[Senate Hearing 114-828]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-828
PROTECTING GIRLS: GLOBAL EFFORTS TO END CHILD MARRIAGE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN
HEMISPHERE, TRANSNATIONAL
CRIME, CIVILIAN SECURITY,
DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS,
AND GLOBAL WOMEN'S ISSUES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
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Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.govinfo.gov
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, TENNESSEE, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
MARCO RUBIO, Florida BARBARA BOXER, California
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
CORY GARDNER, Colorado CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
RAND PAUL, Kentucky TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jodi B. Herman, Democratic Staff Director
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE,
TRANSNATIONAL CRIME, CIVILIAN SECURITY, DEMOCRACY,
HUMAN RIGHTS, AND GLOBAL WOMEN'S ISSUES
MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Chairman
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona BARBARA BOXER, California
CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Marco Rubio, U.S. Senator From Florida...................... 1
Hon. Dick Durbin, U.S. Senator From Illinois..................... 4
Hon. Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator From California................. 6
Hon. Catherine M. Russell, Ambassador-At-Large, Global Women's
Issues, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC............... 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 9
Hon. Anne Richard, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population
Refugees and Migration, U.S. Department of State, Washington,
DC............................................................. 14
Prepared Statement........................................... 17
Suzanne Petroni, Ph.D., Senior Director, Global Health, Youth and
Development, International Center for Research on Women,
Washington, DC................................................. 28
Prepared Statement........................................... 30
Lakshmi Sundaram, Executive Director, Girls Not Brides, London,
UK............................................................. 32
Prepared Statement........................................... 34
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses of Ambassador Cathy Russell to Questions Submitted by
Senator Marco Rubio............................................ 45
Responses of Assistant Secretary Anne Richard to Questions
Submitted by Senator Marco Rubio............................... 54
Responses of Assistant Secretary Anne Richard and Ambassador
Cathy
Russell to Questions Submitted by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin... 57
(iii)
PROTECTING GIRLS: GLOBAL EFFORTS
TO END CHILD MARRIAGE
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere,
Transnational Crime, Civilian Security,
Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's
Issues, Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in Room
SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Marco Rubio,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Rubio [presiding], Gardner, and Boxer.
Also Present: Senator Durbin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO
RUBIO, U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Rubio. Good morning. This hearing of the
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crimes,
Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's
Issues will come to order.
The title of this hearing is ``Protecting Girls: Global
Efforts to End Child Marriage.''
We will have two panels testifying today. The first panel
will feature the Honorable Catherine Russell, Ambassador-at-
Large for Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of
State, and I want to welcome back Ambassador Russell; and also
from the Department the Honorable Anne Richard, Assistant
Secretary for Population Refugees and Migration.
The second panel will include Ms. Lakshmi Sundaram, the
Executive Director of Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of
more than 600 civil society organizations from over 80
countries; and Dr. Suzanne Petroni, who is the Senior Director
for Global Health, Youth and Development at the International
Center for Research on Women.
Thank you all for being here today.
I would especially like to recognize the diverse array of
civil society organizations working tirelessly on this issue,
many of whom partnered with my staff and Senator Boxer's staff
to make this hearing possible.
Child marriage rarely receives the attention it deserves,
especially given the frequency with which it occurs. There are
roughly 250 million women alive today who were married before
the age of 15, and the devastating impact it has on girls and
sometimes boys is impossible to overstate. It perpetuates
poverty, it has lasting maternal and infant health
ramifications, and it often contributes to violence. It is not
limited just to distant lands. It happens even in our own
hemisphere. Child marriage cuts across countries, regions, and
cultures.
In our own hemisphere, Brazil and Mexico are fourth and
ninth, respectively, in the world in terms of absolute numbers
for child brides. India ranks first in the world, followed by
Bangladesh and Nigeria, according to data from the Council on
Foreign Relations.
In many countries, child marriage is a systematic problem
inextricably linked to other developmental issues which this
committee has focused on--for example, girls' education, which
I chaired a hearing on in June. Leaving school early makes
girls more vulnerable to child marriage, and marrying young
often prevents girls from furthering their education. I hope we
can further explore the nexus between education and child
marriage during the course of today's discussion.
Cultural traditions, poverty and gender inequality also
play a role. Given the manifold contributing factors, there is
no single solution. Legislative and legal fixes, while
important, will not alone provide a solution. Consider, for
example, that a Human Rights Watch report released this month
found that one in three girls in Nepal are married before they
reach the age of 18 despite the fact the legal age for marriage
is 20. But the absence of simple answers must not lull us into
complacency. The stakes are too high.
In addition to the factors I have just described, there are
contexts where insecurity, instability, violence and war have
exacerbated this problem. This reality prompted us to invite
Assistant Secretary Richard to contribute to today's hearing,
and I am particularly interested in better understanding how
refugee and otherwise displaced communities impact child
marriage.
Early assessments are cause for alarm. The Syrian crisis
has been described as the single biggest humanitarian and
refugee crisis of our time. Approximately 7.6 million Syrians
are forcibly displaced, including many within Syria. More than
4.8 million have fled to neighboring countries like Jordan,
where civil society groups reported growing incidents of child
marriage. A May 2013 piece in the Atlantic featured the story
of a 14-year-old Syrian refugee, Maya, who had just recently
been engaged to a wealthy Lebanese man, age 45. The piece
quotes Maya's mother as saying, quote, ``I am marrying my
daughter so they can be safe and we can be secure.'' Maya
herself, understandably inconsolable, laments--and this is her
quote--``The man I am marrying tells me I am the one who
protects you. I am the one who feeds you. You have to do what I
say or I will throw you in the street.'' She says, ``I am
disgusted by him, but I am doing this for my family so we can
live in security,'' and she continued by saying, ``He's right,
he is the man who feeds us and protects us, and I would rather
be violated by one man than by every man in town.''
There are many reports of wealthy men from surrounding Gulf
countries further exploiting vulnerable refugee populations and
essentially out there shopping for child brides, enticing
families like Maya's with promises of material security and
physical protection. These sobering realities were reflected in
the findings of a recent Interfaith Humanitarian Assessment
Mission led by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service,
which observed that more underage Syrian girls are being
married, and at younger ages. Some of these early marriages are
entered into for economic reasons. It is one less mouth to feed
for families living in dire poverty.
However, the group issued a report which found that other
child marriages are intended to protect the girl from sexual
abuse directed towards unattached girls or to provide an
alternative to idleness resulting from not being in school. In
some cases, early marriage is also occurring to assist men in
gaining access to countries whose borders are, for the most
part, closed to single men. A September 2016 story in a
prominent German newspaper found that government officials have
reportedly encountered hundreds of married minors among the
refugee population. This phenomenon is not limited to Germany.
Similar reports have now emerged from Denmark and Norway.
According to one news report, at least 61 minors were married
when they sought asylum in Norway last year. The youngest was
an 11-year-old girl.
Child and forced marriage is also being employed as a
weapon of war by groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram.
Yazidi girls have reported being captured, separated from their
families, and sold into sexual slavery. One victim recounted
being taken to a wedding hall with dozens of other girls and
women and told by ISIS fighters, ``Forget about your relatives.
From now on, you will marry us. You will bear our children.''
In some contexts, girls who are also religious minorities
are especially susceptible to this abuse. This is true in
Pakistan, which is the country with the sixth largest number of
child marriages in terms of absolute numbers. Civil society
organizations, especially those working in the area of
religious freedom, note that forced marriage and conversion are
prevalent among Christian and Hindu girls, particularly in
Punjab and Sindh districts. Similarly in Egypt, there have been
reports for many years of Coptic Christian women and girls of
being abducted and forced to marry and convert to Islam.
While today's hearing will focus on global dimensions of
this issue, a domestic component comes into play when a U.S.
citizen who is a minor is taken to another country, typically
their parents' country of origin, and compelled into a forced
marriage. It is my understanding that civil society
organizations have for several years now engaged the State
Department, particularly the Office of Overseas Citizen
Services, to propose ways to improve protections and to support
U.S. victims. However, it is unclear to what extent the
Department has taken action. I hope we can address that today.
As a father of four, with two school-age girls, these
statistics are particularly sobering as each number represents
a girl denied the opportunity to live up to her God-given
potential. It represents a bride whose wedding day is not a
celebration but rather a memorial as she marks what could only
be described as the death of her childhood.
I look forward to hearing from our Administration witnesses
about the scope of the U.S. Government's work in this arena,
about trends, about areas where we are doing things right, and
areas where there is room for improvement. I am also keen to
hear from our panel of private witnesses. You have experience
in the field, and that will contribute greatly to what can too
easily become an abstract policy discussion.
I would now like to recognize our ranking member and ask if
she would like to recognize--do you want to go first or have
Senator Durbin, who I know ----
Senator Boxer. I am happy to yield to my colleague because
I know he has things on his agenda.
