    [House Hearing, 113 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                    HEARING ON WOMEN'S EDUCATION: PROMOTING
                    DEVELOPMENT, COUNTERING RADICALISM; AND
                     MARKUP OF H.R. 3583, MALALA YOUSAFZAI
                                SCHOLARSHIP ACT
    =======================================================================

                                    CONVENED

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 3, 2014

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 113-165

                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

    Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
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                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                     EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California             Samoa
    STEVE CHABOT, Ohio                   BRAD SHERMAN, California
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
    MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas             ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    TED POE, Texas                       GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    MATT SALMON, Arizona                 THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
    TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania             BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina          KAREN BASS, California
    ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois             WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
    TOM COTTON, Arkansas                 ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    PAUL COOK, California                JUAN VARGAS, California
    GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina       BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
    RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas            JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania                Massachusetts
    STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas                AMI BERA, California
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida       ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
    TREY RADEL, Florida--resigned 1/27/  GRACE MENG, New York
        14 deg.                          LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    DOUG COLLINS, Georgia                TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    TED S. YOHO, Florida
    LUKE MESSER, Indiana

         Amy Porter, Chief of Staff      Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director

                   Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                               HEARING WITNESSES

    Hedieh Mirahmadi, Ph.D., president, World Organization for
      Resource Development and Education.............................     5
    Ms. Humera Khan, executive director, Muflehun....................    19
    Kathleen Kuehnast, Ph.D., director, Gender and Peacebuilding
      Center, United States Institute of Peace.......................    29

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

    Hedieh Mirahmadi, Ph.D.: Prepared statement......................     7
    Ms. Humera Khan: Prepared statement..............................    21
    Kathleen Kuehnast, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.....................    31

                                   MARKUP OF

    H.R. 3583, To expand the number of scholarships available to
      Pakistani women under the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship
      Program........................................................    59
      Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3583 offered by
        the Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in
        Congress from the State of Florida...........................    67
          Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to
            H.R. 3583 offered by the Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a
            Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of
            Virginia.................................................    74
          Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to
            H.R. 3583 offered by the Honorable Lois Frankel, a
            Representative in Congress from the State of Florida.....    79

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing and markup notice........................................    82
    Hearing minutes..................................................    83
    Markup minutes...................................................    85
    Markup summary...................................................    87
    The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of New York: Prepared statement......................    88

                         HEARING ON WOMEN'S EDUCATION:

                       PROMOTING DEVELOPMENT, COUNTERING

                      RADICALISM; AND MARKUP OF H.R. 3583,

                        MALALA YOUSAFZAI SCHOLARSHIP ACT

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014

                           House of Representatives,

                         Committee on Foreign Affairs,

                                Washington, DC.

        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
    room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Chairman Royce. This hearing will come to order. Today we
    are privileged to hear from three scholars on the topic of
    women's education and how a failure to appreciate its
    importance can result in missed opportunities for development
    and missed opportunities in terms of countering radicalism.
        I remember my experience with a small school for a while.
    My wife and I served on the board of this school in Afghanistan
    and we had been asked all through those troubled years--this
    was before 9/11--to assist with this school for orphans.
        It was in Kabul, and after the government changed after 9/
    11 I had an opportunity to go visit the school, and I well
    remember the feeling I had.
        I could--they were in a building that, you know, obviously,
    needed a lot of work but the students you could hear them
    citing--you know, going through their lesson plan and one of
    the classes was in English.
        The boys were on one side of the room and the girls were on
    the other, and the headmaster there asked me if I would like to
    ask any questions, and I remember asking specifically what
    these young people wanted to do when they grew up. A boy stood
    up and said he wanted to become an engineer.
        But a girl stood up and said, I want to become a physician,
    and I said really, tell me, you know, what you would like to
    do. She said, I want to go to Kabul University. I want to
    become a doctor to help my people.
        It was a reminder to look at those orphan children and see
    them being prepared but realizing how ill prepared most of the
    population was, going through those turbulent times of war.
        Well, following today's hearing we are going to do a markup
    but we want to hear from our witnesses first. The markup is
    going to be on H.R. 3583, the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act,
    and what this important legislation will do is require USAID to
    award at least half of its scholarships in Pakistan to women
    and, of course, Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani, is the 2014
    Nobel Peace Prize nominee who has been recognized for her
    courageous efforts to advance access to education for women and
    girls in that part of the world.
        I also want to recognize the Pakistani-American community
    which has worked so hard from here in the United States to
    promote the education of safety and women--of women and girls
    by establishing and supporting schools. They also do a lot to
    support the medical schools in Pakistan, to support the
    orphanages and other medical centers and key institutions in
    Pakistan.
        Despite a general expansion of educational opportunities
    around the world in the last 30 years, women in most developing
    countries on average still receive far less schooling than men,
    as we will hear from our witnesses today. In some countries
    like Pakistan this difference is quite pronounced with only
    about 40 percent of women over the age of 15 considered
    literate--40 percent for women, 70 percent for men. In
    Afghanistan, however, it is as few as 13 percent of women that
    are able to read and write. Today, we hope, as children are
    graduated out of school we are going to see that percentage
    increase markedly. But as you will hear today, there is strong
    evidence that the education of women and girls, of course,
    promotes economic growth, it increases life expectancy, it
    promotes childhood development.
        There is no doubt that educating women improves a country's
    economy as educated women are more likely, obviously, to be
    able to contribute to the labor force. But the correlation
    between a rise in women's education and per capita income has
    been absolutely proven.
        An increase in a woman's earning potential benefits her
    family. Studies have shown that women tend to invest more in
    their children than men, which is why increases in female
    income improve child survival rate some 20 times more than
    increases in male income. Women who can read also stand to
    benefit from the pamphlets distributed in public awareness
    campaigns and have been shown to better understand radio
    broadcasts designed to keep them informed.
        Pakistan is an area of our concern here. Unfortunately, it
    is an area of our concern because of extremist groups that are
    indoctrinating youth by the thousands, and to offset this, of
    course, there are all-girl schools now in Pakistan being set
    up.
        I visited one of them out in the Northwest Frontier only to
    learn later that that particular school had been destroyed by
    the Taliban. That should tell us all we need to know. Education
    is the key counter to destructive ideology.
        As we will hear today, women's central role in families and
    communities make them uniquely positioned to intervene and to
    stop the radicalization of their children. Mothers are most
    likely to spot the signs that something is off. Simply put, if
    angry young men are to be stopped before they strap on a
    suicide vest, women will be key to stopping them.
        It is also worrisome that, as one witness will warn, it is
    worrisome the soft radicalization of women and she will point
    to the growing trend of women involved in terrorist attacks.
    Education has the potential to counter this, too.
        We look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how
    women's education can play an important role in defusing the
    factors that contribute to extremism and how educating women
    and girls is a catalyst for economic development. As one
    journalist has put it, ``Girls schools are just about the best
    long-term counter terrorism investment available.''
        I now turn to the ranking member of the Subcommittee on
    Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Mr. Keating from
    Massachusetts, for his opening comments.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ranking Member Engel
    was unable to attend this morning and I would like to ask the
    committee for unanimous consent to insert his opening statement
    for the record.
        Chairman Royce. Without objection.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you. I want to extend my gratitude to
    Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for their willingness
    to hold this important hearing and for their readiness to work
    with myself and other members of the committee in support of
    this timely topic, and I want to thank each of the witnesses
    for their testimony this morning.
        I join the chairman and the members of the committee that
    are here to mention that with all sincerity our thoughts are
    with the families of the loved ones that were lost in the Fort
    Hood shooting.
        It was our former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who
    said, ``If women are healthy and educated their families will
    flourish. If women are free from violence their families will
    flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and
    equal partners in society, their families will flourish and
    when families flourish communities and nations will flourish.''
        We are in the year 2014, yet women still account for two-
    thirds of the world's 774 million adult illiterates, a
    proportion that has remained unchanged over the past two
    decades.
        And while the overall progress in primary education on a
    global scale in the past decades is encouraging, major barriers
    still persist. According to a recent World Bank study, 72
    million children, a majority of them girls, are out of school.
        For this reason, although we may differ in opinion as to
    how much we should devote to particular programs in the
    international arena on this committee, we know that there is an
    investment that will continue to yield high returns and that
    investment is in women.
        Through their individual empowerment, whole communities
    stand to benefit from women who have already been assisting
    their communities through both traditional and nontraditional
    means, particularly, in regard to dealing with youth in areas
    that have been impacted by violent extremism.
        Violent extremism is not a regional infliction but crosses
    all national and regional boundaries. It can infiltrate our
    community or culture and is not bound to one cause or another,
    often leaving us with a feeling of helplessness at its
    extensiveness.
        Violent extremism is also remarkably self-regenerating, a
    reality that makes efforts to understand its origin, quell its
    spread, and counter its impact extremely difficult.
        Now, with the final year of troop withdrawal from
    Afghanistan underway and the final effects of the Arab Spring
    yet to be seen, we have had to emphasize focus on developments
    in the Mideast and Southeast Asia.
        But the time is right to elevate the conversation on
    women's role in civil society and countering violent extremism
    in this regard throughout the world. Our discussion today
    should not revisit the countless reasons why women, half of the
    world's population, should also account for half of its civic
    participation in leadership.
        Instead, we should seize this opportunity to hear from our
    three esteemed panelists on what precisely the U.S. Government
    and aid organizations are doing and should be doing to have the
    most impact abroad.
        Already, organizations like Muflehun and the World
    Organization for Resource Development and Education and the
    U.S. Institute for Peace, to name those represented today, are
    having this conversation and drawing attention to this
    important topic.
        However, here in Washington, where there is no shortage of
    intellect, policy experts and curiosity, too often these
    conversations remain within separate communities from security
    experts to civilian organizations and academia. It is time, as
    I said, to elevate this conversation to the highest level.
        In the short term, yes, it is critical to build up security
    forces so they are self-sufficient and can directly respond to
    counter violent extremism with targeted enthusiasm. In the long
    term, however, we must ensure that our efforts yield greater
    economic opportunity.
        It is through access, through education, that we can most
    effectively empower half of the world's population--our women
    and our girls--as the front line agents of change.
        Today, we will hear directly from active members of the
    peacebuilding community and learn about their efforts to
    prevent extremist violence and make women, even those in the
    most marginalized positions, a part of the global solution.
        I look forward to their insightful testimony and I
    encourage my colleagues to utilize this opportunity to expand
    our understanding of how we in Congress can better ensure
    effectiveness in existing programs and resources, and I yield
    back my time, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Keating.
        Mr. Keating was instrumental in helping organize this
    committee and bringing it together for this hearing this
    morning on this issue. So I wanted to thank him in particular
    for his leadership on this important issue. We will now go to
    our distinguished panel of witnesses.
        For over two decades, Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi has briefed
    numerous policy members and led several innovative programs to
    explore counter extremism initiatives in both Afghanistan and
    Pakistan. She also established the International Cultural
    Center to engage families in community building initiatives.
        Ms. Humera Khan is the executive director of Muflehun, a
    think tank specializing in preventing radicalization and
    countering violent extremism. Previously, she designed and
    integrated methodologies for threat anticipation and risk
    assessment.
        Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast is director of the Gender and
    Peacebuilding Center at the U.S. Institute for Peace. Dr.
    Kuehnast has worked 15 years in the international development
    field where her research has included studies on community-
    driven development and post-conflict reconstruction.
        Without objection, the witnesses' full prepared statements
    will be considered part of the record and members will be given
    5 calendar days to submit any questions or statements or
    extraneous materials for the record.
        And we will ask Ms. Mirahmadi if she could please summarize
    her statement. You are on.

