Congresswoman Barbara Lee's Statement on Violence Against Women
For Immediate Release
August 4, 2008
Contact: Sean P. Nichols
(202) 225-2661
Washington – Congresswoman Barbara Lee delivered the following remarks during a press conference in Mexico City today regarding “Zero Tolerance: Stop Violence Against Women and Girls, Stop HIV/AIDS, Case Study of Country Scale Up.”
“I want to begin by thanking the Global AIDS Alliance, especially Paul Zeitz and Lisa Schechtman and all the staff for their work in producing this important report.
“I am pleased to be with you here today to provide a brief Congressional perspective on the value of this report and on the need for policy makers to integrate programs to more comprehensively address violence against women and children within the context of HIV prevention programs.
“As we know the global AIDS pandemic is in many ways driven by the unequal status of women in the developing world. A number of critical factors that make women and girls more vulnerable to HIV include:
• Lack of access to education, independent economic means, or property and inheritance rights;
• Inadequate enforcement of gender equality - where those laws exist; and
• The inability of women to control their own bodies and their own sexual health, or even just to decide when and whom to marry.
“Each of these factors is rooted in pervasive gender inequality that is reinforced by cultural attitudes about the proper place and role of women whether in the context of family, faith, business, government, or society at large.
“Violence against women is perhaps the most egregious example of these ingrained attitudes.
“Around the world one in three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.
“As the report from the Global AIDS Alliance points out, women who have experienced violence are as much as three times more likely to acquire HIV.
“I want to be clear here however, violence against women is not solely just a problem for the developing world.
“In the United States nearly one third of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.
“And as we all know a substantial number of cases of violence and abuse never get reported.
“So what can be done to address this problem?
“Through its analysis of efforts to address violence in Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa the global AIDS alliance report points out that this is not an intractable problem.
“We know how to put together programs that are effective at reducing violence against women and youth, both by supporting programs to empower women and to help change the cultural norms that discriminate against women.
“I’m pleased that as part of the new PEPFAR legislation that was signed into law last week, we included language from my bill the PATHWAY Act to help strengthen the focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women in our HIV programs - and specifically within the administration’s newly proposed compact agreements.
“These improvements will help nudge countries along to address HIV and violence against women together, rather than separately or in a piecemeal fashion.
“Fundamentally though, we have to strengthen the very organizations and institutions that are doing the lion’s share of the work on the ground.
“This report is therefore instructive in highlighting how civil society can play a dual role in both implementing programs and acting as a watching on national governments to enforce existing protections.
"As one of report’s key recommendations, I believe it is critical that we directly fund indigenous women’s groups to build capacity in countries to address violence against women.
“I’m pleased that the new International Violence Against Women Act, introduced by Chairman Berman, includes this recommendation and I am committed to doing my part to help build support for its eventual passage in Congress.
“Thank you.”
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Congresswoman Barbara Lee (Oakland-D) is a leader in the fight against the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. She co-authored legislation signed into law creating the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in 2000, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003, the PEPFAR Reauthorization Act in 2008 , and legislation addressing the needs of orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS in 2005. She is the only member of Congress serving on both the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education which have jurisdiction over all US global and domestic AIDS programs.