Senator Rubio. Senator Durbin, I appreciate you taking the
time to come here. You have taken a leadership role on this
issue for many years now, and you are more than welcome,
obviously, to stay for the duration of the hearing, but we
understand that you may be leaving after your remarks because I
know you have a full schedule ahead of you as well. But thank
you so much for your work and for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. DICK DURBIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS
Senator Durbin. Senator Rubio and my friend Senator Boxer,
and my colleague Senator Gardner, I want to sincerely thank you
for this hearing, really. I do not know how often we have had
hearings on this subject. We should have many, and the fact
that you have taken time from your schedule and made it a
priority is very, very important.
I was thinking about this on the way over here, and there
is something troubling about the title ``child marriage,''
because when you think about it, marriage, by conventional
wisdom and human experience, is a consensual agreement. It is a
social contract freely entered into. In fact, it is one of the
few contracts we enter into that we do publicly: Do you take
this person to be your wife? Do you take this person to be your
husband?
But what we are discussing today is not consensual. It
cannot be. One of the parties is a child, legally incapable of
making a binding, legal agreement. And it is not free. It is
the product of coercion. We know that.
This publication, which I hope you will get a chance to see
that I was just handed, on page 18, from our State Department
on the subject, in one photograph it shows the story as clearly
as possible: ``Here in Yemen, two grown men with 8-year-old
brides.'' That is not marriage. What we are discussing is no
more marriage than rape is love, or slavery is an employment
contract. It is not. I wish we had a better word. We tend to
give this a legal definition, a legal status which it does not
deserve.
Worldwide, more than 700 million women alive today and more
than 150 million men were married as children. Many were girls
married before the age of 15, some as young as 7 years of age.
An average 15 million such girls are married annually. We know
what happens to these girls. They are more likely to not go to
school or drop out, experience domestic violence, face great
risk of sexually transmitted disease, and experience
complications and even death in childbirth. In fact, pregnancy
is consistently among the leading cause of death for girls age
15 to 19.
Now, it has been in decline in recent years, but girls
living in developing countries or in poor households are almost
twice as likely to marry before age 18. Progress is not
happening fast enough.
In 2006, 10 years ago, I introduced the bipartisan
International Protecting Girls By Preventing Child Marriage
Act, which set out to reduce this harmful practice. I believe,
and I think many here agree, child marriage poses a direct
threat to investments in education, HIV/AIDS prevention,
poverty reduction and, most critically, the basic human rights
and safety of girls around the world.
Seven years later my bill passed--that is, by Senate
standards, a pretty quick response--as part of the 2013
Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. It required the
Secretary of State to establish and implement a multi-year,
multi-sectorial strategy to prevent child marriage, making it a
clear policy of the government. I am told this publication is
part of the response.
Let me thank Senators Boxer, Cardin, and Isakson for being
original co-sponsors of the legislation, and for the support of
Senator Lindsay Graham and Pat Leahy for including funding in
the Foreign Operations Appropriations bills.
In the years since the legislation passed, our government
has made a commitment to ending this practice. Last fall USAID
published its Child Early and Forced Marriage Resource Guide,
building off its 2012 Vision of Action. The annual State
Department Country Reports on Human Rights now include data on
child marriage, as it should.
These efforts are changing lives. In Ethiopia, USAID-
supported community-based programs have helped educate girls
and women on their rights and build skills for becoming peer
educators. In Fiscal Year 2013 alone, over 1,000 early
marriages were deferred or cancelled just in Ethiopia as a
result of this work. In Bangladesh, USAID-funded programs have
helped promote girl-friendly educational environments.
But in today's world, girls continue to face the sustained
practice of early forced marriage, not just because of the
ongoing cycle of poverty but because, as you mentioned, Mr.
Chairman, of humanitarian crises and terrorism.
We need to do more. We must continue to focus in areas
where this practice is most prevalent. We need to utilize a
government-wide approach, and I am going to do what I can to
help.
I want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, as well as Senator
Boxer, Senator Markey, who is not here at the moment, as well
as Senator Gardner. I am happy that several of you have joined
me in co-sponsoring the bipartisan Education for All Act, which
aligns with the goal of reducing child marriage.
This measure--incidentally, I commend to your attention
that Congresswoman Nita Lowey has been a great champion and
partner on this bill. She passed it in the House of
Representatives. It is now before your committee.
I am going to make a call to the chairman today and ask him
to make this a priority. We do not have much time left this
year, but this I think can be something that we work on.
Education is a key to lifting the lives of girls and thwarting
the route of terrorism.
I look forward to all the progress we can make together on
this issue, and thanks for this hearing.
Senator Rubio. Thank you, Senator, for being here.
The ranking member.
STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. Thank you.
Senator Durbin, thank you so much. I know you as a
colleague, as a friend for so many years, more than we both
care to admit. That is how long our family friendship goes
back. You have a heart, and you have brought it to so many
issues, including this one.
I want to thank the chairman for this hearing. And before
you leave, I just want to say two quick things. First of all,
when you look at a world in which there are child soldiers, in
which there are child prostitutes, in which there is child
marriage, there is something wrong. As I wind down my days in
the Senate but not my days in this world, hopefully not, people
say what are you most proud of, and you try to come up--there
are a lot of things that we do that we really are pleased that
we could accomplish.
But one of them is the day that I talked to then-chairman
John Kerry about setting up a subcommittee that focused on
women's issues, because there was never any committee here,
subcommittee, that looked at global women's issues. And he said
yes, and our ranking member said yes, and Senator Corker kept
the subcommittee intact. This gives us a platform to talk about
these things.
So before you have to leave, and I know you have to go to
the floor, I want to thank you for your leadership on this. All
right.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I really again want to thank you for
this hearing. Child marriage is more than a human rights
concern. It is a violation of an individual's freedom. I think
Senator Durbin made an excellent point. Marriage has been an
institution that has been celebrated throughout the world, and
here we have it being used to exploit and destroy, frankly, a
little girl's life, and her life forever.
You know, it is an epidemic of global magnitude. It
perpetuates cycles of poverty and violence and inequality, and
it affects economies, public health and security. So making our
case, we not only can make it on the level of the cruelty of it
but also the impacts of it on whole economies.
The statistics are staggering. Roughly one of every three
girls in the developing world is married before the age of 18.
That is about 15 million girls a year. That amounts to 41,000
girls every single day, and the consequences are clear for
global health.
For instance, girls who give birth before the age of 15 are
five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their
early 20s. So child marriage is killing girls. Let us just say
it like it is. Infants born of child brides are 50 percent more
likely to be stillborn or die within the first few weeks of
life. Child brides are at a much higher risk of contracting
HIV/AIDS, and the economic consequences are equally clear.
Girls that are forced to marry are more likely to be forced out
of school. A single year of primary school can increase a
woman's wages later in life up to 20 percent, and secondary
school can increase a woman's future wages by up to 25 percent.
This means that she has a chance to live a life.
And child marriage is closely linked with violence and
instability in households and at a national level. Girls who
marry before 18 are far more likely to experience physical and
sexual abuse than their unmarried peers, and they are more
likely to believe that a man is justified in abusing his wife
than women who marry later. So they are in the situation,
taking this abuse, just taking it, just taking it.
The vast majority of the 25 countries that have the highest
rates of child marriage are also classified as fragile states,
extremely prone to war or natural disasters. By exacerbating
poverty, illiteracy and poor health, child marriage contributes
to a country's insecurity over the long term.
So given the breadth of the problem, its severe
consequences, it is clear we can and have to do more, and I
hope that we can all--Senator Gardner, you, and Senator Rubio,
myself and others--can speak with Senator Corker and Senator
Cardin. Maybe we can take that bill off the desk and get it
done before we leave here.
But I do want to thank so much all of our witnesses, both
from our State Department and also our non-profits, our
witnesses, for adding some light on a very dark subject. What I
was going to say is I have a bill on the floor with Senator
Inhofe, so I am going to stay here as long as I possibly can
before I get called down to the floor. But my heart is here,
and this is an issue I will continue to work on whether I am
here or I am not here.
With that, I yield back.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
So we are going to begin with our first panel, Ambassador
Cathy Russell and Assistant Secretary Richard for the State
Department. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your
testimony.
Ambassador Russell.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CATHERINE M. RUSSELL, AMBASSADOR-AT-
LARGE, GLOBAL WOMEN'S ISSUES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Russell. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It
is nice to be back before this committee. Senator Boxer, thank
you so much for your continued leadership on this. Senator
Gardner, it is nice to see you as well.
Every 60 seconds, an average of 27 girls under the age of
18 are married around the world. That means that over the
course of this hearing alone, 400 girls will get married
someplace in the world. As child brides and likely child
mothers, these girls often drop out of school, their economic
opportunities are limited, and they have an increased risk, as
Senator Boxer just said, of very serious health concerns from
violence and sexually transmitted disease, especially HIV/AIDS.