        STATEMENT OF HEDIEH MIRAHMADI, PH.D., PRESIDENT, WORLD
          ORGANIZATION FOR RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

        Ms. Mirahmadi. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Royce,
    Ranking Member Keating and members of the committee. Thank you
    for the opportunity to testify here before you today.
        Some experts rightly argue that the pursuit and
    apprehension of terrorists is a very different functional
    problem than the prevention of new recruits. The goal then of
    countering violent extremism, CVE as we call it, as opposed to
    the capture or kill focus of counter terrorism has led to a
    whole body of social science research that provides a framework
    for understanding the dynamics of radicalization.
        Although we won't be able to predict who can be
    radicalized, we can mitigate the factors that leave a man or a
    woman vulnerable in the first place. This is the space where
    community-based programming is so critical.
        Increasing women's access to secular and mainstream
    religious education is an important part about how they will
    prevent radicalism. In addition to expanding their access,
    there needs to be curriculum within these programs which
    undercuts the bifurcated world view presented by extremists who
    perpetrate a culture of hatred and misconceptions of the other.
        Fortunately, some female activists in Pakistan have already
    begun implementing such a solution. So over the past 4 years my
    organization, WORDE, has conducted field work in over 75 cities
    across Afghanistan and Pakistan to explore community-based
    solutions to violence. I presented those examples in my
    testimony but here I would like to highlight just a few.
        For example, in Kabul, in the Hanukah Parwan, it supports a
    neighboring madrassah that has approximately 700 students,
    female students, at all times, solving women's problems,
    including family disputes and the teachers serving as
    confidantes and mentors to these young girls.
        In Kandahar during a heavy period of violence in 2010 it
    was thousands of women who congregated to urge the warring
    Taliban and pro-state factions to lay down their weapons. It
    was so successful that the U.N. organized similar rallies
    across the country.
        In the tribal frontier of Pakistan, Paiman established the
    Let's Live in Peace project, where women and youth are taught
    mediation and conflict transformation skills. To date, over the
    past 20 years Ms. Kadeem has reached over 35,000 youth and
    2,000 women.
        And finally, Dr. Amina Hoti has recently established the
    Center for Dialogue and Action at the Foreman Christian College
    in Lahore where she is developing Pakistan's first interfaith
    curriculum to educate university students on the importance of
    pluralism, social harmony, and respecting the other.
        And finally, of course, a discussion of women's efforts to
    increase education and counter extremism would not be complete
    without a discussion of Malala Yousafzai's fight for girls'
    education and defeating terrorism. We really hope her legacy
    will be continued through H.R. 3583.
        In countries where governments are corrupt, incapable or
    unstable, the burden of peacebuilding and countering violent
    extremism often falls on nongovernmental actors. So I will
    conclude with some very important recommendations from the
    activists on the ground, which are important principles for any
    CVE focus, development and education initiatives.
        One, greater efforts should be made to include female
    activists, especially those outside of urban centers, to any
    peacebuilding, security, counter terrorism and national
    reconciliation conferences. They are an essential part of
    creating local buy-in with their families and communities.
        Two, the U.S. should prioritize funding for building the
    capacity of women-led civil society organizations. Whether they
    work in the field of education, peacebuilding or nonviolence,
    they are an important part of the solution.
        Three, the U.S. Government could use its power as a
    convener and facilitator to host female activists from around
    the world facing political instability and violent extremism so
    they can share their best practices and learn from one another.
    It is important to take our local successes and give them a
    global reach.
        And four, as we engage in more peacebuilding initiatives,
    we have to develop some benchmarks for collaboration.
    Specifically, we should expect our local partners to share our
    values in promoting social cohesion and pluralism, respecting
    religious freedom, and advocating for nonviolent solutions to
    conflict.
        While increasing access to quality secular education can
    create better jobs for women and reduce some of the economic
    drivers of radicalization, educated women also play a pivotal
    role in inoculating their children and eventually their
    communities against radical narratives.
        By empowering more women in this field and especially in
    cross cultural education, peacebuilding and preventing
    radicalization, we create the public space necessary for them
    to be at the forefront of preventing violence.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today and I
    look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Mirahmadi follows:]

                          ----------

        Chairman Royce. Go ahead.

       STATEMENT OF MS. HUMERA KHAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MUFLEHUN

        Ms. Khan. Good morning, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
    Keating, and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear
    before you today to discuss the role of women's education in
    promoting development and countering radicalization.
        My remarks are going to be a summary of the statement,
    which has been submitted, and I will actually be focusing on
    the role of education specific to countering violent extremism.
        This is a field where we have multiple definitions of CVE
    so let me lay out the definition I will be using in my
    statement. Countering violent extremism is the use of
    noncoercive means to dissuade individuals or groups from
    radicalizing toward violence and to mitigate recruitment,
    support, or engagement in ideologically motivated terrorism by
    nonstate actors in the furtherance of political objectives.
        Now, the programming which happens around it is around
    denying terrorist groups new recruits and this is by providing
    positive alternatives, countering terrorists' narratives, but
    also building the capacity of government and civil society.
        We have to recognize that CVE goals are very specific and
    that actually separates them out from both development and
    public diplomacy. So while there is a difference in the
    objectives, both development programs and public diplomacy
    initiatives can actually have secondary and tertiary impacts
    for CVE goals.
        Now, the most effective way for CVE programming to meet its
    objectives is a whole of society approach, which means everyone
    in society, all sectors, and we can categorize the programming
    based on prevention, intervention, interdiction and
    rehabilitation.
        And one of the things we have to be aware that we have--
    there is CVE relevant programming and that helps establish
    stronger and more resilient communities, and they have a
    reduced vulnerability toward radicalization to violent
    extremism.
        And so many of these programs are actually preventative and
    these are the examples, and several educational initiatives are
    in CVE-relevant programming. But at the same time, there is a
    need for very specific CVE-specific programming with direct CVE
    goals, and these will be--some of them will be preventative,
    but they will also be working in the areas of intervention,
    interdiction and rehabilitation.
        And those CVE programs become really important, and
    programs like raising awareness of terrorism threats, what is
    radicalization, types of behavioral indicators, counseling for
    radicalized youth all fall under CVE-specific programming.
        Now, what we have to keep front and center is that the
    impact of women's education is always going to be within the
    context of their role in society. So in the patriarchal
    societies that we are talking about, right, the voice of women,
    their empowerment, is curtailed.
        So when you educate women and they are empowered what you
    are doing is changing the status quo, which means men are
    immediately also stakeholders in this change. And if you do not
    have community support for your initiatives they will not be
    effective.
        Now, despite all the society constraints that exist, women
    are actually full participants in all types of CVE programming,
    both CVE specific and CVE relevant in prevention, intervention,
    interdiction, rehabilitation--all aspects of it.
        I would like to emphasize that whereas CVE-relevant
    educational and vocational programs are essential for healthy
    societies, they will actually not be sufficient in eliminating
    extremism without CVE-specific initiatives as well.
        So, in the interests of time, I am going to refer you to my
    written statement on the section on reducing barriers to
    women's participation. I would like to highlight that educating
    women on recognizing the signs of radicalization is actually a
    very good early warning system for communities.
        Also, the need to help women and families of people who are
    violent extremists, whether they have been arrested or dead,
    because what it does is prevents them from sending or
    supporting more of the family members into violent extremism.
        We know that social media is an equalizer for cases where
    women have limited voice because it gives them a way to express
    their views despite society constraints, and we know that in
    countries like Pakistan where 60 percent of the women are
    illiterate, broadcast media has to be used because print media
    will not reach them. So radio and television are very effective
    in reaching the target audience.
        So I would like to conclude by saying that development of
    CVE-specific customized local curriculums have to be used to
    push back against violent extremism in addition to the CVE
    relevant preventative programs, and this combination of both
    CVE-specific and CVE relevant programs has the ability to build
    community resilience, empower women, and counter extremism in
    the long run.
        So in this world where women are often victimized and they
    are oppressed by extremists, it is actually very heartening to
    see that they are able to transform themselves through
    education to be the line of defense against violence and
    extremism.
        And so really supporting increased enrollment in tertiary
    education for the women of Pakistan, through the Malala
    Yousafzai Scholarship Act, is an important step toward
    improving the role and empowering them to become change makers
    in the society.
        So Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Keating, and members of
    the committee, thank you for your attention and I look forward
    to answering any questions that you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Khan follows:]

                                  ----------

      STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN KUEHNAST, PH.D., DIRECTOR, GENDER AND
         PEACEBUILDING CENTER, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

        Ms. Kuehnast. Good morning. I want to thank each of the
    members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and especially
    Chairman Royce, and Subcommittee Ranking Member Keating for
    this opportunity to give testimony.
        My name is Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast. I direct the Center for
    Gender and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of
    Peace. The U.S. Congress created the institute 30 years ago
    with a mandate to prevent, mitigate and resolve violent
    conflicts around the world.
        My statement presented today reflects my own views and does
    not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Peace
    which does not take positions on policy and is prohibited from
    taking positions on legislation.
        I want to make three points related to women and the roles
    in preventing extremist violence. First, there are excellent
    policies already in place to support this effort. Second, good
    work is underway that we can learn from, and third, we can and
    we must shape better and more effective policies for the
    future.
        In light of the discussion today, it is notable that the
    U.S. National Intelligence Committee Council's Global Trends
    2025 report highlights women as agents of geopolitical change
    and predicts that the economic and political empowerment of
    women should transform the global landscape.
        In 2011, President Barack Obama issued an executive order
    that directed the U.S. Government to establish the U.S.
    National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.
        It is mobilizing the different government branches to
    accelerate the integration of women in shaping, making and
    implementing security policy and practice.
        One of the pillars of the plan promotes women's roles in
    conflict prevention and early warning and response systems
    including the roles women play in the prevention of violent
    extremism. The U.S. Institute of Peace is piloting a project in
    Nigeria that emphasizes the importance of women's roles in
    their communities and in their home.
        USIP has learned that training in critical thinking and
    problem-solving skills enables women to combat violent
    extremism at multiple levels in their society. At home, mothers
    are often the first to observe the early warning signs of
    radicalization in their families. While the observation of
    changing or changed behaviors of their children may be
    intuitive, for many, the awareness and understanding of the
    process of radicalization is not. Even if mothers recognize
    radicalization in their children, they often lack skills needed
    to intervene.
        Women need to be equipped and supported in their efforts to
    prevent their children from joining extremist groups and also
    to build their own capacity to reject the influence of
    extremism and violence. Outside the home, at the community
    level women can be voices of tolerance and can provide strong
    counter messages to extremism.
        Specifically, in Jos Plateau, Nigerian women religious
    leaders, both Christian and Muslim, work as mentors in their
    communities. As a result of this training, they have expanded
    their roles to both monitor and provide counseling and guidance
    to vulnerable youth.
        Although the role of women is vital in countering extremist
    violence, the important role that fathers also play in being
    change agents and in supporting their daughters' education
    should be recognized.
        In the case of the brave Malala Yousafzai, her education
    was strongly encouraged by a father who understood that girls
    should be educated for the good of the child and for her
    country, even in a very conservative society. It is clear that
    there is high demand by women for knowledge and skills to
    prevent violent extremism.
        What is needed to shape a responsive effective policies for
    the future? Improved access for women and girls to education so
    that they may develop skills, knowledge and self-confidence
    necessary to be productive participants in their society,
    develop inclusive policy and practices that focus on the role
    that women can play in preventing violence and violent
    extremism, ensure that men are involved in advancing the
    education for girls and women--fathers can play pivotal roles
    in supporting their daughters--and develop collaborative
    partnership among researchers, practitioners and policy makers
    to bridge divides and develop more innovative approaches.
        We know that it is in the interest of the United States to
    continue to support expanded international opportunities of
    women and girls as an investment in national and international
    security and to envision this long-term preventative strategy
    in the global effort to end violent extremism.
        Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Kuehnast follows:]

