STATEMENT:
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has joined other members of the Coalition to End Violence Against Women and Girls Globally to welcome the introduction of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) in the Senate.
The legislation was introduced by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N-H), Susan Collins (R-ME), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA). IVAWA makes ending violence against women and girls a top diplomatic, development, and foreign assistance priority by ensuring the U.S. government has a strategy to efficiently and effectively coordinate existing cross-governmental efforts to prevent and respond to gender-based violence globally.
Read the full letter of support from the Coalition to End Violence Against Women and Girls Globally
The bill empowers the United States to work with other countries toward preventing violence against women and girls and responding to the effects of these practices on societies and economies. It holds governments accountable for acting to end rampant violence while empowering women and girls to lift their voices against it.
IVAWA recognizes that violence against women and girls is embedded in cultural and societal norms of unequal status and power, requiring a long-term approach that fosters personal, community, and societal changes.
The number of women who are victims of violence around the world are shocking. One out of three women will face physical, mental or sexual abuse in their lifetimes. Each day almost 39,000 girls under age 18 are married and female genital cutting has affected more than 200 million women and girls alive today.
NASW and other members of the Coalition to End Violence Against Women and Girls Globally urges Congress quickly pass this legislation in order to empower women and girls, and communities and nations, to end the violence.