This does not bode well for U.S. foreign policy objectives.
The United States is working so hard to increase the
participation of women across the board, including in the
formal workforce, because we know that women's full
participation is good for women, it is also good for their
families, and it is really important for their countries and
the stability of their countries.
But child marriage is a major barrier to that
participation. It strips girls of their ability to learn and
contribute to their societies and their economies. In fact,
this issue does the exact opposite of what we would like to see
around the world. Married girls are less likely to send their
own children to school and to get them immunized. That means
that instead of advancing prosperity, this practice fuels
cycles of poverty that we are trying to address.
When you consider that child marriage is a reality for more
than 700 million women and girls alive today, it is clear this
issue matters to policymakers, to development practitioners,
and to foreign policy experts alike. In short, if our goal is
to promote peace, security, and prosperity in countries around
the world by empowering women, then ending child marriage is an
absolute imperative.
In order for us to tackle this problem, it is important to
understand why it happens in the first place. Traditional
gender roles, poverty, violence and insecurity all fuel this
practice, and each of these drivers, whether it is economic,
cultural, or social, can be made worse by state fragility,
conflict, and humanitarian emergencies. As my colleague,
Assistant Secretary Richard, will go into this in a little bit
more detail, I would like to underline the point that the
problem of child marriage is often exacerbated by armed
conflict and instability.
In conflict settings, families may view marriage as a way
to keep their daughter safe as in the example, Mr. Chairman,
that you talked about, or to lessen economic distress, and we
see that violent actors, including rebel or insurgent groups,
can force women and girls into marriage. For terrorist groups
like Da'esh and Boko Haram, child marriage is a depraved
tactic. They use it to terrorize and control entire populations
and to recruit new fighters.
Reports indicate that Da'esh has abducted more than 3,000
women and girls, including those from Iraq's religious
community of Yazidis and other minority groups. Girls as young
as 12 or 13 have been forced to marry violent extremists or
sold to the highest bidder, sometimes repeatedly, like cattle
at an auction. And in Nigeria, more than 200 schoolgirls
kidnapped by Boko Haram in Chibok are still missing.
Which brings us to the question of how we can end this
harmful practice once and for all. The fact is, there is no
single driver of child marriage, and that means there is no
single solution, no silver bullet that can address this issue
once and for all. It is why the United States takes a holistic
approach to address the range of challenges that influence this
issue, from health and safety to education and economic
opportunity, to the rights of women and girls around the world.
The policy foundation of this work is strong. Child
marriage is addressed in the three interagency policies that we
can talk about today, and that includes the first-ever strategy
on adolescent girls that Senator Durbin referred to earlier and
that we discussed in the previous hearing. That strategy was
made possible by the strong support of civil society and by
members of Congress, and we are very proud that other agencies,
including USAID, the Peace Corps, Millennium Challenge
Corporation, as well as PEPFAR, are an important part of this
effort.
These agencies are also part of the Let Girls Learn
initiative, because while there is no simple answer, we do know
and we believe strongly that the single most important thing we
can do is keep girls in quality education for as long as
possible. Under this initiative, President Obama launched a
Challenge Fund to design new holistic programs for adolescent
girls. These programs will be created, funded, tested and
implemented by the USAID and the State Department, in
partnership with a full spectrum of stakeholders in select
focus countries. Again, I would like to thank members of the
committee for their support of this effort.
We are starting in Malawi and Tanzania, and the other day
the President announced that we would also take this approach
in Nepal and Laos. This initiative is an opportunity to bring
the full weight of the U.S. Government to bear on the issue of
adolescent girls and to do it in a way that is smart,
comprehensive, and coordinated.
But I do want to emphasize that our efforts are also
community focused, because we will not adequately address this
challenge without partnering on the local level with political
and tribal leaders, families and, most importantly, the girls
themselves.
Earlier this year I met a young filmmaker named Tinda
Daniel from Ethiopia, which is a country with one of the
highest rates of child marriage in the world. Tinda created an
animated series that shows strong men in respectful
relationships with women. She is using art to combat gender-
based violence, and she is not alone. She is part of a growing
movement of young people who are rewriting their own story of
their generation. They are working so that young men are seen
as more than perpetrators of violence, and young women are seen
as more than victims.
That is the kind of future we can create when everyone,
girls and boys, men and women, have the freedom, the rights,
and the tools they need to reach their full potential. The
State Department is committed to making this a reality for
girls around the world because we know that when these girls
are empowered, their communities are safer, their economies are
stronger, and their countries are more likely to reach their
full potential.
So thank you again very much for your leadership on this
issue. It is critical to our efforts, and we really very much
appreciate it and look forward to the conversation this
morning.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Russell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Catherine M. Russell
Good morning Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Boxer, Members of the
Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today on this
critical issue of child, early and forced marriage. It is a pleasure to
be here with you again after our last session in June on girls
education globally, and it is an honor to be asked to speak on an issue
that is central to our efforts to empower women globally.
scale and scope of the problem
Child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) is a widespread, global
phenomenon, with one in three girls worldwide married before the age of
18, one in nine married before the age of 15, and some girls married as
young as 8- or 9-years old. Child, early and forced marriage
disproportionately affects girls: approximately 156 million men
currently alive were married before the age of 18, as compared to
approximately 720 million women--a figure equivalent to 10 percent of
the world's population, with an additional 15 million married each
year. Girls are also more likely than boys to be married to
significantly older spouses--especially in marriages involving girls
under 15 and in polygynous marriages where an adolescent girl may be a
second or third wife.
The persistence and prevalence of this practice is one of the key
human rights, security, and development crises of our time because the
systemic impact of child, early and forced marriage is dramatic and far
reaching. Through the Sustainable Development Goals, over 190
governments share the view that ending harmful practices, such as
child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation and
cutting, is essential for advancing gender equality globally.
consequences
CEFM forces a girl into adulthood and motherhood before she is
physically and mentally mature and before she completes her education,
limiting her future options, depriving her of the chance to reach her
full potential, and preventing her from contributing fully to her
family and community.
Reduced Educational Attainment
In almost every context where it occurs, CEFM has a strong negative
correlation with educational attainment and political participation. In
line with social norms portraying marriage and school attendance as
incompatible, parents may pressure girls to discontinue their
educations. At the same time, pregnancy and expected domestic
responsibilities also present formidable challenges to pursuing an
education. Schools may have policies that dictate that pregnant girls
or young mothers be expelled, and even absent such policies, pregnant
girls and mothers may face stigma and bullying by peers and teachers
that cause them to drop out. Child brides not only face difficulty
completing secondary school--they may also have trouble making the
transition to secondary school, particularly if they enrolled in
primary education late. In some areas, girls reach the median age of
marriage in their society before they have even finished primary
school.
Risks to Health and Wellness
CEFM has devastating health consequences as married adolescents are
more likely to experience psychological, physical and sexual violence
and exposure to sexually transmitted illnesses. Approximately 16
million adolescent girls aged 15-19 years old give birth each year,
comprising about 11 percent of births globally. Early pregnancy and
childbirth have severe consequences for adolescent girls as compared to
young women, including an increased risk of miscarriage and
complications during labor, obstetric fistula, and death. Despite
progress in overall rates around the world, maternal mortality remains
a leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19, taking the lives of
nearly 70,000 girls each year. Girls under 15 are five times more
likely to die in childbirth than adult women.
Research in sub-Saharan Africa has shown that married girls have a
50 percent higher rate of HIV infection as compared to their unmarried,
sexually active peers. Overall, sub-Saharan adolescent girls are two to
six times more likely than adolescent boys to be HIV positive, because
they are so often married to older, more sexually experienced men.
Additionally, adolescent girls often lack access to healthcare or
health information when they are married at an early age and become
socially isolated within their husbands' households.
All of these risks--abuse, HIV, early and frequent pregnancy,
poverty, and isolation--may be intensified when there is a large age
difference between a girl and her husband, a situation that is most
common in countries with high rates of early marriage. Since older men
are more likely to have had a number of sexual partners and to be HIV-
positive, marrying a significantly older husband dramatically increases
a girls' risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted
diseases.
Reduced Economic Potential
Early marriage locks a girl into traditional gender roles that
limit development and access to a basic education, opportunity for
employment in the formal economy, or other basic foundations for full
citizenship. Child, early and forced marriage undermines economic
productivity, perpetuate health risks for girls, and threaten
sustainable growth and development. It hijacks a girl's agency to
decide her future and hinder individual growth and development while
systematically holding her children back as well. The children of young
mothers have higher rates of infant mortality and malnutrition and are
less likely to be educated than children born to mothers older than 18.
This is a costly and tragic cycle.
drivers of cefm
While child, early and forced marriages can take place for a myriad
of different reasons in different settings, the core drivers are
usually economic and social, and often perpetuate, gender inequality.
The practices can be rooted in systems that hold women and girls in
subordinate roles and accord them less value than men and boys. Under
these conditions, parents see limited roles for girls and little
incentive to invest in their education.