                                  ----------

        Chairman Royce. Thank you very much.
        One of my friends in the Pakistani-American community had
    shared with me--he is in the IT community--his frustrations
    with governments in South Asia, across South Asia--India,
    Pakistan, et cetera--the amount of money that was allocated for
    education, which I think at the time he was claiming was like 2
    percent, and he was contrasting that with, you know, the arms
    race in terms of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan and the
    fact that the societies, the governments themselves, didn't
    seem to understand that their long-term interests lie with
    educating their population and educating women and providing
    them with the ability to--you know. The question is the
    capacity of governments, I guess, and the willingness of
    governments around the world to recognize that education for
    women and girls is important but also to budget for it.
        And then there is the second question, which I wanted to
    ask our first two panelists, and that is for those governments
    putting money into childhood education, how concerned should we
    be about their capabilities of doing it effectively? So I will
    just ask you that question.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Thank you, Chairman. I actually think it
    is--of course, there is a limited capacity, as you mentioned.
    If the budget is only 2 percent the capacity is obviously going
    to be a bit limited and hopefully with international aid and
    more focus paid on education.
        Chairman Royce. And those were his figures. They are not
    mine. I don't know what the real figures are.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Unfortunately, I don't have that statistic
    with me either.
        Chairman Royce. But it is----
        Ms. Mirahmadi. If it is close----
        Chairman Royce. I think his point is probably true.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. What I am actually really concerned about,
    and I heard some activists from Pakistan here yesterday at the
    Atlantic Council, was the role that nongovernment organizations
    in education play on these communities.
        So ones that are funded from overseas that have alternative
    motives in funding these schools, and the religious schools,
    they may be creating a problem that even if the Central
    Government is trying to solve and create a very strong secular
    educational system we need to be careful about what is going on
    along side it by these other institutions that they don't
    control.
        Chairman Royce. Yeah. I think especially some of the Gulf
    State money that goes into the Deobandi schools. How am I
    supposed to pronounce that? Deo----
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Deobandi, yes. You and I have been talking
    about this for almost two decades now. So----
        Chairman Royce. Well, I have had three trips to Pakistan
    where I have talked unceasingly about this with the government,
    and there are 600 schools, which they admit are problematic,
    and those 600 we have never gotten closed.
        There are, you know, tens of thousands of madrasas that
    educate to some extent, you know, young people in a positive
    way, but there are 600 schools that we know are doing this and
    there isn't the political will to confront that faction, either
    in the legislature or out in--you know, among the support for
    the Taliban to get them closed.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. And I think the problem and I understood
    this from government officials in many countries is that it is
    not just the education that creates the problem. It is the
    sense that these communities provide funding, they provide
    resources, food, social services to the surrounding community--
    --
        Chairman Royce. Right. Right.
        Ms. Mirahmadi [continuing]. In addition to the kids'
    education.
        Chairman Royce. Right.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. That it becomes a real difficult social
    political problem to close that school. Then all those
    resources going to that community are cut.
        Chairman Royce. But that is the insight of the Gulf State
    benefactors, those families who are sending that money because
    they know that that is the way----
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Exactly.
        Chairman Royce [continuing]. Then to pull people in and
    radicalize them.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. The Hamas model.
        Chairman Royce. Ms. Khan.
        Ms. Khan. I think the latest figures for a place like
    Pakistan are slightly less than 2 percent is going toward
    education. So it is actually quite--it is a very bad situation
    for it.
        In terms of where is the most effective money, in studies
    which have been done they found that the level of--moving from
    primary to secondary education, if you can actually have
    secondary education, it actually has a direct impact on the
    risk of conflict in those areas, and there have been places in
    Africa where they have seen it actually dropped by almost half
    if you can actually reduce the education inequality between men
    and women.
        So the need is huge and it actually would have a huge
    impact. Now, are the governments doing it? No. Is there
    political will? Not really, because there is enough other--I
    hate to say excuses, but enough other reasons that they feel
    that there is other concerns that they would like to focus on
    instead.
        Chairman Royce. But you feel that electing more women to
    office in those countries can help drive this agenda of more
    money for education because so much of it is going to be
    allocated to this idea of allowing young women an equal chance
    at education, right?
        Ms. Khan. Necessary part of it, and I think the other part
    is also education reform--the curriculum reform itself across
    all levels. It doesn't matter whether it is primary, secondary
    or tertiary because there are issues around, obviously, some of
    the problematic madrasas.
        But at the base level, there needs to be educational
    curriculum reform across the system to reduce the general level
    of the sense of hate mongering which is happening in many
    places.
        Chairman Royce. So an anti-Western curriculum, to pick one
    example, might be a problem that you have seen in some of the
    textbooks themselves in South Asia?
        Ms. Khan. It is--yeah. It is things which you need--we need
    curriculums which promote social cohesion rather than actually
    emphasizing difference and conflict. And so that has to
    permeate curriculums across the board, not just in madrasas.
        Chairman Royce. One of the things that I have seen that is
    pretty inspirational is--especially out of the physician
    community when you have graduates of, you know, women or men
    who have doctorates here in the Unites States, they tend to be
    tremendously successful in the West and the amount of time and
    effort they give back to, you know, their education, to their
    medical schools or to setting up schools in Pakistan, for
    example.
        That is where I think a lot of the insights can come from
    in terms of people who are enormously successful here and yet
    are having a hard time figuring out how to work with USAID or
    our Government in order to leverage their expertise and their
    hard-earned dollars that they contribute back in order to try
    to improve society and/or try to increase education and so
    forth.
        I wonder how we could better get USAID to work with the
    diaspora or with the community here in the United States in
    meeting these challenges and maybe leveraging these dollars and
    so forth.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Actually, it is something I mentioned in my
    written testimony, that we need more cooperation between our
    Government bodies and the diaspora community. And I know there
    has been several attempts, and the USAID has a particular
    office that handled that, but knowing some people that had
    participated in those conversations, it is often just a very
    simple discussion.
        It doesn't get to concrete examples of how to move these
    initiatives forward, and I know it happened right before, like
    this one RFP was coming out and it ended up a $200 million RFP,
    and the community responded that there is no way any of us can
    absorb that kind of an RFP.
        You know, if you want us to help and you want us to suggest
    schools, none of us are capable of that level of commitment and
    that responsibility. So, I think the relationship kind of broke
    apart at that point, but it is important to notice that.
        Chairman Royce. I am trying to set up a dialogue with USAID
    and I wondered if you could assist me with that on this
    subject.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Of course.
        Chairman Royce. We are going to bring in----
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I would be happy to.
        Chairman Royce [continuing]. Representative communities. I
    thank you very much. My time has expired. Mr. Keating.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on
    the thread that the chairman had started. Obviously, the U.S.
    is not the only country or group that understands the value of
    working to empower people through education and through
    welfare, and extremist organizations are also operating at the
    local welfare and educational level as well.
        I want to follow up to see what can be done to compete with
    this? Because they are taking a vulnerable population, young
    people, and indoctrinating them with extremism types of
    thought. What can we do to deal with that?
        Because it is not just us wanting to move forward in these
    countries. We are competing in some instances with extremist
    groups that are doing the same thing. Anyone can----
        Ms. Kuehnast. I will answer. Based on my work in Central
    Asia, I was on the ground when the Soviet Union fell apart and
    I watched exactly what you are talking about. They are
    masterful at ground work.
        The first thing that they did is they taught English
    skills. They taught really practical skills that people on the
    ground needed, where the Western countries were primarily
    focused on trying to institutionalize from the top down. They
    were working from the bottom up.
        I think we need to somehow, as we are dealing with
    societies in deep transition or coming out of conflict, we have
    to keep both parts of this change in our focal point. It is
    harder to measure the ground.
        You need people like social scientists on the ground to be
    able to track this. But it is incredibly important if you want
    to make headway and to provide the skills, and in some cases it
    is food, education, clothing--basic needs in transitional
    situations.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I think another--of course, the extremists
    are recruiting, and they are using religion. So the antidote
    will be religion.
        So the difficult part comes as the United States doesn't do
    religion so it is a very complicated position to be in, though
    I really believe that, and this is from many, many activists if
    not hundreds in Pakistan that run mainstream religious
    institutions and organizations, that they need the skills and
    the resources to compete.
        In other words, if there is a mainstream madrasa right down
    the street in Multan from an extremist Deobandi madrasa he
    needs computers to be able to draw students. He needs English
    language books to be able to compete with him and these are
    small amounts of money.
        But in order to have the capacity to serve students and
    attract them, he needs to be able to compete with those
    madrasas. And so it is just us being able to invest in
    religion, and that makes us uncomfortable.
        Mr. Keating. Ms. Khan had mentioned the difficulty, you
    know, disproportionately women are illiterate, and it is so
    hard to communicate the message.
        Now, what are the better ways? I know we have, you know,
    Radio Free Europe, Voice of America. We have social networking.
    Now, how do you help particularly women who are
    disproportionately illiterate--get that message to them?
        Ms. Khan. So now this is going to be very, very context
    specific, because in a place like Pakistan you have very
    limited permeation of the Internet and social media.
        So what you are limited to in most cases is actually mobile
    technology, which means you have your voice broadcast, you have
    your audio, your radio, your TV--again, very influential in
    those societies for sending out messages and that has been done
    and is being done.
        But then you also have anything which can be text-based,
    which is coming off of phones, and there are certain groups on
    the ground in Pakistan who are actually using those to put out
    messages promoting peace and against violence.
        If I may actually go back to the previous question a little
    bit as well is that this is a place where the role of women, if
    you can actually get them educated or at least be able to start
    earning an income, it actually changes the dynamics of the
    family structures, and they are actually empowered to start
    questioning their family members who might be going down toward
    extremism.
        So it is not just that they are earning money, but the
    status and their rank and those dynamics have a huge impact.
    And so when you get education into it, and you can get the
    messaging into them, what you are doing is, one, their status
    is raised--they are empowered.
        But then they are also--if you can give them the content
    with which to question, right, and if they are able to question
    at the very beginning of the signs of radicalization, it is a
    lot more effective, and this is not just a women's program. It
    has to be community based for the communities around, not just
    that family, but around them to support that structure too.
        Mr. Keating. Well, that leads me, lastly--and we are
    running out of time so--but specifically older women. I know we
    are gearing in on education and the effect of women who have
    children that are at an early age for education.
        You were touching upon this. How do we get to the older
    women who are beyond that stage and empower them? Because they
    have a very important role as well.
        Ms. Khan. Face to face. Face to face. We need more women on
    the ground because sometimes women are the only ones who
    actually have access to women in those communities.
        So you need to have the women who are going to say this is
    going to be my drive, my cause, and they will be the ones who
    will create those safe spaces for education. And I talk about
    education in the general sense but for CVE-specific
    programming. We need women empowered to do CVE-specific
    programming on the ground.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Steve Chabot of
    Ohio.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
    calling this hearing. Promoting women's education throughout
    the world is incredibly important. I think we would all agree
    to that.
        As the witnesses have noted, countries within South Asia
    face some of the most challenging barriers to girls' education
    and poverty is a central reason why millions of girls still
    miss out on school.
        Many of these countries, for example, Pakistan, India,
    Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, also face socio-cultural
    factors that further limit girls' accessibility to education.
    When we discuss how to increase educational and economic
    opportunities for women in these countries, I believe it is
    important for us to also address how we define success in basic
    education because these countries have their own definition
    sometimes of that term.
        How they define success impacts the quality of education
    these millions of girls are offered. Could the witnesses
    discuss that issue, how we should be defining success and how
    in many instances in those countries it may not be what we
    typically think it ought to be if we really want to educate
    these young women to what their future may hold? Ms. Kuehnast.
        Ms. Kuehnast. Yes, thank you very much. Defining success,
    as my colleague here talked about, is context specific. I don't
    think we can dictate what is notions of social cultural ideals
    and ideas about what is successful for a girl or a boy.
        I think some of the success though does come in the fact
    that we begin to allow the space, even ideologically, that
    girls are worthy of education and that is a harder social
    cultural notion to shift. That is why fathers are pretty
    critical in this story board.
        We need them to also be part of the change process. Part of
    the change agency is to engage that whole of community and, in
    that perspective, help to develop intrinsic sense of what it is
    to be successful in their respective village, community, state.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Since time is relatively brief for
    us I am going to address my second question to the other two
    panelists, if that is okay.
        Another of the obstacles facing girls in getting an
    education is fear of potential molestation and harassment on
    the way to and from school. This greatly impacts their school
    attendance, access to school, their learning, and their
    achievement.
        Regardless of their age, girls and women in many Middle
    Eastern and South Asian cultures cannot even leave their
    household without an adult male family member, for example. We
    have all heard stories about women who have not done it that
    way and ended up suffering from sometimes brutal attacks.
        As a way to combat this obstacle, Pakistan, for example,
    undertook a measure to provide scouts to accompany girls and I
    was wondering if anyone knew if that works, or are there other
    countries who find ways around some of these cultural barriers
    and get past the very destructive belief that investing in
