by Pam Perraud
On June 24, the Senator Barbara Boxer (D- CA) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues convened a hearing entitled “Combating Violence and Discrimination Against Women: A Global Call to Action.” This was the first hearing on these vital women’s issues for several years.
Female Senators were out in force
Both Rand Paul and Barbara Boxer made statements and a very impressive panel of fellow Senators including Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Dick Durbin (D- IL) as well as female Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Debbie Stabenow (D.MI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Pat Murray (D-WA) all testified. Each gave examples of why legislation was needed and urged ratification of the CEDAW treaty as well as passage of the International Violence Against Women Act (IWAVA) which is also pending in Congress (HR #3571, S #2307).
Top-level panelists
Other panelists were the Honorable Catherine M Russell, who currently serves as Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, Susan Markham currently Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment for USAID and Jacqueline O’Neill Director for Inclusive Security who spoke of the urgent need to include women in security forces and all peace processes.
Ms Hauwa Ibrahim, the Senior Partner of the Aries Law Firm in Nigeria, is a women’s rights advocate in the area where sharia law is used; she spoke eloquently about the on-going problem of the 200+ girls, who were kidnapped over two months ago in her country.
Dr Gary Barker is International Director of Promundo, an organization which has developed programs to engage men and boys in the discussion of how to end violence against women.
Some Key Questions
After all of the statements and presentations were made, Senator Boxer asked many of the panelists questions, including a key one to Catherine Russell, President Obama’s representative. “Does the administration still support and endorse the ratification of CEDAW?” Ms Russell responded with a definitive “YES”!
Senator Boxer also pressed Dr Barker about how to engage men more in the process. She suggested that more should be done to get male role models — sports heroes in particular, to go on record to condemn violence against women. He said that right now during the World Cup they are distributing tee shirts with the slogan “Men of Quality are not afraid of Equality”. His organization wants to encourage men to speak up when they see males harassing or hurting women. Ms Boxer suggested that we need to create a new male mind-set that says –“real men do not harm women, they protect women.” She added, “Real men should also elect women."
The hearing lasted two hours and Senator Boxer urged all those present to contact their Senators to let them know they wanted ratification of CEDAW and passage of IVAWA.
For more information about CEDAW, as well as the full broadcast of the hearin,g go to www.cedaw2014.org. You can also sign up there for updates on what is happening on CEDAW.