Poverty
Child, early and forced marriage is rooted in poverty,
displacement, or societal pressures. It is both a driver of and symptom
of poverty and limited economic opportunities for women and girls. More
than half of girls from the poorest families in the developing world
are married as children. Lack of economic opportunity for women,
ownership over assets, and economic mobility makes marriage the
perceived safest choice for girls and their families. In communities
where a dowry or `bride price' is paid, it is often welcome income for
poor families; in those where the bride's family pays the groom a
dowry, they often have to pay less money if the bride is young and
uneducated.
In Jordan, I met Syrian refugee women who simply could not pay
their rent or feed their families. One woman told me that her 15-year-
old daughter was receiving marriage proposals. She was refusing, but
the pressure to relieve some of the family's burden was palpable. But
the girls are not the only victims. Entire countries lose out on the
productive potential of girls who are subjected to early and forced
marriage, which weakens their economic output, cultural creativity, and
political stability. Across that region, we have heard countless
stories of girls married to ease pressure on strained family finances.
State Fragility and Conflict
State fragility, conflict, and humanitarian emergencies exacerbate
drivers of CEFM by aggravating economic insecurity, eroding social
safety networks, and limiting girls' freedom of movement and access to
educational and economic opportunities. In such contexts, families may
perceive marriage as a means to increase a daughter's safety,
particularly from violent extremist groups and other combatants who
often force girls into marriage; however, girls married under these
circumstances are more vulnerable to violence from husbands and
families and are unlikely to remain in school. Forced marriages are a
pervasive feature of armed conflicts around the world, perpetrated by
violent actors, including rebel or insurgent groups. Abduction and
forcible marriage is a common tactic among non-state actors, often
leading to sexual slavery and prolonged forced labor.
It is important that we understand how conflict exacerbates forced
marriages. Last year in Jordan, I met Huda, a Sunni Muslim woman from
Mosul. As a widow, Huda felt she had increasingly fewer options to save
her sons and daughter from Da'esh's clutches. She decided to flee her
home, selling everything to fund the dangerous trip from Iraq to Amman,
Jordan. Huda is one of the many Iraqi women who told me how Da'esh
makes life unlivable for women and girls. The situation is especially
grim for minorities. Reports indicate that Da'esh has abducted more
than three thousand women and girls, including those from Iraq's
religious community of Yezidis and other minority groups. Girls as
young as 12 or 13 have been forced to marry violent extremists or sold
to the highest bidder--like cattle at an auction. These are young
girls, mothers, and sisters facing imminent rape, trafficking, and
forced marriage. Through emergency assistance programs, we have been
able to help provide medical, psycho-social, and livelihood support for
over 150 women and girls who survived Da'esh captivity. However, there
are still thousands of girls that are held captive and will need
assistance.
It is important that we speak about Huda, and her Iraqi sisters. We
must not accept such stories as casualties of a war thousands of miles
away and beyond our consciousness. In the situation I described, child,
early and forced marriage is, plain and simple, an aspect of terror, a
horrific violation of human rights with a lifetime of consequences. It
is a tactic of terrorist groups like Da'esh and Boko Haram to control
entire populations and to recruit new fighters. And it must be stopped.
As Secretary of State John Kerry and others have said, preventing this
kind of brutalization of women and girls in conflict zones preserves
our common humanity. It also protects the national security interests
of the United States and our allies. We must come together to ensure we
end it.
addressing the problem
Women and girls around the world are leading the charge in their
communities to take a stand to change the harmful practice of child,
early and forced marriage. Recently, I joined Secretary Kerry in
Nigeria. We spent a morning with a group of adolescent girls benefiting
from STEM programs and the efforts of organizations devoted to
empowering adolescent girls and changing their families' perspectives
about the value of girls' education. In Nigeria, I met Amina. She is
one of those rare girls who completed 12 years of schooling. She told
me that girls drop out of school ``after a certain age to move to their
husband's house.'' She told me that girls are generally married by the
age of 13, and they usually immediately start having children. Amina's
life has been different because her parents prioritized her education,
rather than her marriage.
Fortunately, we are seeing effective efforts to confront and end
this practice around the world in even the most remote villages where
early and forced marriages are the norm. One such leader is Memory
Banda, a young woman from Malawi. In Memory's community, it's not
unusual for girls to get married and have children at very young ages.
But Memory refused to get married. Instead, she organized literacy
classes for other girls. She got involved in local advocacy. And she
went to college. Her story is more than inspiring. It's also a reminder
that girls around the world are not asking for our pity. They are
asking for our partnership. And when we partner with them, we will be
successful. Memory is proof of that: thanks to her efforts, and the
work of other activists in Malawi, Malawi has adopted laws against
early marriage.
That's not to say that our work in Malawi is done. While
commendable, Malawi, like many other similarly-situated countries, has
difficulty enforcing these laws. As of 2010, legal prohibitions against
child, early and forced marriage were in effect in 158 countries, and
146 of those granted exemptions in the case of parental consent. In
many countries, existing laws are weakly enforced, especially when they
conflict with local customs. For this reason, I was impressed by the
efforts of Malawi's ``child marriage terminator'' senior chief Theresa
Kachindamoto. Chief Kachindamoto has banned CEFM and told the chiefs
under her that they must also stop all sexual initiation rituals, like
sexual cleansings, or she will dismiss them. During her tenure, she has
annulled some 850 marriages. Her efforts are testament to the fact that
ending CEFM requires a multi-faceted approach.
u.s. government efforts to address cefm
The United States is taking a whole-of-government approach to
addressing CEFM and has undertaken several key actions to combat this
practice. The United States has co-sponsored resolutions on ending CEFM
at the U.N. Human Rights Council and in the U.N. General Assembly's
Third Committee. In 2012, the State Department began including
reporting on the minimum age of marriage and the rate of marriage under
the age of 18 in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
and adopted new guidance and training for consular officers to assist
U.S. citizens living abroad who are forced into marriages. That same
year, USAID released Ending Child Marriage and Meeting the Needs of
Married Children: The USAID Vision for Action, which set goals to
mobilize communities to shift norms that perpetuate CEFM, address the
unique needs of married children, and cultivate partnerships with host
governments and the private sector.
The U.S. Government addresses child, early and forced marriage
through three core interagency policies.
The U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security
(2011) commits the USG to strengthen efforts to prevent and
protect women and children from harm, exploitation,
discrimination, and abuse, including sexual and gender-based
violence and trafficking in persons. By ensuring that women's
perspectives and considerations of gender dynamics are woven
into the DNA of how the United States approaches peace
processes, conflict prevention, the protection of civilians,
and humanitarian assistance, the National Action Plan affirms
that matters of gender equality are fundamental to our national
security interests. Importantly, the Plan recognizes that the
protection and empowerment of girls is part of a comprehensive
approach to preventing and responding to conflict.
The U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Response to Gender-based
Violence Globally (2012) identifies CEFM as a form of gender-
based violence and emphasizes the need for increased
programming to address the practice in countries where it is
most prevalent. The strategy also calls on U.S. agencies to
address root causes of violence as a means to raising the value
of girls while developing best practices, programs, and
policies.
To address the range of challenges facing adolescent girls,
Secretary Kerry launched the interagency U.S. Global Strategy
to Empower Adolescent Girls in March 2014. Bringing together
the efforts of the Department of State, USAID, the Peace Corps
and The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MMC), the goal of the
strategy is to ensure adolescent girls are educated, healthy,
socially and economically empowered, and free from violence and
discrimination. The United States is the first country in the
world to develop a strategy focused on the protection and
advancement of adolescent girls globally, and addressing child,
early, and forced marriage will be a central focus of U.S.
government efforts to implement this strategy. The Department
of State has prioritized addressing child, early and forced
marriage as one of the three key objectives specified in its
implementation plan.
interagency programs
These policies are being implemented through a range of initiatives
and programs. In particular, Let Girls Learn--a presidential initiative
championed by the First Lady--is a central part of the United States'
implementation of the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls.
In July 2015, President Obama announced the Let Girls Learn Challenge
Fund to design new, holistic programs that address the range of
challenges preventing adolescent girls from attaining a quality
education that empowers them to reach their full potential.
Malawi and Tanzania were selected in 2015 as the first two focus
countries under the Let Girls Learn Challenge Fund. In these countries,
USAID and the Department of State are working with an array of USG
agencies, multilateral and bilateral partners, and civil society and
the private sector to co-create, co-fund, pilot, and implement
innovative programs through a multi-sectoral approach. Nepal and Laos
were also just recently announced as additional countries for the USG
to engage with as well.
department of state programs
While the U.S. Government has many programs that address child,
early and forced marriage through economic empowerment, access to
health, educational programs and legal reform, the Department of State
also has programs aimed at understanding and responding to child, early
and forced marriage.