    education for girls to be a waste of resources and,
    unfortunately, that is a view that is held sometimes in these
    countries. So if I could perhaps ask Doctor and Ms. Khan also
    to respond to that.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I am not particularly familiar with the
    success of the scout program or not, but I know community
    policing is a valuable tool in our toolbox. Basically there are
    some difficult relationships to negotiate between communities
    and their police, and I know our Government and many
    governments are investing a lot in teaching them community
    policing models and the importance of them being responsive to
    their populations.
        So I think in the cities in which we have done community
    policing training there is increased success in the protection
    of women especially because they are part of those training
    modules.
        So I think expanding and elaborating our community policing
    models to make sure they protect the rights of women and girls,
    and especially going to school and getting an education and
    being able to come to and from work as well, will be an
    important contribution.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Ms. Khan.
        Ms. Khan. Pakistan has started a scheme which is called the
    Pink Busses, and the idea is to allow transportation which is
    specific--it is gender segregated so women are actually not
    harassed and they can actually get from Point A to Point B.
        Definitely the lack of--the limited access to
    transportation to education is a factor and this is, again, one
    of those schemes which has had limited success because of
    resources, but they keep--it is enough of a need that they are
    trying to reinvest in those programs again and again.
        There are several other countries which have actually done
    things like having gender segregated parks or public
    transportation to allow--you know, to facilitate access.
        But in terms of changing minds, right, these are
    patriarchal societies, and so the people whose opinions have to
    be impacted are the men, right, and so there is an education
    aspect which has to be directed toward the men in the society
    about no, it is important for the women to be educated, and it
    should not be a threat to them that the women are actually
    educated.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts.
        Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
    Congressman Keating as well for pulling this very important
    hearing together. First off to the witnesses, thank you for
    being here. Thank you for your testimony. Most importantly,
    thank you for what you do. It is extraordinarily important
    work. It is very difficult work and we are grateful for your
    commitment to development around the world.
        I was a former Peace Corps volunteer. You learn pretty
    quickly that if you want to get anything done, you go to the
    women in the community. So it is a lesson that I learned first
    hand, and if you actually turn around I think you will notice
    that given the gender dynamics of the room, I think I counted
    six men in the audience that weren't staff members. So I am
    glad to know that that lesson is still alive and well in the
    halls of Capitol Hill.
        If I am kind of understanding your testimony and your
    answers to the questions a bit, yes, money and financial
    resources are certainly a constraint. They are always going to
    be a constraint.
        But also you are running up against history. You are
    running up against traditions. You are running up against
    longstanding, not even institutionalized, but just deep-rooted
    feelings about how things go and how things are done.
        That is made all the more concrete and all the more
    strengthened, I guess, in sections of the world, even in
    countries where their access to institutions or institutional
    players are virtually nonexistent.
        Whereas, I think one of you pointed out, religion is
    sometimes the only or the strongest institution that is
    present, and in communities that are in either post-conflict or
    coming out of conflict and stability, people go with who they
    know and what they know.
        And unless you have a long and sustained presence on the
    ground just to be able to build that trust, it is awfully hard
    to take on some of these challenges and entrenched, literally
    deep-held and deep-rooted beliefs that go back generations if
    not longer. And so I wanted to get your thoughts--you touched a
    little bit on that bottom down versus--excuse me, bottom up
    versus top down strategy.
        What from a policy perspective should we be doing to
    strengthen that and if you can--I view this as part of a much
    larger strategy. You need to keep doing what you are doing.
        We need to be far more supportive of what you do but trying
    to plug away at this in a vacuum, just supporting what you do,
    I am not so sure we are going to get you where you need to go
    unless we are also focusing on the context in which you are
    operating.
        So if you could just fill out that picture a little bit I
    would be grateful.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. So I mentioned briefly the concept of USAID
    and the size of their grants, and I know--I have heard they
    have been trying to adjust that. I don't know how far they have
    gotten.
        But empowering local communities requires them to have
    access to resources, so even if it is not reducing the size, it
    is just making our larger organizations partner with more
    organizations, basically providing smaller grants to local
    partners.
        So being able to resource these community efforts, and as I
    also mentioned using our power as a facilitator to convene some
    of these people that are doing great work around the world, to
    talk about their best practices and be able to give those
    projects a global reach.
        For example, Dr. Edah Schleffer does the Mothers Schools.
    So she takes cities, you know, and goes across cities from
    across India and Yemen and Nigeria and telling--and creating a
    network whereby women can learn to intervene in cases where
    there children have been radicalized. So that experience of a
    mother of Pakistan is absolutely relevant to the experience of
    a mother in Nigeria.
        So using our power as a convener and as a facilitator is
    very important as well. And then also just being able to give a
    floor and an audience to people that are doing community work
    so those lessons learned can be applied in other countries.
        Mr. Kennedy. Ms. Khan.
        Ms. Khan. So I agree with everything Hedieh said, without a
    doubt. I think one other thing which is important in terms of
    for programming itself is that we have to think about it in
    terms of long-term perspective.
        You are trying to change people--the way people think, some
    of the cultural norms perhaps but more so the values, right.
    You are trying to instill a sense of what is right and wrong,
    you know, more on peace, less on conflict.
        This takes time. So when you end up in a situation where
    programs are funded and these annual--you know, there is annual
    funding and the question is the program itself needs to run for
    several years.
        Sometimes the cycle of funding and the cycles for
    evaluation the MOEs and MOPs can actually hinder the
    implementation of the programming itself. So just like in
    development--infrastructure development projects they span
    years.
        We have to think about women's education, especially in
    this realm, in the same way. This is not a short-term thing.
    This is a long-term commitment which requires everyone to play
    a part.
        Mr. Kennedy. Thank you. Doctor, if you can, briefly.
        Ms. Kuehnast. Very briefly, I wanted to say in terms of the
    policy-shaping story board, one of the things we want is
    definitely best practices, but we need lessons learned. We did
    an assessment on women's programming in Iraq and Afghanistan
    and we found three things that need to be considered.
        We need to step outside the urban area and not only deal
    with elite women but also rural or agriculturally-based
    communities. We need to engage religious leaders in these
    change processes and, finally, we actually--and this came
    through all of these assessments we did--we have to engage men
    in the training as well.
        We are not going to change a whole of society by only
    focusing on women as perhaps the victims or the problems here.
    We need to change minds and hearts as a community.
        Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
    for the extra time.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. George Holding of North Carolina.
        Mr. Holding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Having the school programs for girls and women in
    Afghanistan and Pakistan is one side of the coin but, you know,
    making sure that the security situation in those countries is
    in such a state to allow them to achieve their mission.
        You know, my colleague, Mr. Chabot, mentioned some parts of
    the security situation but, you know, with the draw down of
    forces in Afghanistan and the region overall our withdrawal,
    you know, I am concerned about the security situation. The
    chairman mentioned the threat of, you know, groups such as the
    Taliban to these schools--you know, suicide bombers, you name
    it, trying to eradicate these schools by violence and any means
    necessary.
        Do you think the security situation will be such to allow
    the schools to carry out their mission? And I will let whoever
    wants to address that first to go ahead.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Well, I presented our members--I hope you
    had a copy of our report on Afghanistan post-2014 but,
    according to our researchers and the field work we did, the
    security concern is more for Westerners than it is for locals
    in the sense that though schools do get attacked but life goes
    on in Afghanistan.
        And so it is very important for us, as our military budget
    in Afghanistan decreases, that we increase our civil society
    budget, empowering civil society leaders and communities to do
    their grassroots programming and continue education and
    programs for women that they do well and have done for years
    since we have been investing there.
        So I think we have to understand a certain risk will be
    inherent in these activities. But life for the most part will
    go on for Afghanis, and we have to continue that investment for
    our national security interests. We don't want to just hand the
    country back over to the Taliban.
        Mr. Holding. Right. But, you know, the security concern
    itself--I mean, just yesterday a suicide bomber took out six
    Afghan police officers at a police station. So you think about
    a police station as a target, it should probably be a pretty
    hard target, you would think.
        A school might be a soft target. So there is very real
    security concerns there and yes, you could just imagine the
    horror at a massacre at a school for girls--being massacred for
    doing precisely what you encourage them to do.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I can tell you a bigger fear in Afghanistan
    is that the United States would turn its back. So more than
    they fear the roadside bomb, they fear that we will no longer
    be interested in them. So I think it is really important for us
    to stay focused on these civil society initiatives.
        Mr. Holding. So, I mean, a draw down of our forces--
    military forces in Afghanistan, I mean, what message is that
    sending to the people that you are talking about?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. They are very concerned. I mean, across the
    country they were very concerned about what the draw down
    means. So though, of course, they want the skirmishes to stop
    but they are most concerned with whether that means we will no
    longer have an interest in their future and their prosperity
    and their----
        Mr. Holding. Right. It is just hard for me to see if we
    draw down our military presence in Afghanistan, how you can
    continue with a--you know, civil society programs without the
    military there to protect the programs.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I am sorry, but I beg to differ. A lot of
    these communities are doing really, really well without our
    military intervention and being able to continue these
    programs, especially outside of Kabul. So I have a very strong
    sense that they would be able to continue, assuming that they
    have the resources to continue.
        Mr. Holding. Good. Glad to hear it. Mr. Chairman, I yield
    back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Holding.
        We go to Dr. Ami Bera of California.
        Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
    witnesses. Everything you say is buried in my own story. My mom
    emigrated from India in the 1950s, went to school in the '40s
    as a female. It was unheard of in her village but only was
    allowed to do so because she had a father that thought it was
    important.
        So I think it is incredibly important and then had a father
    that supported her, emigrating to the United States to continue
    her education along with my father. I am the youngest of three
    boys.
        My mom became a public school teacher, and this is
    incredibly personal as a father of a daughter as well. You
    know, when I returned to India in August as a Member of
    Congress we had a chance to visit an organization in Mumbai
    called SNEHA. It is run by professional women, focused on the
    slums in Mumbai, and they specifically pointed out in our
    conversation that one of their key strategies is to work with
    boys.
        And I think all three of you mentioned the importance of
    getting to men--to boys early and over time, changing the value
    and the culture of how they view girls and women. Certainly,
    they are working with girls but I would not under estimate that
    just focusing on girls will not lead to the long-term change
    that we would like to see and I would be curious both in
    Pakistan and Afghanistan as well, if you want to expand on
    that. Maybe, Doctor, you could start.
        Ms. Kuehnast. Certainly. This has been something that has
    come out of our research--that women's programming inclusive of
    girls is more successful when men are engaged and are change
    agents in the process.
        I would say also societies coming out of a violent conflict
    are particularly vulnerable to this concept of hyper
    masculinities where they have a gun, and it helps establish
    their status.
        How do we start unlearning that kind of violence? That is a
    whole set of educational training processes, that include
    curriculum change, that is vital for a new identity of what it
    means to be a really holistic man in society beyond the gun in
    which once their identity was established. It goes hand in hand
    as a holistic society.
        Mr. Bera. Ms. Khan, would you like to expand on that?
        Ms. Khan. Again, I agree with Dr. Kuehnast entirely. I
    think because we are trying to change all of society,
    necessarily the young boys have to be included. But that is
    actually a place where mothers are very influential, right,
    because they are the ones who--for the first formative years
    are the ones who are--they are the ones who--they are the
    guardians of culture and social norms, right.
        So they are actually able to impart those values, right,
    which means they have to learn it themselves, that actually
    women's education is important, that the young man who is going
    to grow up has to recognize it is important for his sisters,
    for the women around him, and he has to be a part of helping
    that.
        Your mother's story, your story, is actually very similar
    to mine. The reason I was able to come here when I was 16 to
    start university was because my father was behind it. There is
    no way it would have happened without full support that okay,
    no, education is important enough for you to take--you know, to
    break social norms and make that difference.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. One Nigerian activist said the home is the
    first school and the mother is the first teacher. So, again, as
    my colleagues have said, it is very important to be dealing
    with both sides of the population at once and to make sure that
    the women are empowered and educated and being able to
    influence their children and then being able to influence the
    dynamic in their home and thereby within their communities. So
    I think both genders are very, very important to further this
    agenda.
        Mr. Bera. Great. Since I am short on time another aspect
    that we have had a hearing on in our subcommittee is on sex-
    selective abortion and really moving it out of the realm of
    reproductive rights but into the realm of really educating
    populations on the value and worth of girls as well. And that
    probably is more of a public relations effort and, you know,
    certainly, in India you are seeing some of it. Do you have any
    recommendations on that or thoughts on, again, how you change
    that value?
        Ms. Kuehnast. Well, both in talking about security and then
    this point that you bring up, in some ways we lack imagination
    in the way that we can use technology and social platforms for
    productive means. I think that we sometimes overfocus on the
    security side without being imaginative to how to get around
    these problems.
        And, certainly, when it comes to education we have
    opportunities through cell phones, through other means and,
    certainly, television and radio. I think, you know, we don't
    think enough about that kind of public relations.
        Mr. Bera. Right. Thank you, and thanks for helping us
    imagine.
        Chairman Royce. We are going to go now to Randy Weber of
    Texas.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Mirahmadi--is that
    how you say that? You said that in some of your comments that
    the extremists use religion and then, if I got it down
