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posted by Lisa Schechtman, GAA's Policy Director 

For 100 years, we have celebrated International Women's Day, observed since 1975 on March 8. Begun as a recognition of the women's rights and suffrage movement and a response to women demanding improved work conditions in the United States, International Women's Day has become an opportunity to take stock of progress on women's rights, opportunities for advancing equity, and persistent barriers to a world where women are able to use their power and live with dignity for the good of all. We have made progress, of course. In many countries, girls can go to school and women can seek advanced degrees, in career fields of all sorts women are represented among the highest ranks, and the international community has agreed that women's rights are human rights. But there is still a long way to go before we will never again have to ask the questions: why are more women living in poverty than men?; why are fewer girls in school than boys?; why are women more affected by HIV than men? One answer to each of these questions is violence against women and girls (VAW/G).

This year, this 100th year of International Women's Day, we have a real vehicle for doing something to change the answers to these questions, even to change the questions themselves. The International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) would improve the efficiency and efficacy of many US foreign assistance programs by ensuring that an analysis of the role of VAW/G is built into health, education, economic development and social change efforts around the world. In other words, IVAWA would mandate the US government to ask our key questions about the experiences of women and girls and, where one of the answers is violence against women and girls, to do something about it.

It seems like such an easy answer, doesn't it? Violence against women and girls is a human rights catastrophe of the first order. The UN has for years reported that one in three women will experience physical, sexual or emotional violence in her lifetime. VAW/G is not merely a human rights violation; is a form of torture, stripping women of choice, opportunity, well-being, and happiness in ways big and small-but in ways that are never insignificant. In many cases, this loss of power means women cannot negotiate condom use or refuse sex because they are afraid, cannot seek health care because they do not control their families' resources (and are therefore afraid), cannot protect their children, send them to school, even get enough food to keep them healthy because so often the men make the decisions (and, you guessed it, they are therefore afraid). If all women and girls not only knew they have the right to be safe, healthy, educated, and able to choose, but also had the means to safeguard these rights for themselves and their loved ones, maybe we'd have fewer tough questions to ask about the lives women and girls lead in this world. But, unfortunately, after 100 years of International Women's Day, we are still asking these questions.

Violence against women and girls is unambiguously morally wrong. Ask anyone on the street and they will almost certainly agree; there is simply no justification for beating, raping, stalking, or otherwise terrorizing anyone, especially not because of long-held baseless notions of gender and power. Even our policy-makers see no gray area here; that is why so many members of Congress are supporting IVAWA, why our Vice-President and our Secretary of State supported IVAWA when they were members of Congress.

Just as we know VAW/G is an unambiguous issue, so too is the fact that it's unacceptable that we are still asking questions about the status of women and girls in our world. IVAWA gives us a way to change the answers, to change the questions, to show that the 100 years of honoring women have actually given us a hook to hang our hats on, a way to mark the progress made by and for women and girls.

When IVAWA was introduced on February 4 in both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support, a colleague from the Democratic Republic of Congo told the audience that IVAWA is an act of compassion and solidarity. And, after all, isn't being compassionate a major part of what the United States is all about? Let's make sure the 100th International Women's Day will mark a real turning point, the triumph of compassion over politics, justice over fear. Together, let's make sure 2010 is the year the International Violence Against Women Act is signed into law, the year the United States shows leadership in answering those tough questions, the year International Women's Day advances from a day of identifying problems to a day of celebrating solutions.

Please call your Members of Congress today and tell them that you support IVAWA. And then tell everyone you know.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver a major speech Friday, January 8, 2010 to mark the 15th year of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). Secretary Clinton will announce the U.S. Government's renewed support for and dedication to reaching the ICPD goals and other related UN agreements, including the Millennium Development Goals, by 2015.

The speech will be live streamed on www.icpd2015.org starting at approximately 2:30 pm ET. A transcript and video of of the speech will be posted on this site following the event.

At the 1994 ICPD held in Cairo, Egypt, 179 nations reached consensus on actions needed to achieve universal access to education, especially for girls; reductions in infant, child and maternal mortality, and universal access to reproductive health over the next 20 years.