In March 2016, Secretary Kerry announced $7 million in
programming to empower adolescent girls in Afghanistan, where
the Department of State will fund efforts to change perceptions
about child, early and forced marriage at the district and
community level through grants for girls to go to school and
support for counseling, networks for girls, and training on
life and vocational skills.
Through the Global Women Peace and Security Initiative, the
Gender Based Violence Initiative, and the ``Voices Against
Violence'' global program, the Department provides emergency
assistance to support survivors of extreme forms of GBV and
harmful traditional practices. We have been able to provide
funds for girls who were threatened with forced marriage,
through small, short-term emergency assistance funding for
expenses including medical expenses, psychosocial support or
counseling, emergency shelter or other safe accommodation,
relocation expenses, livelihood and dependent support, and
legal assistance. The program is meant to provide assistance to
those in urgent situations with little to no alternatives for
support.
Through our Voices Against Violence program, we will engage
with actors who have influence over the community's attitudes
and behavior, this includes judges from civil and religious
courts, and grassroots organizations on the ground to educate
families. By working with local experts, advocates, and
stakeholders, we will create meaningful, long-term changes.
The Department is also supporting a 3-year, $5 million
collaborative effort with USAID and UNICEF aimed at reducing
the prevalence of school-related gender-based violence and
establishing child and adolescent-friendly procedures to
respond to incidents of GBV when they occur. Through training,
mapping of services for GBV victims, advocacy and awareness
raising activities, school actors are gaining knowledge of the
impact of GBV, including on early marriage and its legal and
social consequences. This project is developing a systematic
reporting and referral mechanism to monitor and respond to
incidents of school-related GBV.
USAID Programs
USAID invests in both research to expand our knowledge on effective
interventions to prevent CEFM and programs to address the needs of
married adolescents in regions where the practice is most prevalent.
Guided by rigorous project evaluations and the latest research
findings, USAID's interventions include promoting girls' education,
supporting married children, strengthening the enactment and
enforcement of laws and policies that delay marriage, and building
community outreach efforts to shift attitudes that perpetuate the
practice. In FY 2015, USAID doubled its investment to prevent CEFM and
support married children, building on decades of engagement on these
issues, including addressing the needs of more than 50 million girls
and boys who are already married but have limited access to education,
health services and economic opportunities.
The USAID Vision for Action to Ending Child Marriage &
Meeting the Needs of Married Children provided health care and
access to education to married children and adolescents and
educated students, teachers, parents, and community leaders,
through programs including the Safe Schools program in Nepal,
focusing on the importance of delaying marriage and the harmful
effects of CEFM.
USAID also conducted research to study the effectiveness of
programs to delay child, early, and forced marriage in
Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Burkina Faso. Based on the findings of
this research, the programs were later expanded to additional
high-prevalence regions. Data on the impact of programs in
Tanzania and Ethiopia data was shared through a global
dissemination of results (available here: http://
www.popcouncil.org/research/building-an-evidence-base-to-delay-
marriage-in-sub-saharan-africa) in the fall of 2015.
In Bangladesh, the Protecting Human Rights program supports
the development and momentum on amendments from the Ministry of
Women and Child Affairs (MOWCA). A divisional level workshop on
child marriage was held and one immediate outcome was the
announcement of an annual national day on prevention of child
marriage, to be observed every 29th of September in Bangladesh.
In addition, in September 2015 USAID released a resource
guide on preventing and responding to CEFM. This resource guide
provides information on how partners and USAID sectors,
missions, and staff can integrate CEFM prevention and response
into their programming. USAID will continue to work in
partnership with lawmakers, international organizations, the
private sector, and change agents at the national, local, and
community levels to address the practice of CEFM
conclusion
While the statistics can seem grim, in every country I travel to, I
meet innovative, resilient women, men and youth who are working hard to
lead their countries toward gender equality and away from harmful
practices like child, early and forced marriage. They know that with
their hard work and community building, change will come in their
countries. It is the tenacity of these individuals that keep us going,
and I see it as key part of my job to raise up these leaders. As a
matter of fact, just yesterday, we learned that Nadia Murad, Iraq's
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee who is an outspoken survivor of Dae'esh, has
just been named as a 2016 U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of
Survivors of Human Trafficking. Her appointment will take place on
September 16th, the International Day of Peace, at U.N. Headquarters in
New York. Nadia has bravely testified before the U.N. Security Council,
U.S. Congress, U.K. Parliament, and other important international
forums as a survivor of Da'esh violence and trafficking. She is just
one example of the kind of grass-roots strength and will that inspires
me to keep pressing forward every day.
On behalf of the State Department and the Office of Global Women's
Issues, I'd like to thank the committee for their leadership in
shedding light on this global economic, development, and human rights
issue.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
Secretary Richard.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANNE RICHARD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
BUREAU OF POPULATION REFUGEES AND MIGRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Richard. Thank you, Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member
Boxer, and other members of the committee for convening this
important hearing on the plight of millions of girls around the
world who are subjected to early and forced marriage.
I just want to say, Senator Rubio, Senator Boxer, Senator
Gardner, and also for Senator Durbin, we are very well aware
how busy and compressed the Senate schedule is, and it is so
heartening for all of us that you are carving out time to talk
about this issue right now. It really just speaks volumes about
how much you care, and it really is a morale boost for us. So,
thank you very much.
Ambassador Russell has outlined the scope of the problem. I
want to focus my remarks on early and forced marriage among
people who are refugees, internally displaced or stateless.
As you know, my bureau aids refugees and others uprooted by
conflicts and crises. Thanks to the U.S. Congress, we are
funded to provide assistance around the world in hot spots and
crisis zones to bring relief to people who suffer. And as part
of this, we see time and time again how these emergencies
exacerbate the threat of early and forced marriage, not only in
the war zones but also, unfortunately, in the places where
families seek safety and take refuge.
Boko Haram and ISIL outrage the world by enslaving girls
and forcing them into marriage. But these are not the only
places where abuses are being perpetrated. Tragedies also
unfold every day around the globe, as combatants in conflicts
use attacks on women and girls to terrorize, subjugate, and
scatter innocent civilians.
Families forced to flee may splinter. Some may lose members
through death or separation, including losing adult men who are
traditional heads of the household. Families also lose their
livelihoods, their dignity, and their legal and social status.
Instead of being able to work, they must rely on aid. Many find
themselves living in poverty, in the close quarters of slums or
tents, feeling adrift, uncertain about their fate and
understandably fearful for their future. Having escaped war, at
this point they ought to be able to breathe a sigh of relief
and resume normal life. But life in exile is not normal and,
regrettably, it is not always safe.
So in the chaotic background to these situations, parents
may feel that they must do whatever it takes to safeguard their
daughters' reputations and their family's honor, and families
may be afraid of what will happen to their young unmarried
daughters as they flee and find themselves in these new,
unfamiliar environments. So early and forced marriage becomes a
so-called ``negative coping strategy.''
Syrian refugees in Jordan point to worries over safety and
sexual harassment as reasons for arranging marriages for their
young daughters. Some parents also hope marrying a local man
will help them stay in the host country legally.
Families marry off daughters because they are running out
of money. In some cultures, families see their daughters as a
burden, one that grows heavier when there are no opportunities
for further education or work. That is especially true when the
family is struggling to put food on the table. And some
families see early and forced marriage as preferable to other
alternatives open to girls with no other source of income.
For all these reasons, more girls are forced into marriage.
After 2 years in exile in Jordan, the rate of child marriages
among Syrian girls there was twice the pre-war Syrian average.
Before the war, about 13 percent of Syrian girls under 18 were
married. But by 2013, the share of married girls among refugee
families jumped to 1 in 4. And nearly half of those girls
married men at least a decade older than they are.
Even though parents may think they are shielding their
daughters from abuse and sexual assault, early and forced
marriage can have the opposite effect. Girls married young,
especially those married to much older men, are more likely to
suffer physical and emotional abuse and sexual violence than
unmarried girls.
I am conscious of the time, so I trust you will put my
written remarks into the record. What it goes on to talk about
is that it is physically dangerous for girls to become young
mothers. It is dangerous for their own bodies, and it is not
good for the health of their babies. This, in a way, is taking
the scourge of child marriage and passing it on to another
generation, and there is a similar passage to the next
generation that happens in terms of legal documentation,
statelessness. If a girl is too young to be married, if legally
she should not be married, if she is living in an uncertain
situation, her baby may not get registered. It may not have a
birth certificate, and this can provide problems, then, for the
rest of their lives.
Then our testimony goes on to talk about the remedies, how
we need to strengthen laws against early and forced marriage,
how we have to make it easier to document marriages and births,
how the United States is cosponsoring, did cosponsor at the
U.N. Human Rights Council a resolution on the right to a
nationality, and particularly women's equal nationality rights,
which is so important in terms of helping women around the
world.