    correctly, you followed that up by saying the antidote is
    religion. Then you followed that with the problem is United
    States doesn't use religion. Dear God, what are we doing?
        What--if the antidote is religion what does that look like?
    You said the United States doesn't use religion. Expound on
    that. Would you prefer--expound on that.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. No, I have no intention of changing the
    Constitution. England does religion but the issue----
        Mr. Weber. Well, the Constitution doesn't prevent us from
    using religion. Let me just make sure we get that out there. Go
    ahead.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Okay. Well, it is just that the manipulation
    of ideology is within the context of religion, so the response
    to that manipulation and deviation is the correct
    interpretation of their religion, and in order to do that we
    need to empower a certain segment of the society, religious
    leaders, faith leaders, to be able to impart that proper
    narrative to their communities.
        They already are doing it. They are just competing against
    some of these extremists and deviant institutions. So it would
    be useful if the United States was a little more comfortable in
    allowing them to do what it is they already do and be able to
    do programming in that department.
        But over the years--I have been doing this 20 years--and
    over the years I have just heard a number of discussions about
    how that is just something the U.S. is not comfortable in
    doing.
        So parts of Europe, I know, do all these kind of
    programming quite regularly but that is just not something that
    we are necessarily comfortable with. I know USIP also had some
    faith leader engagement and some programs that Dr. Kuehnast can
    talk to. But maybe over time we will understand how important
    ideology is in this threat and we will find ways--innovative
    ways of being able to empower the counter narrative.
        Mr. Weber. Well, that is a fascinating idea. You are saying
    that there are those who are already countering that religious
    extremism.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Absolutely.
        Mr. Weber. How are they doing that?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. As I mentioned, with the proper
    interpretation of religion----
        Mr. Weber. All right. Give us that proper interpretation.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. So, for example, jihad. Is jihad valid? Is
    jihad in the country against civilians valid? The mainstream
    teacher says no, it is not. There is no declaration of jihad by
    the state authority. These are noncombatants. We cannot kill
    them.
        There are very valid mainstream interpretations. We have
    written a lot about these that are out there, that they are
    trying to promulgate. But they don't have the resources
    compared to the extremist groups. They are outfunded,
    outmanned.
        Mr. Weber. Are these teachers in the educational system or
    are these teachers in the mosques and the different religious
    organizations?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. A lot of them run religious institutions in
    these countries. But some of them are university professors and
    are in other institutions as well, in CSOs--in civil society
    organizations, outside of religion.
        Mr. Weber. Is this a growing trend?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I would like to think so. We are a lot
    better off than we were 20 years ago. There is a lot more
    people empowered with those counter narratives and willing to
    have the courage to speak up. Because, remember, in these
    countries that is dangerous. That is a dangerous business. But
    I believe we are better off than we were 20 years ago toward
    this threat.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you. Ms. Khan, do you agree with her
    statement that the antidote is religion?
        Ms. Khan. I think there is a role for religion to be played
    when you are talking about for the antidote for ideologically
    inspired extremism. Extremism, or engagement in violent
    extremism, happens for many different reasons and not all of
    them are ideological, right. It comes through--people get
    involved in kinship. There is multiple reasons why people
    engage.
        Mr. Weber. But would you say that most of them come through
    religious extremism?
        Ms. Khan. No, actually. I would disagree with that and that
    is where it becomes very context specific because you have
    certain areas where, because a family member is involved,
    therefore he or she is able to pull in other family members and
    then network into it, and the reason they get initiated into it
    is not because of ideology but because of kinship ties.
        Now, they might get indoctrinated post-involvement in the
    group but it happens afterwards. So because radicalization or
    the ideological radicalization is not the starting point in all
    of them, it is, again, a very contextual thing. Now----
        Mr. Weber. Okay. Thank you. I want to go over here.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. That is absolutely correct what she said.
        Mr. Weber. What she said.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I didn't mean it is not the only factor.
        Mr. Weber. No, I got that.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Ideology and theology is not the only factor
    at all.
        Mr. Weber. And is it Dr.--pronounce your last name.
    Kuehnast--weigh in on that. What is your thought?
        Ms. Kuehnast. On the antidote?
        Mr. Weber. Mm-hmm.
        Ms. Kuehnast. Well, I would say that I agree with Ms. Khan
    here that if we are talking about violent extremism that it is
    maybe one part of the narrative that we should focus in on.
        I do think that there are ways that peacebuilding and
    peacemaking can be a part of the narrative. We can train and
    expose leaders of religious faith to these other narratives
    about peacebuilding. This is something that we have worked on
    at the Institute of Peace for 20 years to bring religious
    leaders together to understand through a peacebuilding lens
    versus a religious lens what it means to listen, to cooperate
    and build a peaceful community.
        Mr. Weber. Do you teach in that process a respect for the
    sanctity of life?
        Ms. Kuehnast. Do we teach--I am not a trainer in that but
    we teach to----
        Mr. Weber. I mean, if you are going to have peace, I mean,
    isn't the ultimate goal not to kill somebody else? That is not
    very peaceful.
        Ms. Kuehnast. Training is really focused on building
    healthy communities, healthy families, and sustaining peaceful
    processes of that community.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you.
        Chairman Royce. We are going to have to go, I think, to Mr.
    Cicilline of Rhode Island.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very
    much to our witnesses for your testimony. As you know, in many
    areas some of the most extreme organizations, or extremist
    organizations, often provide important social services and act
    as local welfare and education agencies, and I wondered if you
    sort of recognized that that presents special challenges in
    terms of not ensuring a particularly young and vulnerable
    generation of girls and young women become radicalized, if you
    have seen good examples of policy around that, what we should
    do as, you know, in our relationships with these organizations
    or these countries. Have there been some countries that have
    done that successfully and provided good educational
    opportunities and separated it from the kind of radicalization
    that the underlying organization promotes? And I don't know
    if--start with you, Doctor.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. It is a very complicated problem. You see
    now with Egypt, you see in Palestine, in Lebanon, separating
    the social welfare component of these organizations is very
    difficult and, quite frankly, I haven't seen models of it being
    done well.
        One of the recommendations we make quite often is teaching
    the mainstream secular prominent CSOs in disaster humanitarian
    relief in terms of when there is a flood or some other kind of
    natural disaster so it is not just the extremist groups that
    are on the ground but also developing social welfare components
    of their institutions.
        So they need to understand how effective this model is and
    be empowered to do the same. So I think so far that has been
    our best recommendation, especially from activists on the
    ground.
        Mr. Cicilline. Ms. Khan.
        Ms. Khan. Examples--good examples, well, perhaps not that
    many. I think one thing I would like to highlight is that there
    are certainly NGOs who are working on the ground who are trying
    to provide some of the social welfare instead of the extremist
    organizations.
        But in those contexts you have to recognize that they are
    going to be entering a space where there are extremists in
    those communities, which means in certain cases NGOs are very
    restricted in what they can or cannot do because of legal
    constraints. Because if you are engaging with a particular
    community where some of the people, for example, might be a
    family member of someone who has engaged in violence, they
    don't want to have to worry about issues of where it is now you
    are providing material support for terrorism. So there is
    actually--it ends up being a very scary space for certain, at
    least external, NGOs to operate.
        Local NGOs are able to work that better and I think there
    is a need to actually work with a lot of the locals who are
    able to navigate some of those spaces. But in terms of the
    social welfare, I mean, everyone has that arm, right?
        [Foreign language spoken] they are not--they claim they are
    not a terrorist organization but LET is. It is very messy.
        Mr. Cicilline. Yes. Doctor.
        Ms. Kuehnast. I think some of the best examples that I have
    seen actually aren't about the counter narrative. They are
    about skill sets. One group is Peace Through Business that work
    with Afghan and Rwandan women.
        Learning a trade, learning a skill, learning how to
    actually produce something that then you can build into a
    business is an incredibly empowering process. It creates
    inherent leadership in that community and creates a different
    imagination for what is possible for both boys and girls, men
    and women.
        And I think sometimes we can overfocus on the issue and not
    think about other spaces that can counter those kind of
    narratives. A great example is building skills like business
    skills for women.
        Mr. Cicilline. And I don't have a lot of time left and if
    you have thoughts about this that you can't provide today, I
    would love to hear them at some future time. But it seems to me
    the other challenge we face is that women and girls are very
    often seen very active in kind of the grassroots efforts in a
    lot of countries that we are speaking about and the question
    about how we see more women in senior positions of
    responsibility in government and at the negotiating table and,
    you know, in places where their presence will be noticed among
    the group that they are in but also in the larger community and
    what strategies we might support to help advance women in those
    important senior positions would be particularly helpful, I
    think. Yes.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I think making sure they are on the guest
    list. So I know when government offices are arranging
    conferences or participating, include more female activists and
    speakers, and so eventually when we help elevate their profile
    and other countries elevate their profile they become players.
        And I think that their own governments then also begin to
    recognize them. And remember, a lot of Muslim countries do have
    women leaders and women in politics--Pakistan, in particular,
    Bangladesh. So it isn't a stretch to include women. I think it
    is just the rest of us being conscious of including them in the
    peace processes and especially in counter terrorism and
    security as well.
        Mr. Cicilline. Good suggestion. Thank you. I yield back,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline. We go now to Lois
    Frankel of Florida.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for
    bringing this issue today. Thank you to the panel. It has been
    very interesting. Malala was here in Washington last year, and
    she is a very courageous young lady and very inspiring.
        But I have a number of questions that I would like to ask
    you. So first of all, I think it is quite obvious that more
    women will be mothers than just leaders, so my first question
    would be, does any of your research show a correlation between
    mothers being educated and having extremist children?
        There was a comment about the importance of the curriculum
    being a certain type of curriculum. I think one of you made
    mention of that, and Pakistan, I think, has 175 million people.
    Is that correct? More than that.
        So I wanted to get your sense of the impact of these kind
    of scholarships we are going to be talking about today because
    I think we all agree it is fair--it is only fair that women get
    at least half.
        But the question I have for you is what do you think the
    impact of the scholarships are and what would you say would be
    some of your top initiatives--some other things that we can do
    in addition to scholarships? Any one of you could start.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. So I am sorry. The question about being
    educated and having extremist kids meaning that if they were
    educated they would not have extremist kids? Okay.
        Ms. Frankel. Yes.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. I presume that is what you meant. But I
    don't know of any studies about actually how many were able to
    decrease the radicalization of their children, but there are
    definitely studies which I cite in my written testimony about
    the impact that educated women will have on preventing the
    radicalization of their children. So it is very, very
    important, and I stress secular and mainstream religious
    education.
        So it is important for them not only to understand, you
    know, the secular sciences and to be educated and knowledgeable
    women but to also understand that when their kid, you know, is
    moving toward a radicalized interpretation of the faith they
    can recognize it and be able to interdict.
        Ms. Frankel. Let me just stop you for 1 second. Are you
    saying that if women are steered toward the wrong kind of
    education it will not have the effect that we would like? In
    other words, if it is not mainstream religious, if it is not
    secular, that it could have a detrimental effect?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Well, I mean, as I mentioned in my testimony
    about the soft radicalization of women, this is a phenomenon
    that I have described to others that women who are taught a
    very--a deviant or austere or very rigid interpretation of the
    religion, they can pass that on to their children.
        So they won't--they will not be--they will be perpetrators
    and helpers rather than interdictors. So we definitely want to
    understand the quality and the kind of education that they are
    getting. That is definitely important.
        And then the curricula that I mentioned in particular,
    because Humera also mentioned curricula, was that we needed to
    have tolerant peacebuilding curricula like the one that Dr.
    Amina is doing in Lahore, is emphasizing the importance of a
    cross cultural education.
        In fact, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has also talked
    about this--having respect for societal pluralism, respect for
    other denominations, religions and races, that this kind of
    tolerance is an important part of curricula, secular or
    religious.
        Ms. Frankel. Did someone want to comment on the
    effectiveness of merit and need-based scholarships?
        Ms. Khan. Anytime you can get more women educated that is a
    good thing. It helps society. There is nowhere--you know, it
    just helps society and it actually does have--it has secondary
    and tertiary impacts also. Just the benefits are numerous,
    right.
        There is no question about that. I think one thing which
    would really help, or in addition to the scholarships, is if
    part of the scholarship can also require a commitment back into
    the community. So it is not just that they get educated--they
    get the education--but some sort of commitment that they will
    actually serve their communities in particular and, again, that
    will come back to in terms of what are the areas that the
    scholarships are available for, right, and what are we trying
    to actually promote.
        Because you can have women--you know, you can talk about
    you want more women to do--to become teachers but you can also
    have women who will eventually end up in leadership roles or in
    politics or there is different types of topics or subject areas
    that you would emphasize depending on how you would like to in
    the long term channel the empowerment of women.
        Ms. Kuehnast. And I would like to pick up on that idea of
    what I would call ``paying it forward'' in terms of the
    scholarships, that the recipients of the scholarship are also
    committed to giving back in some sort of way to their community
    and providing mentorship to others so that you really spread
    the access of the knowledge of that particular person among
    many.
        I have actually seen it working in action, again, through
    the Peace Through Business. It is a profound way of getting
    these kind of resources stretched over many people but also
    over time. You want this to last a while.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you. Mr. Chair, would that--these sound
    like very good suggestions. Is that something that this
    committee could entertain as this legislation moves forward?