Many United Nations conferences and international meetings have reaffirmed the ICPD "Cairo Consensus", including the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, that established the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2000 Millennium Summit, that established the Millennium Development Goals. These mutually reinforcing commitments are the cornerstones of population and development policies for the international community.

Recent polls show that a majority of Americans across the ideological spectrum strongly support the principles in the worldwide consensus reached at the ICPD, including providing voluntary family planning and reproductive health services.

Millions of lives have been improved and saved through effective and affordable reproductive health programs, which have proven to prevent the deaths of women and children, reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, grow economies and preserve natural resources.

Though successful programs exist, far more progress needs to be made. To achieve the ICPD's goals in the next five years, a sustained, long-term commitment is needed by both the public and private sectors.

Please forward this email to your friends and colleagues.
Take this opportunity to view Secretary Clinton's speech, host viewing parties and take action to support ICPD 2015 throughout the new year.

Visit www.icpd2015.org for more information.

Many Thanks,

ICPD 2015 Planning Group:

Peggy Clark, David Devlin-Foltz, Lisa Molinaro and Rosann Wisman, Aspen Institute
Ketayoun Darvich-Kodjouri, CEDPA
Kathy Bonk, Beth Fredrick, Airlia Gustafson, Michele Manatt, Dianne Ross Bock and Nicole Tidwell, CCMC
David Olson, Global Health Council
Sneha Barot, Susan Cohen and Joerg Dreweke, Guttmacher Institute
Ellen Marshall, GoodWorks Group
Jeff Meer, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Suzanne Ehlers, Michael Khoo and Caroline Behringer, Population Action International
Sarah Craven and Rachel Seelig, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund
Jess Bowers, Maureen Greenwood-Basken, Kathy Hall, Tamara Kreinin, Helen Luryi, Ingrid Madden, Leah Meadows and Yolanda Taylor, United Nations Foundation

We have a long way to go to ensure that all children are able to realize their human rights to a basic education. Right now there are more than 75 million primary aged children worldwide who have no access to schooling. (To put that number in perspective, there are 75 million children under the age of 17 in the United States.) Further, 226 million adolescents will never attend secondary school: the cumulative effect of this is that there are an estimated 776 million adults worldwide who are illiterate.

Education is perhaps the most leveraged single development investment that country in the global north can make, creating outcomes that are essential to the protection of human rights everywhere. We know that it promotes quality of life and employability for individuals; fosters strong, stable democratic governments; paves the way for growth of GDP; and in doing so, helps assure regional and global security for all nations.

We also know that education save lives in many ways: African children of mothers who complete primary school are 50 percent more likely to live beyond the age of five. Women who are educated marry later and have fewer children who are healthier, including better-spaced pregnancies that reduce maternal and infant mortality rates. When girls are in school, the onset of sexual activity and marriage is often delayed, giving them better life skills and more confidence to say no to sexual activity.

During his campaign for the Presidency, Mr. Obama acknowledged the importance of basic education and committed, if elected, to establish a Global Fund for Education with a U.S. contribution in year one of at least $2 billion. This is a promise he broke in his FY10 budget and looks poised to break in his FY11 budget request (due in February 2010). In Ghana, he again demonstrated his short-sighted approach to the economic crisis in Africa when he completely omitted education from his speech on development and governance. [See GAA fact sheet on Obama's broken campaign promises, linked below.]

2010 is a critical year. It is the last year to get all kids into school if the world is going to achieve Millennium Development Goal #2 by 2015, which calls for ensuring that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.

President Obama still has the opportunity to make his mark to meet that goal. By following through on his commitment to establish a Global Fund for Education and providing $2 billion in his next budget, the U.S. could reinvigorate the global compact on education. By backing up strong words with financing, President Obama would be able to leverage significant new dollars from other G8 and G20 countries for this initiative.

A well-resourced Global Fund for Education in 2010 will bring the world one giant step closer to assuring human rights for all.