We are also supporting UNHCR's Global Campaign to End
Statelessness within the next decade. Cathy has already
mentioned the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls,
and we are certainly putting a big focus all year this year on
trying to get more girls educated, more kids in school
generally, more refugee children in school, and especially
refugee girls.
I would love to also draw your attention to the Safe From
the Start initiative that was launched around this time of year
in 2013. This is the third year now that it has existed, and it
is not just to respond to bad things happening to women and
girls overseas but to prevent them from happening in the first
place. This is where U.S. leadership has the potential to
really make a big difference.
Then I have a couple of examples in here from overseas.
Next week at the U.N. General Assembly, we will be doing a
number of things that are very related to this. One is the Call
to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence and
Emergencies. There is an annual meeting that will be held. It
will be chaired by Sweden this year, but in the past it has
been chaired by the U.S., and we are very much a partner with
the Swedes in doing this.
Also, the President has organized and will be holding a
Leaders Summit on Refugees. A piece of that is to encourage
countries that host refugees to allow more children to go to
school and to allow more countries to permit refugees to work.
Both of those are potential solutions to this problem of
refugees feeling they have no alternative but to marry off
their daughters.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Richard follows:]
Prepared Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Anne C. Richard
Thank you Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Boxer and other members of
the committee, for convening this important hearing on the plight of
millions of girls around the world who are subjected to early and
forced marriage, and thank you for inviting me to testify.
Ambassador Russell has outlined the scope of the problem. I want to
focus my remarks on early and forced marriage among people who are
refugees, internally displaced or stateless.
My bureau aids refugees and others uprooted by conflicts and
crises, and we see, time and time again, how these emergencies
exacerbate the threat of early and forced marriage--not only in
warzones but also in places where families seek safety and take refuge.
early and forced marriage among uprooted people
Boko Haram and ISIL outrage the world by enslaving girls and
forcing them into marriage. But these are not the only places where
abuses are being perpetrated. Tragedies also unfold every day around
the globe, as combatants in conflicts use attacks on women and girls to
terrorize, subjugate, and scatter innocent civilians.
Families forced to flee may splinter. Some lose members through
death or separation, including adult men who are traditional heads of
the household. Families also lose their livelihoods, their dignity and
their legal and social status. Instead of being able to work, they must
rely on aid. Many find themselves living in poverty, in the close
quarters of slums or tents, feeling adrift, uncertain about their fate
and fearful for their future. Having escaped war, at this point they
ought to be able to breathe a sigh of relief and resume normal life.
But life in exile is not normal and, regrettably, is not always safe.
Ambassador Russell described the tangle of deeply rooted beliefs,
traditions, and problems that can lead to early marriage. These include
poverty, pervasive discrimination, the absence of opportunities and
choices, and the misconception that early marriage will keep girls
safe. Parents may feel they must do whatever it takes to safeguard
their daughters' reputations and their family's honor.
Crises and conflicts can make these fears and dilemmas more urgent
and make the lives of girls more precarious. Families may be afraid of
what will happen to their young, unmarried daughters as they flee and
find themselves in new, unfamiliar environments. Early and forced
marriage becomes a so-called ``negative coping strategy.''
Syrian refugees in Jordan point to worries over safety and sexual
harassment as reasons for arranging marriages for young daughters. Some
parents also hope marrying a local man will help them stay in the host
country legally.
Families marry off daughters because they are running out of money.
In some cultures, families see their daughters as a burden, one that
grows heavier when there are no opportunities for further education or
work. That is especially true when the family is struggling to put food
on the table.
And some families see early and forced marriage as preferable to
other alternatives open to girls with no other source of income.
For all these reasons, more girls are forced into marriage. After 2
years in exile in Jordan, the rate of child marriages among Syrian
girls there was twice the pre-war Syrian average. Before the war, about
13 percent of Syrian girls under 18 were married. But by 2013, the
share of married girls among refugee families jumped to one in four.
Nearly half of these girls married men at least a decade older than
they are.
Even though parents may think they are shielding their daughters
from abuse and sexual assault, early and forced marriage can have the
opposite effect. Girls married young, especially those married to much
older men, are more likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse and
sexual violence than unmarried girls.
They are also far more likely to die in childbirth than older
women, and to develop severe complications like obstetric fistula. I
have seen how devastating this can be.
In Burkina Faso I visited a hospital supported by the United
Nations Population Fund and spoke with women who had developed
obstetric fistula because they gave birth before their bodies were
ready. Some had suffered for decades, rejected by their families and
ostracized by their communities, before learning that hospitals like
this one can repair fistulas. They were there recovering from surgery.
The perils of early and forced marriage and child-bearing cross
generations. Babies born of under-aged mothers suffer higher rates of
infant mortality, prematurity, low birthweight and malnutrition.
Another risk is that these children will be born--and spend their
entire lives--stateless, because underage marriages may not be legal,
so children's births cannot be registered. In 27 countries around the
world, discriminatory laws prohibit women and girls from passing their
citizenship to their children, and strip these children of legal rights
and protections they will need in life, including the right to attend
school, get medical care, work legally or own property. Stateless
people are more vulnerable to trafficking, sexual and physical
violence, exploitation, forced displacement, and other abuses--such as
early and forced marriage.
remedies
Let's now discuss possible remedies. Strengthening laws against
early and forced marriage could help. Most nations prohibit marriage
below a certain age. But awareness of these laws is limited and
enforcement is spotty--especially when laws clash with prevailing
customs. Violations against displaced girls can be especially hard to
address through legal means.
One solution is to make it easier to document marriages and births.
Universal birth registration can reveal a girls' age and help enforce
laws against underage marriage, and it can prevent statelessness among
children. At the most recent session in June, the United States
cosponsored a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution ``The Right to a
Nationality: Women's Equal Nationality Rights in Law and in Practice''
with more than 100 cosponsors including all African states.\1\ This
resolution galvanized international support for granting equal
nationality rights to women and addressing the issue of statelessness.
The United States is also supporting UNHCR's global campaign to end
statelessness within the next decade.
We also need to change incentives, attitudes and the value placed
on girls. Keeping girls in school is key. Girls with no education are
up to six times more likely to marry as children than girls who have
received secondary education. In sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of women with
no education were married before age 18 compared to only 13% of those
with secondary education.
The ``U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls,'' launched
by Secretary Kerry this past March, will strive to make education safe,
free, and compulsory throughout the world, and keep girls enrolled in
school, even if they are married and have children. It also aims to
boost the numbers of adolescent girls who benefit from comprehensive
health services and education.
Curbing gender-based violence in crises and conflicts can also
discourage families from resorting to early and forced marriage. This
is the focus of an initiative we launched in 2013 called Safe from the
Start. Under it, we are channeling or have channeled approximately $55
million to programs designed both to help survivors and to prevent
attacks from happening in the first place.
We have provided new staff and training so that aid workers can
identify risk factors and take countermeasures, make camps physically
safer, provide medical treatment, legal counseling and psycho-social
services, and help vulnerable women and girls earn money to support
themselves. The initiative also supports education and awareness
raising programs and wellness centers--safe spaces in refugee camps--
for women and girls.
At Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp, where early and forced marriage is
a stubborn problem, girls get counseling and support. Outreach workers
go door to door and organize community gatherings to raise awareness
about the rights of women and girls.
In Nigeria and Uganda aid workers also distribute leaflets, put up
billboards about the need to prevent forced marriages and let girls go
to school. Aid workers say it is making a difference. Mothers and girls
are coming forward to report that they, their daughters, or friends are
being pressured into early forced marriage and want help to stop it.
Preventing early and forced marriage and other forms of gender-
based violence is a focus of our diplomacy as well as the humanitarian
assistance we provide through U.N. agencies and other international and
non-governmental organizations. We have worked hard to rally support
for the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in
Emergencies, a unique initiative to mobilize and coordinate efforts to
strengthen protection for women and girls caught up in emergencies. As
the Call to Action lead in 2015, the United States created a roadmap
that outlined concrete and meaningful steps all concerned governments
and humanitarians can take over the next 5 years to do a better job of
keeping women and girls safe and holding one another accountable.
When more girls have the chance to make their own, informed choices
and reach their full potential, the world will be a better place, not
just for them but for all of us.
Thank you and I would be happy to answer any questions.
----------------
Notes
\1\ A/HRC/32/L.12
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
Let me, Secretary Richard, begin by asking kind of a big-
picture question. If you look at the list, the top five--India,
Bangladesh, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico--I know that in the top
10, 9 of the 10 are viewed as fragile states. But nonetheless,
if you look at this list, the top five, they have state
entities. When you interact with your counterparts in India or
in Mexico or in Brazil or in some of these other countries, at
the government-to-government level, what is their view
generally of this issue? Is it we know we have a problem but we
have so many other problems we have to deal with? Or is it more
along the lines of this is our culture and our society, this is
how things work over here, and you guys cannot impose some of
your views on us because this is the way we do it in this
society? What is the government-to-government--
Ms. Richard. I think when we talk diplomat to diplomat,
there is general agreement that this is not in the best
interest of girls. The problem is that they are embarrassed
that this is happening in their own countries, and also it is
happening to people who are not in the elites of society. They
are people who are poor people or displaced people, as we just
focused on.