        Chairman Royce. Absolutely, Ms. Frankel, and remember we
    have a markup following the hearing. Okay.
        Thank you. We are going to go to Tulsa Gabbard of Hawaii.
        Ms. Gabbard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Aloha and good
    morning. Thank you for being here and for speaking so candidly
    about the work that you are doing and the effects that you are
    seeing and also talking about where we can and need to be doing
    more.
        I have three questions I am going to try to ask quickly and
    see if you can try to address them. Just following up on Mr.
    Holding's questions about the necessity of security going
    forward when there is NGO work or work that is still being done
    on the ground, knowing that our military presence from
    Afghanistan is diminishing greatly.
        My second question is with regards to the female engagement
    teams in Afghanistan, in particular, what kind of impacts do
    you think that they have had? And lastly, as you are looking at
    communicating with these different generations of women what
    are some of the different approaches that you are taking, for
    example, with, you know, young girls--girls who are growing up,
    going through high school or young women, as opposed to the
    generation before them of their mothers and grandmothers where,
    you know, as a 16-year-old you might be very active perhaps in
    social media whereas, you know, their mothers or grandmothers
    would view things and be empowered in a completely different
    way.
        Dr. Mirahmadi, I will let you start. Thank you.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. So security going forward, this is going to
    be a difficult problem, especially for U.S.-based NGOs working
    in Afghanistan. So one of the suggestions that we have put in
    our report that you should have on the table is about hiring
    and using local NGOs to facilitate the M&E, monitoring and
    evaluation and implementation, because, as I mentioned,
    Afghans--for Afghans this is business as usual--life will go
    on--and they really need our continued attention and focus on
    building that infrastructure, continuing in the capacity
    building of civil society, and they really would like to see
    those initiatives continue. So----
        Ms. Gabbard. On that, you know, there has been a lot of
    talk and concern about corruption within the government there.
    Is their level of confidence greater in these local NGOs than
    there is in government?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it is a
    different dynamic between the local communities and what
    happens in Kabul. So they also have a lot of mistrust of the
    Central Government.
        So I think it is a--there are a lot of--and actually we
    have done a report that lists 100 potential CSOs that are
    partners--potential partners for the United States. We have
    actually vetted these organizations to provide them as possible
    alternative partners, and they do have--I mean, they don't have
    the fiscal good governance and some of the structures that we
    would like to see as an American-based organization, but if we
    build their capacity a bit I am sure we can get there and they
    could be a very valuable resource for our projects going
    forward.
        And then one other thing I would comment on is the
    difference between the youth and the older generations. Of
    course, the older generations are worried about their kids and
    their grandkids. So it is always effective to reach out to them
    in terms of being that first line of defense for their
    children.
        But with young people I find they are very focused on
    empowerment and leadership. So they want to learn from us how
    to be better leaders and how to learn to be leaders in their
    communities and in their societies, whether it is political or
    at the community level.
        So I think empowering them in that way is very important.
    And then Internet safety--teaching them responsible uses of the
    Internet, understanding digital citizenship, understanding that
    what they put out there stays with them forever and that the
    comments that they post and what they allow people to post back
    is relevant too. So those are things that we----
        Ms. Gabbard. Thank you. Dr. Kuehnast, do you have anything
    to add?
        Ms. Kuehnast. I would like to comment on your question
    about the female engagement teams in Afghanistan. About a year
    and a half ago at the U.S. Institute of Peace, we hosted an
    off-the-record discussion with members of the various
    militaries on the FETs and it proved to be very interesting.
        I think overall many who were female engagement team
    members found it a very enriching experience but were
    frustrated that oftentimes their work was not integrated in the
    operations overall.
        And I do remember one Marine saying what is key moving
    forward: These efforts have to be operationally integrated or
    else it becomes a silo. It is an interesting study project but
    it really has to be seen in that command center.
        Ms. Gabbard. Yes. Thank you. That is such an important
    point, just to recognize and to be able to see things in a
    broader way than just beyond the very focused kind of military
    tactical look and see how these relationships are impacted and
    how it really benefits that common objective at the end of the
    day.
        Thank you very much.
        Chairman Royce. We go now to Grace Meng of New York.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
    Member Keating and to all of our panelists for being here today
    and the important work that you do.
        I just want to add on to the conversation from before. In
    some areas, extremist organizations also operate as local
    welfare and education providers, leading to increased
    indoctrination of a vulnerable youth population.
        How can the U.S. effectively achieve its goals in areas
    where education is provided by such extremists, and are there
    any successful examples that might serve as models for this?
    And anyone can answer.
        Ms. Kuehnast. I will speak from my experience working in
    international development. Some of the best efforts I saw
    happening in Central Asia where all of this kind of, as you
    say, local welfare was being imported from outside of their
    world and there was great need, of course.
        But I think when we move this kind of effort to community-
    driven development so that the communities have access to the
    funding, and it doesn't get caught always in newly-forming
    institutional structures, especially those countries that are
    coming out of conflict. There are not the kind of institutions
    that can really funnel that funding.
        So we need to find mechanisms that are more community based
    that can help get the needs answered as a way to, in one sense,
    counter this kind of local welfare, as you pointed out.
        Ms. Meng. My second question is regarding efforts to
    promote women's education and self-empowerment. I have heard of
    one example where in 2007 the state of Bihar in India began
    providing bicycles to teenage girls to help them get to school
    because their trip was either too far or too costly.
        The number of girls who registered for high school tripled
    in the first 4 years of the program and it was so successful
    that other Indian states started similar programs. An
    unexpected benefit was that it also raised the status of girls
    and their families in their villages.
        All the members of the family could use this bicycle to get
    groceries, run errands, and make the lives of everyone in those
    families better. How do we work more closely with some of these
    local governments and develop initiatives to promote women's
    access to education with local level governments and knowledge
    and at the same time being culturally sensitive?
        Ms. Kuehnast. All right. I will weigh in. Again, that is a
    wonderfully imaginative approach to trying to answer a bigger
    question about accessing education. We need more examples like
    that.
        We need more examples in our own agencies to think outside
    the box, if you will. We sometimes reproduce our own bad ideas.
    As we talk about critical thinking and problem solving we need
    to apply the same and take risks in different ways to approach
    very practical everyday issues with a new lens in mind. That
    is, again, where I think sometimes communities are their best
    asset in terms of that kind of problem solving.
        Ms. Khan. I think I would really like to echo the last
    point Dr. Kuehnast made. If you ask communities how to solve
    their own problems, they actually will come up with answers,
    and the answers they come up with are usually the ones which
    are going to stick the best because they own the solution.
        But in many cases, if we try to define here is your problem
    and here is the solution and you guys should just do it, it
    actually doesn't stay. And so in these communities actually
    getting--using the communities to solve or to come up with
    solutions is actually very effective, and this is a place where
    youth are very effective because they want to engage.
        And if they actually--you know, if they come up with ideas
    and they start to see them being implemented, it gives them a
    greater investment back into the improvement of their own
    societies.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. And actually we did this in Afghanistan so
    we had local development councils that we created to help bring
    the community members together to talk about what initiatives
    they wanted to put forward, and it was extremely successful and
    I don't see why we couldn't do that in other countries as well.
        So it is bringing together the local partners and
    stakeholders and asking them for their input on project ideas
    and then having a democratic mechanism to choose which ones
    will be implemented and then being responsible for the monitor
    and evaluation of its success.
        So I think that having them--a community-based solution and
    having them as part of the development and implementation is
    really important.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go to Gerry Connolly of
    Virginia.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and with permission
    I would like to--I would like to yield to my colleague, Mr.
    Sherman, and come back.
        Chairman Royce. Without objection.
        Mr. Sherman. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
        Mr. Connolly. In fairness, if we could start over Mr.
    Sherman's time, Mr. Chairman. Could we start back at five?
        Chairman Royce. Not to worry.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
        Mr. Sherman. One thing I have been advocating on this
    committee for a long time is that we put our development and
    foreign aid dollars into printing textbooks. First, it is
    helpful to support education.
        Second, it gives us control of the values that underlie the
    message in those textbooks. We would have to be careful. I
    mean, if I was writing the textbooks I might put in the Chapter
    14 great things you would love about Israel.
        I am not sure that the programs you work with would find
    wide acceptance for the book that I would write. A third
    element is corruption. If we are providing free textbooks or
    extremely low-priced textbooks and somebody steals them, who
    are they going to sell them to?
        If we go into a country and are providing those same
    textbooks free to most parents--and also a textbook can be
    marked, and you can put a hologram in it or a code in it and
    trace it so, you know, whereas rice or money or whatever can be
    stolen more easily. To what extent do textbook costs cause
    parents to either not send their kids to school or not send
    their kids to school for as many years as they might otherwise,
    or to send some of their children to school but decide others
    will not go to school?
        What is--and I realize it is different from country to
    country but are textbook costs a barrier to education? Yes,
    Doctor.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Thank you for the question. I actually love
    the idea of textbooks. So a number of our activists in Pakistan
    especially have asked for textbooks.
        Of course, the content and subject matter of the textbooks
    is very relevant and what we--as you mentioned, what we would
    put in the textbooks. And, unfortunately, I was part of a
    project that was overlooking the textbooks we were sending to
    Afghanistan in the beginning of the war, and you would be
    horrified by what was in the content of the textbooks we
    printed. So they were simply a reproduction of old Afghani
    textbooks--counting Kalashnikovs.
        Mr. Sherman. Kalashnikovs.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. So it is important--the content is
    important. So we would have to--we would have to make sure that
    we were, you know, very clear about what we expected to have in
    that content. But I think it is an extremely wonderful tool,
    especially for existing institutions. As to sending them to
    homes and families, I am not sure about how that would----
        Mr. Sherman. Well, I mean, there are many places in the
    world where the parents have to pay for the textbooks. Do you
    have experience in operating in those countries, and do those
    textbook costs deter parents from sending their kids to school?
        Do--if you don't have--I can go on to the next question if
    there isn't--I don't see anybody answering that--okay. Let me
    go on to the next one.
        Obviously, what we would want to see is a qualified teacher
    teaching a class of 20 or fewer students. We have got very
    limited resources here but we do have new technology.
        Are any of you aware of situations where computer programs,
    lectures, available on Tablet, through the Internet or on disc,
    have been made available to those who don't have traditional
    classroom education available, and do you have any success
    stories or failure stories? Dr. Kuehnast.
        Ms. Kuehnast. I am familiar with some of these new
    approaches to education. The U.S. Institute of Peace has online
    courses on peacebuilding, conflict resolution, looking at----
        Mr. Sherman. Anything in local languages that helps kids
    learn how to read and basic skills?
        Ms. Kuehnast. No, but it helps the teachers.
        Mr. Sherman. Okay.
        Ms. Kuehnast. And it helps teachers prepare and they are
    being translated into key languages. We also have a global
    peacebuilding center focused on----
        Mr. Sherman. I want to squeeze in one more question. My
    proposals to raise billions of dollars in tax revenue have
    insufficient Republican support. We don't have a lot of money.
        Is there anything we are doing in the development and
    education area that you say, hey, that is not the best use of
    funds--maybe those funds could be steered somewhere else? Can
    you identify for us any programs that aren't working or are
    misconceived? Yes, Ms. Khan.
        Ms. Khan. Perhaps this could be something we could include
    in our--in the----
        Mr. Sherman. I look--yes, I would like you all to respond
    for the record to those questions that time did not permit you
    to respond to orally, and I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. We will go now to Mr. Gerry Connolly. But
    first, will the gentleman yield, Mr. Sherman? For one thought
    of a way to do this without tremendous expense would just be to
    take expired textbooks here in the United States that are
    effective texts, ship them back in some of the empty shipping
    containers that you and I have talked about, going back to
    South Asia, but use them and then have an ongoing program to do
    this.
        That is something that could be done at minimal cost. Those
    textbooks otherwise would have to be destroyed here in the
    United States. And yet they are very effective, you know, for
    teaching any number of disciplines. Maybe that is something we
    could work on as we move forward.
        Ms. Mirahmadi. And I have a number of schools you can send
    them to.
        Chairman Royce. There we go. We just have to know who to
    work with. Let us go to Mr. Connolly.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. The title of
    this hearing is ``Women's Education: Promoting Development,
    Countering Radicalization.'' Is there clear correlative
    evidence, Dr. Mirahmadi, that the education of women helps
    counter radicalization?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. There have been a number of studies which I
    cite to in my written testimony from the OSCE, from Naureen
    Chowdhury Fink and the Center for Global Security, also for the
    Pakistan Center for Peace Studies.
        There are a number of studies about the importance and the
    correlation between women being educated and preventing the
    radicalization of their children. Now, is it a causal link? I
    am not--I can't speak to that. But there are a number of
    studies that talk about the importance of that.
        Mr. Connolly. To what extent does the promise of education
    get dashed on the shoals of other cultural barriers? For
    example, you could have broad-based education in Saudi Arabia
    but they are still not going to drive. You know, there will
    still be blatant discrimination in the workplace. Opportunities
    will be thwarted. You will--you know, your social comportment
    will be highly regulated.
        To what extent does in some ways education either undermine
    that system or get terribly thwarted by cultural norms that
    seem by Western standards to hold women back, to deny them
    opportunity and integration into the broader society?
        Ms. Mirahmadi. Well, I think one of the important points at
    the topic of this discussion was about how they could prevent
    radicalization. So educated women for sure can be the first
    line of defense for their husbands and their children and their
    families.
        So it is very important that they understand the warning
    signs of radicalization and then be empowered with the tools to
