world is married before the age of 15, a harmful practice that deprives girls of their dignity and often their education, increases their health risks, and perpetuates poverty. The practice of preventing women from attaining their full potential by targeting them for violence and early marriage is still far too common in far too many countries around the world.

The International Violence Against Women Act ensures that our country will take a leadership role in combating these problems. It establishes that it is the policy of the United States to take action to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls around the globe and to integrate and coordinate efforts to address gender-based violence into U.S. foreign policy and foreign assistance programs.

Specifically, our bill will foster efforts in four areas. First, it will increase legal and judicial protections by supporting laws and legal structures that prevent and appropriately respond to all forms of violence against women and girls, including honor killings and forced marriages. For example, our bill will support our State Department's work with other countries to help those nations reform their legal systems by providing technical expertise and model laws and building the capacity of their police and judges.

Second, our bill will increase efforts to build health sector capacity, integrating programs to address violence against women and girls into existing health care programs focused on children's survival, women's health, and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Third, our legislation will focus on preventing violence by changing community norms and attitudes against the acceptability of violence against women and girls.

Fourth, our bill will focus on reducing females' vulnerability to violence by improving their economic status and educational opportunities. Efforts would include ensuring that women have access to job training and employment opportunities and increasing their right to own land and property, allowing them potentially to support themselves and their children.

Our bill will require the U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally to identify 5 to 20 eligible low- and middle-income countries for which comprehensive individual country plans would be developed. The bill requires that at least 10 percent of U.S. assistance to prevent and respond to violence against females be provided to nongovernmental organizations, with priority given to those headed by women.

As the Presiding Officer well knows, violence has a profoundly negative impact on the lives of women and girls. In addition to being a pressing human rights issue, such violence contributes to inequality and political instability, making it a security issue as well as a moral issue for all of us.

I am committed to working with my colleagues to end violence against women and girls and to provide the assistance and resources necessary to achieve this goal, and I am pleased to be the principal cosponsor of Senator Boxer's bill.

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