What helps is when we raise the issue because that puts it
on the agenda of national security foreign policy concerns that
the U.S. cares about.
Senator Rubio. But beyond being embarrassed, is your sense
that it is a priority for these governments? Is it something
that, all things being equal, it is a priority for them or--
Ms. Richard. I suspect that what you said is correct, that
for some of these governments they have such a long list of
issues that while this is on the list, it is not at the top. By
our raising it, though, it does certainly push it up the
priority list. It gets it much more attention than were we not
to raise it.
We also are making it a priority by raising it in these
international conferences. I know mentioning international
conferences probably sounds deadly dull, but what we do is, at
the World Humanitarian Summit, at a child protection conference
I attended in the UAE, for example, at the U.N. General
Assembly meetings next week, we show up at very senior levels
and we bring attention to these issues, and we engage with very
senior levels of these other governments. So it becomes part of
the conversation, and we get across how much we care, and then
we back it up by providing funds to make a difference.
So I think the U.S. has a very smart approach on this.
Senator Rubio. I do not want to pick on any one country in
particular, but two of these five countries are in the Western
Hemisphere, which is also the overview of this committee. In
Mexico and Brazil, is a marriage between a 14-year-old and a
30-year-old legal under their laws?
Perhaps Ambassador Russell--
Ambassador Russell. I am happy to respond to that. I think,
just in terms of the way we approach it, we try to put it in a
broader conversation, which is to say that almost every
country--and I have just found that in the course of my work,
that the most successful approach for us is to talk about how
it is in their interest to do things that we are encouraging
the countries to do. They are not really so excited when I come
in and say, you know, you should not do this, you should not do
that. Sometimes I have to do that. But what I talk about
generally is that all countries will be stronger if women are
able to participate. It is just a fundamental principle, and it
is the driving force for our work. It is why it is a State
Department issue, because we think these countries--we know
they will be more economically secure, and we believe that they
will be more stable.
Part of the trick about this is how do women participate
when girls are falling off in really alarming numbers. So what
we talk about is, look, this is really in your interest to
figure out a way to try to address these issues more
aggressively, and we also put it in the context of the
sustainable development goals, where if all of these countries
are pushing to develop more fully, how do they do that.
Early and forced marriage is a specific target under the
goals, under Goal 5, which is the gender goal, and it is
because there is a recognition that child marriage, FGM, that
these are practices that hold girls back. If we want them to
participate, they need to be able to do that--
Senator Rubio. I guess just to get back to the point I am
making about the Western Hemisphere, if you have a 45-year-old
man married to a 15-year-old in Brazil or in Mexico, I do not
know whether that is even legal under their laws, but that
person tries to travel to the United States with his 14- or 15-
year-old wife, do our laws allow them--do we recognize them
when they come in on a visa as married?
That is why I am trying to understand the legal status of
it in those countries, because they stand out only because--I
am not minimizing the tragedy of displaced communities and some
of the other countries that are mentioned in this list, and I
am not saying there are not severe poverty issues in both
Brazil and in Mexico. But I think it is startling that two of
the five countries in the top list here are in our hemisphere,
and they do not have massive--they do not have the same issues
as we have seen in the Middle East.
So either these marriages are being recognized by their
laws, and ultimately when they come to us and say we want to
come into your country as tourists on a visa, and I am here
with my 14-year-old or 15-year-old wife, what is our--
Ambassador Russell. We can follow up--and I am sorry that I
do not know the answer to that--with Consular Affairs, how they
treat that issue in particular. I know that there is a lot of
concern about American citizens going abroad and getting
married, and our Consular folks are being trained on that and
have worked very closely, actually, with some of the witnesses
that you have here today on civil society to think about how we
can do a better job making sure that they are looking for that,
of Americans who are going back to their home countries,
typically, and getting married and coming back.
But as to how we would handle that coming in, I honestly do
not know the answer to that. But we can get that and get back
to you on it.
Ms. Richard. One step removed from the border, I can talk
about how we are engaging now very productively with Mexico and
the UNHCR to make sure that any children coming up from Central
America through Mexico are treated humanely, that their cases
are quickly analyzed, that Mexico add asylum experts to
determine what is going on with these children that they are
walking alone through Mexico. Are they safe? Are they being
trafficked? Have they been abused? Are they in peril? Because
children should not be--I cannot talk directly to the situation
of child marriage among Mexicans, but a piece of this, which is
to look at the migration flows through Mexico, we are doing a
lot more than we have, and it shows the importance of having a
good relationship with Mexico so that we can be encouraging,
supporting, prompting through this dialogue that is partly
bilateral and partly with UNHCR and other government--
Senator Rubio. Yes. My curiosity about Mexico and Brazil is
basically I do not know how much of that is due to people who
are from Mexico and how much of it is due to transitory
populations that are coming through for multiple reasons. I am
really curious about that aspect of it. Again, I am just
envisioning a young girl who has just entered the U.S. with her
husband and decides this is not a real marriage, I wish I could
come in. I am curious, do we help her get out of that
situation, and is there an asylum status for someone like that,
trapped in a marriage of that nature?
We can go into depth. I know the ranking member is ready to
go, so I wanted to let her--
Ms. Richard. And we will follow up with you, Senator, on
that question. Thanks.
Senator Boxer. I am going to follow up with this, just pose
it a little differently. Suppose a child came in running away
from this abusive marriage, 15, winds up--either comes from
Mexico, Brazil, or any of these countries that allow this. This
is an important question, following up to my friend's question,
which is also important, which is I would assume if a marriage
is legal in another country, I would assume we recognize it
here. I cannot be sure about that.
But if the woman ran away from her husband and she comes
in--woman, girl, child--and she winds up in one of these
places, I say to Ambassador Richard, would that be a reason for
asylum? I would assume it is. And if it is not, we ought to do
something about that.
Ms. Richard. You know, one of the rationales, one of the
legal reasons to become a refugee, which is part of
international conventions but also there are U.S. laws based on
this, is that you are fleeing oppression or persecution. One
reason for it is called membership in a social group. So it
really is up to asylum judges in the U.S. I am getting out of
my lane on this. We will have to talk to DHS about it. But I
think a case could be made--a case is certainly made that a
form of gender-based violence is child marriage.
So we can say that girls showing up at the border who have
been forced into early marriage have suffered from gender-based
violence and that that should be taken into consideration when
they make a claim for asylum, and would be a rationale for
granting them asylum.
Senator Boxer. Well, I would like to see an even stronger
statement, because if a girl runs away from a 50-year-old
husband, she is 15 or 14 or 16, I agree with you completely, it
is gender-based violence. It is a violation of her being. So
could you get back to us with a little bit more specificity? It
should be just clear to me, and I think I speak for everyone on
the panel, a child running away from this kind of a marriage.
So, thank you for that.
South Asia has the highest prevalence of child marriage out
of any region in the world. In Bangladesh, 52 percent of
girls--52 percent of girls--are married by their 18th birthday,
and 18 percent by the age of 15. In India, 47 percent of girls
are married as children. In Nepal and Afghanistan, more than a
third are married before the age of 18.
So in September 2014, the cabinet of Bangladesh approved
language in the draft Child Marriage Restrain Act of 2014 to
lower the minimum age, to lower the minimum age of marriage--
this gets to the Chairman's point--from 18 to 16. This has gone
in the wrong direction, 18 to 16, a major step backwards in our
efforts to end child marriage.
How is the U.S. Government working with the government of
Bangladesh? What have we done, Ambassador? What actions are we
taking? What is it? Have we had an official response to that? I
would like to know your answer.
Ambassador Russell. Thank you, Senator. It has been an
ongoing discussion with Bangladesh. I have traveled there. I
talked to the government when I was there. We had a U.S.-
Bangladesh dialogue in June where the government reaffirmed
that they would not try to reduce the legal age from 18 again.
So as of right now, we are in a position where they have been
very clear. They stated on the record in the course of this
dialogue that we held at the State Department. But I think it
is a broader--
Senator Boxer. Did you say they did not do it, or they
did--
Ambassador Russell. They did not. They have said that they
will not change the law from 18 to 16. This has been an issue
that has been churning--
Senator Boxer. Good.
Ambassador Russell. So we are good for now, but I will say
this. I think it is something that we really have to stay on
top of. Our diplomats there are certainly aware of it. They
have a really strong civil society there that is very, very
active and very engaged on this issue. I met with them when I
was there. So I think for now we are in a good place, but I
think you are really pointing to an important point, which is
the notion that any country would even consider this is
something that is very disturbing for us.
Senator Boxer. Right.