    respond. So in that field, in particular, an education is
    vital. It is critical.
        In terms of the larger socio-cultural dynamics, it is
    important to push some of those limits. I think moving into the
    21st century by empowering women and giving them more space--
    more public space to express themselves and to be educated, to
    get jobs, to be involved in politics, we are going to push some
    of those social cultural barriers, and I think that is a good
    thing.
        Mr. Connolly. I probably do too but to what extent--I am
    trying to look at ourselves----
        Ms. Mirahmadi. And I believe Pakistani women believe that
    too.
        Mr. Connolly. Yes. But to what extent, and feel free, other
    panelists as well, but to what extent is that a culturally-
    bound norm on our part? To what extent are--the very thing you
    just asserted, to what extent is that a Western norm being
    interposed on other cultures? Yes, Ms. Khan.
        Ms. Khan. Education is a human right for all, not based on
    gender. But everyone has a right to education and yes, there
    are cultural barriers to it and cultural constraints in certain
    contexts. But at the same time, it is the right of women to get
    education.
        So we must pursue that no matter what. I think it has been
    mentioned a few times by all of us that there is a role for men
    in making sure that women are able to get their education and
    so when we are coming up against a barrier, right, it is not
    just for women to fight on the behalf of women.
        You also need the support of all of community and all of
    society, which includes the men. Men can actually be some of
    the loudest voices to make sure that women do have access to
    education and all other types of opportunities as well.
        Mr. Connolly. And that is--part two is what I am
    particularly--it seems to me--I would agree with you about
    education, but we also have to add opportunity because
    otherwise what I am focused on is we have a whole educated
    class who can't go anywhere because these other social cultural
    barriers prevent opportunity.
        If you are going to have education you got to have
    opportunity that goes with it. Otherwise, I think you have a
    very volatile, unhappy mix.
        Ms. Khan. Yes. Yes, and I think part of it is also the
    types of education because, you know, we can talk about
    standard primary, secondary, tertiary education. But there is
    also a place for vocational skills and actually skills in terms
    of things like managing a business--how to actually start your
    own business.
        Mr. Connolly. Right.
        Ms. Khan. Actually a skill set which can be used to create
    opportunities, and so that also has to be part of that
    education mix, which is very functional skill building.
        Mr. Connolly. Dr. Kuehnast, did you wish to comment?
        Ms. Kuehnast. I would just say that education is a long-
    term investment in long-term change in societies, whether it is
    locally or globally, and it is something that is an investment.
    And so sometimes, as you have pointed out, cultural norms
    create barriers for opportunities.
        But it is a long-term effort to change those norms. I think
    we see that in the last century the kinds of norms that have
    changed as a result of women's education including, in our own
    country 100 years ago this year, the right to vote.
        Mr. Connolly. Yes. We don't want to have a whole bunch of
    Ph.D.s with nothing to do. Thank you so much for being here
    today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you very much, Mr. Connolly. I thank
    the members.
        We are adjourning this hearing but we want to really
    express our appreciation, Mr. Keating and I, to our three
    witnesses who travelled some distance to be with us today and
    we very much appreciate their testimony.
        [Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
        Chairman Royce. So the hearing is adjourned, and now we are
    going to call the committee to order for a different purpose.
    We will give our witnesses 1 minute to get their paperwork
    together.
        The committee will come to order. Pursuant to notice, we
    meet today to mark up H.R. 3583, the Malala Yousafzai
    Scholarship Act.
        Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit
    statements for the record and to put in any extraneous
    materials on this bill in for the record, and I now call up the
    bill, H.R. 3583. The clerk will report the bill.
        Ms. Marter. H.R. 3583, To expand the number of scholarships
    available to Pakistani women under the Merit and Needs-Based
    Scholarship Program.
        Chairman Royce. Without objection, the bill is considered
    read.
        To help expedite our consideration, I am going to go ahead
    and call up the bipartisan amendments previously sent to your
    offices and before we proceed to the opening statements so that
    members may speak once on the entire package.
        So I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments,
    which members have before them, be considered en bloc--the
    bipartisan amendment, Number 42, in the nature of a substitute
    offered by Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, the author of this bill, and the
    Connolly Amendment, Number 100. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        Chairman Royce. I now recognize myself to speak on these
    items.
        We just heard today how even a modest investment in
    educating women and girls in the developing world and in areas
    beset by poverty and radicalism in particular, can pay long-
    term dividends that help stabilize societies, promote market-
    based economic growth, and advance U.S. national security
    objectives. This is why H.R. 3583 is so important.
        I want to thank Chairman Emeritus Ros-Lehtinen for her
    leadership on this issue. I have for years traveled to South
    Asia and expressed concern about the appalling state of
    education in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan and the
    subsequent rise, particularly in these Deobindi madrasas that
    prey upon the disenfranchised, that breed radicalism, and have
    been so difficult to close.
        There are 600 of them in particular that are churning out a
    new graduating class every year that is destabilizing the
    region and a threat, frankly, to the hopes and aspirations of
    the people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
        The situation for women in areas where access to education
    is actively suppressed is particularly grim. In Pakistan's
    North-West Frontier Province and in Balochistan, for example,
    literacy among women is between just 3 and 8 percent.
        I myself had the opportunity to tour a very effective
    school up in the North-West Frontier some years ago. But on my
    following trip back I had found that the Taliban had targeted
    it and destroyed it. It is therefore fitting that the bill
    before us would be named for Malala Yousafzai, for her, because
    at the age of 15 she dared, of course, to defy the Taliban.
        She was brutally assaulted for her efforts and ultimately
    inspired a generation of women and girls to demand their
    fundamental right to be educated. H.R. 3583 requires USAID to
    award at least half of the scholarships made available through
    the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program in Pakistan,
    which the United States supports, to women.
        It simply provides support and policy guidance. That is the
    intent of this bill. I am particularly pleased that the
    substitute amendment contains language emphasizing the
    importance of consulting with and leveraging investments by the
    private sector and Pakistani diaspora communities in the United
    States, who themselves put so much of their own hard-earned
    money in to support education both at the medical school level
    and at other institutions of learning across Pakistan.
        Tapping into this vast pool of expertise and resources will
    prove invaluable, and I thank the ranking member and
    Subcommittee Chairman Ros-Lehtinen both for working with me to
    press this point and I urge members to support the amended bill
    and recognize the ranking member, Mr. Eliot Engel of New York,
    for his remarks.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I concur
    with everything that you said. I am very pleased that we had
    this important hearing this morning and I am very proud of the
    role that our colleague, Mr. Keating, played, first, in
    bringing these hearings and then in participating in them. And
    thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership.
        Six hundred million women around the world are illiterate,
    nearly twice the number of men, and in rural Pakistan only one-
    third of women can read. These scholarships are so important.
    It is so important for the United States to put our money where
    our mouth is in helping women in Pakistan.
        The overall gender disparity is even more pronounced in
    higher education. Only two countries of 130 measured by the
    2013 Millennium Development Goals report achieved gender parity
    in the area and these disparities are very costly for women.
        They marginalize them politically, reduce their employment
    opportunities, and increase their vulnerability. President
    Obama has said that if a country is educating its girls, if
    women have equal rights, that country is going to move forward.
    But if women are oppressed and abused and illiterate they are
    going to fall behind, and studies show that he is correct.
        So every year of primary school boosts a girl's future
    wages by 10 to 20 percent, and every year of secondary school
    increases that earning potential by 15 to 25 percent.
        The World Bank's top economist has said that financing
    women's education yields the highest rate of return of any
    investment in the developing world. These facts alone justify
    the efforts of the U.S. to promote female education worldwide.
        A recent IMF study also found that if females were working
    in the same proportion as men we would see a 34-percent
    increase in the gross domestic product of Egypt, 27 percent in
    India, 9 percent in Japan, and even a 5-percent increase in the
    United States.
        There is another compelling reason for the U.S. to support
    female education around the world. Educated women and girls are
    proven to be some of the most powerful weapons in the fight
    against violent extremism.
        The Taliban--we all know the story--exposed their fear of
    educated girls when they tried to silence Malala Yousafzai.
    Malala's incredible example is a reminder that females are
    ready to lead all over the world when they have the opportunity
    to go to school.
        When girls and women are educated they are better able to
    combat extremism in their roles as mothers, community members,
    teachers and activists and, simply put, the battle for hearts
    and minds cannot be won without the participation of educated
    women and girls.
        That is why this bill that we are marking up today is so
    important. It is clear that there are numerous tangible
    benefits to educating women and girls. But we must also
    remember that the right to an education is a basic fundamental
    human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human
    Rights.
        And yet, too many young girls are still stuck working at
    home during the school day. Too many are still being forced out
    of school and into early marriages.
        So we must ensure that promoting education for girls and
    women abroad remains a priority for the U.S. As remarkable
    young women like Malala have demonstrated, when education
    empowers women to shape their own destinies extremism is
    doomed.
        So I am very delighted to support this legislation and
    support the amendments that are also being brought forth to
    perfect this legislation, and I am glad once again that we are
    doing so in a bipartisan way.
        I thank Chairman Royce and everyone who has worked so hard
    on this legislation and make it a reality. Thank you. I yield
    back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, and we want to thank the ranking
    member for his work on this legislation and amendments into the
    bill. Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the
    pending items?
        Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, then we will go to Mr.
    Connolly and then to Mr. Cicilline.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you so very much for holding this markup on this
    important issue. H.R. 3583 is a bipartisan measure and the
    House companion of Senate Bill 120, sponsored by Senator Boxer.
        This bill will mandate that USAID award at least 50 percent
    of scholarships to women in Pakistan under the Merit and Needs-
    Based Scholarship Program from 2014 to 2016.
        I would also like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, as well as my
    good friend, Mr. Engel, for making the bill stronger, for
    making the bill more efficient, and I also would like to offer
    my support to the amendment offered by my good friend.
        And I hear that he was a former Senate staffer--I am not
    sure if that is true--Mr. Connolly from Virginia, requiring
    USAID to look at the number of women participants who have
    dropped out of the program due to retaliation.
        This issue is very near and dear to my heart. As one of the
    few women on this committee and someone with a background in
    education, having been a Florida-certified teacher, I know
    firsthand the importance of education for our youth.
        We have seen that greater access to education for women
    leads to increased respect for human rights, a rise in
    prosperity and well-being, and a more peaceful and stable
    society.
        Stories like those of Malala, who defied the brutal Taliban
    and became an inspiration for young people worldwide, show that
    education is the most important factor in empowering young
    girls to become successful members of society and protecting
    them from the ignorance that enables abuse and radicalization.
        Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman, for this markup.
    Thank you, Mr. Engel, as well. Thank you, sirs.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, I thank Mr.
    Connolly.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
    you and the ranking member for your leadership on this issue
    and for the hearing we just had--a very thoughtful hearing.
        I also want to thank my good friend, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,
    for her leadership on this issue and her commitment, and I am
    particularly impressed with her perspicacity, Mr. Chairman,
    that she actually knows my background that I was once a--I was
    once a very important person.
        I was a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations
    Committee. But I do want to, seriously, thank all involved in
    this bill.
        I think it is really important, as we just heard in this
    hearing, education is transformative. It is the key to changing
    the status of women. It is the key to providing opportunity,
    and we need to be all in when it comes to education.
        So I thank my friend for accepting a slight modification in
    the reporting requirement to capture data about women who have
    been forced out of education because of retaliation, and I
    enthusiastically support the bill in front of us and, again, I
    thank the chair and ranking member for their leadership. I
    yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Cicilline, you were seeking time.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would like to begin by thanking you and Ranking Member
    Engel for convening a markup on this important issue and for
    the hearing we just had, and for continuing to highlight the
    pressing issues of educational access, opportunity, and
    equality.
        I also want to thank Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, our chair
    emeritus, for sponsoring the legislation that we are
    considering today and also thank and acknowledge my colleague,
    Congressman Keating, for his work on this issue.
        Every child deserves the opportunity to obtain a quality
    education in the best environment possible and to be given the
    opportunity to achieve their full potential. As we work in the
    United States to help provide support for qualified teachers,
    better technology in the classrooms, safe school literacy
    programs, and greater community engagement, we must not forget
    that we belong to a global economy.
        Educated children and young people help drive the future of
    our economy and the future of our world.
        Unfortunately, as we know, girls and women are too often
    left behind. And although we are making progress here in
    closing the achievement gap in the United States, girls and
    women in many parts of the world still face significant
    barriers to education.
        In particular today, we honor Malala, who faced threats
    from the Taliban and ultimately a nearly deadly attack, in her
    relentless pursuit of an education. We must do everything we
    can to increase opportunities available to women and girls,
    especially in countries that are struggling to achieve peace
    and democracy.
        Undoubtedly, these countries will benefit from their civic
    involvement and so will the world, and so I thank everyone who
    has worked so hard on this and I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline.
        Does Ms. Frankel have an additional second-degree
    amendment?
        Ms. Frankel. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think there is
    an amendment in the--I am sorry.
        Chairman Royce. There is. There is, and the clerk will
    report the amendment.
        Ms. Marter. Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a
    substitute to H.R. 3583 offered by Ms. Frankel of Florida. At
    the proper place in the bill insert: ``It is the sense of
    Congress that recipients of these scholarships commit to
    improving their local communities.''
        [The information referred to follows:]

                                  ----------

        Chairman Royce. And the Chair recognizes the author for 5
    minutes to explain the amendment.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        I probably would have liked do something stronger but I
    think this will get the point across. We heard from our very
    distinguished and articulate panel this morning that I think
    for each of them it was their opinion that these scholarships
    could be more effective if the recipients would pay it forward
    to their communities and with service and mentoring, and I
    think today, where our resources are so much in demand and so
    important and so scarce, that we have the most effective use of
    them.
        So that is why I offer this amendment, and I hope that
    perhaps at a later date, and in a bipartisan manner, we can
    follow up with USAID with a letter or some conversations on how
    they could implement this.
        Chairman Royce. I think that sounds very appropriate.
        Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the
    amendment? Hearing no further requests for recognition, the
    question occurs on the amendment. All those in favor say aye.
        [Chorus of ayes.]
        All those opposed, no.
        [No response.]
        In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it and the
    amendment is agreed to.
        Ms. Frankel. Mr. Chair, may I speak on behalf of the----
        Chairman Royce. The overall underlying bill?
        Ms. Frankel. Yes.
        Chairman Royce. Very briefly.
        Ms. Frankel. Yes.
        Chairman Royce. All right. Then the gentlelady is granted
    time.
        Ms. Frankel. I will be very brief, just say thank you. I
    want to thank you, the ranking member, of course, Ms. Ros-
    Lehtinen, who I work very closely with, our great--one of our
    great leaders from Florida, and I am proud to be a co-sponsor
    of this legislation.
        And just as it has been repeated again, this legislation is
    named after a young lady who is inspiring to all of us, and I
    hope that these scholarships will bring us many more Malalas
    into society. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Chairman Royce. Well put, Ms. Frankel.
        Okay. Are there any other members besides Ms. Frankel that
    want to speak on this amendment? Hearing no further requests
    for recognition, the question occurs on the en bloc amendment.
    All those in favor, say aye.
        [Chorus of ayes.]
        All those opposed, no.
        [No response.]
        In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it in the en
    bloc amendments. Ros-Lehtinen 42 and Connolly 100 and the
    Frankel amendment are agreed to.
        The question now occurs on agreeing to House H.R. 3583 as
    amended. All those in favor, say aye.
        [Chorus of ayes.]
        All those opposed, no.
        [No response.]
        In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it and the bill
    as amended is agreed to, and without objection 3583 as amended
    is ordered favorably reported as a single amendment in the
    nature of a substitute.
        Staff is directed to make any technical and conforming
    changes and, members, that concludes our business for today,
    and I want to thank Ranking Member Engel and all of our
    committee members for their contributions and assistance to
    this legislation.
        The committee is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:19 p.m. the committee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

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                   Material Submitted for the Record