Ambassador Russell. And in that region in particular, we
have got to really stay on it as much as we can because the
numbers are so huge, and when we see that girls are really not
doing well and falling out of school in alarming numbers, that
is where we are trying to say you have got to keep these girls
in school and avoid this problem from the outset.
Senator Boxer. Well, Mr. Chairman, maybe we could work
together with our committee in a bipartisan way, either write a
letter to the ambassador from Bangladesh, have a meeting and
just say please, this would not be looked on favorably. It is a
step way backwards.
But I have other questions. May I submit them to the
record?
Senator Rubio. Absolutely.
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much.
Ambassador Russell. Your leadership helps, and the more
attention on all of these issues that you all bring to this,
when you remind ambassadors, when you remind other people who
work in the Government of the United States that these issues
are important, that helps tremendously, and that these issues
are interconnected, and that Bangladesh, they will never move
into the world they want to be in if they do not take care of
their girls and make sure that they get educated and that they
are not getting married early. It is a simple reality. The more
they hear that, not just from the gender person but from
leaders in our country, the better off we all are.
Senator Boxer. And for men and women combined.
Ambassador Russell. Yes.
Senator Boxer. And I think from both parties here.
Ambassador Russell. Absolutely.
Senator Boxer. It is rare that we can find these sweet
spots. We do it once in a while, and we can do it on this one.
So maybe the Chairman and I--and I am so appreciative that
Senator Gardner is here--we can move forward.
I would just close my comments--and then I am going to run
to the floor--with this. Bernard Lewis, who is known as a very
conservative historian, has said without equivocation what we
have all said here in our own words, and he said this 20 years
ago, that if you could try to find the one silver bullet that
could help us in the world to bring more prosperity, it is the
way countries treat their girls and women, because all of that
talent or potential talent and brains and everything that women
bring--I have always argued that women are not better, we are
equal. So to keep us out of the thing, out of these governments
and force us into these situations, it is really a crime
against humanity and, I think, a crime against God.
So I am hopeful before I leave--and we have this
partnership in the subcommittee--that maybe we can do something
with Bangladesh, we can write some letters to the
Administration about how they treat these children when they
either escape a marriage or come with a husband. I think that
is helpful. And anything we can do to help what you are doing.
I know it is a lonely deal there because, as our Chairman
said, there are so many issues that are on the agenda for
America, including getting these countries to turn against
terror and getting them to a place where they can trade. They
are so important. But, at the same time, I think we all believe
this is just as important.
So thank you so much, and again I thank our witnesses that
will come, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
I am going to just add to that that the humanitarian, moral
aspect to this I think is clear for everyone to see, and I
think what you are alluding to is the deeper argument that the
fact that nine out of these ten states that are on this list
are unstable is probably the cause of it, but it is also the
result of it.
You are basically saying that this is a country where over
half your population, unless they come from a wealthy family
that can position them for success, is never going to be a part
of civil society, is never going to be a part of government, is
never going to be a part of your economy. They are not going to
be innovators, they are not going to be producers, and their
only hope is to get married to somebody who will take care of
them. It goes deeper into this argument that they are a burden
on the family's finances, so let us figure out a way to move
our girls as young as possible into the care of someone else.
I mean, it is interrelated with the fact that a lot of
these countries fail, both economically and geopolitically. In
fact, I do not know of any advanced economy in the world that
is successful marginalizing over half its population. It just
does not work. And it is actually more than half because even
among men in those countries, if they do not come from the
right families and with the right education, they too are
marginalized. So you add that together, that could be 80
percent of your population, or more. But certainly over 50
percent.
So these things are interrelated.
I do want to get to Senator Gardner's questions.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
Senator Boxer, for your words today. I have two daughters, a
challenge that we have to address, two daughters. One of them
is 12. I dropped her off at the volleyball game just this past
weekend, and to think that not everybody is going to--it is
just an incredible crisis that we have to address. This is just
overwhelming when you think about what is happening to so many
girls, women around the world.
Ambassador Russell, I think you note that the 720 million
women figure is equivalent to 10 percent of the world's
population, 15 million married each year. In your testimony you
stated that. That is just a stunning figure.
I would also like to receive the information that you
provide to Senator Boxer and Chairman Rubio about this gender-
based violence issue and the determination, the criteria that
is being used, perhaps in a refugee status of some kind. Is
that a uniform standard? Is it across everyone? Do they weigh
it the same? Is it just sort of a subjective factor? Is it a
contributing factor? How does this equate? I would be very
interested in receiving that information as well.
I wanted to step back a little bit. The testimony talks
about programs. It talks about partnerships and where you are
working with other nations. Could you maybe give us a case
study, so to speak, of a nation where, from start to finish,
that had a significant problem, walk through some of the
programs that you have worked through and then state where it
is today? I do not care if it is Secretary Richard or
Ambassador Russell, but just give us a study of how we have
been effective and what it was that was a common theme between
taking that effectiveness and being able to apply it in other
places where we have not quite had the results yet.
Ambassador Russell. What I would like to do is talk a
little bit about how--I cannot point to a country where it has
been perfect. There is no such thing. What we have learned
through the course of our work is that the key is to try to
address these issues in a comprehensive way. It sounds sort of
intuitively right, and it sounds easy, but it is really
difficult. It is very challenging. And where we are doing it
now, where we have started is in Malawi, which is a very
interesting country.
It is poor. We went through a long analysis with USAID to
try to figure out where was the best place to try this
comprehensive approach. So we are starting there. They have a
lot of work to do. A lot of girls get married early. The
country is desperately poor, and they do not have mandatory
secondary education.
So the challenge is how do we help them move forward, and I
think it is an important point that the United States is not in
a position to fix any of these problems or any of these
countries. We really cannot do it. What we try to do is find
countries, find people in these countries who are working on
behalf of women and girls who understand the interconnectedness
of this issue and are working to try to address it, and we try
to support them.
I think Malawi is going to be a really good example of the
United States--so it is USAID, PEPFAR, State Department. We are
working with MCC. We are working with Peace Corps. Now we have
USDA working with us. Department of Labor is talking with us
about what they do. We are also working with our bilateral
partners and with our multilateral partners and saying, okay,
this is the scope of the problem, and let us see if we can
coordinate and work better so at the end of the day you cannot
really address child marriage in a vacuum. It does not exist in
a vacuum. It exists in a circumstance where girls are not
valued. That is basically the problem. Girls and women are not
seen as valuable members of society who should be able to
finish school and participate in the economy. They are just
not.
So how do we try to lift them up, lift up the way they are
perceived in the society? It takes a lot of effort. We as an
international community--this is not just the United States--
have not really been able to do this as effectively in the past
as we would like to do. You can certainly point to developed
countries where, as the Chairman said, women are treated better
in those countries generally. We know if we can lift up women
and girls, have them participate fully, they will add to their
societies, they will make them better.
How do we figure out how to do that? I think the most
important thing is to try to get them, keep them in school, in
a quality education, try to protect them from violence, try to
move them to a point where they can participate in the economy
and participate in the civic life of their country. So, for
example, they can run for office. The more women leaders we get
in these countries, the better.
It is not something you can do piecemeal. I believe this
strongly. We are testing the proposition; we will see. But to
me, it is the only thing that really makes sense. We are kind
of bending the frame of this a little bit, because it is not
really the way we have worked in the past.
Senator Gardner. Thanks. And just going back to the first
issue that we talked about, do we track the numbers of people
who come into the United States seeking some asylum status or
refugee status, trying to get away from the situation of forced
marriage? Is that something that we track?
Ms. Richard. We track asylum seekers in the U.S. That is
DHS.
Senator Gardner. In terms of this particular--
Ms. Richard. And we track the number of refugees that
arrive. But I do not know if we track these subsets.
Ambassador Russell. We track people who make gender-based
violence claims. We consider early and forced marriage a form
of gender-based violence. Whether that is pieced out, I do not
know. DHS would know that.
Ms. Richard. But I would like to know the answer, and I am
embarrassed I do not have it for you today, so we will get
that.
Senator Gardner. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Rubio. And my final question for the panel--and we
have a second panel waiting, and you have been generous with
your time, both of you have--is, and I think you alluded a
little bit to it in your answer to Senator Gardner's questions,
what is the best thing we are doing right now? If we were to
say this is the one place where we really need to be involved
in terms of turning this around, my sense is the programs that
create an alternative to child marriage for girls growing up
and young women growing up in economically challenged or
displaced families, but where could we best get results that
would help us toward this goal of wiping this out in a
generation?
Ms. Richard. You know, what we are doing that I think will
get good results is that we are working with strong support at
the community level in these countries to change the acceptance
of child marriage, and we support programs where there is a lot
of talking to young people and talking to men and talking to
boys, backed up by education for girls. So that is very much at
the grassroots level.
And at the diplomatic level, we are very much--I do not
know how to diplomatically say ``in your face.'' We are very
much pushing and encouraging and making issues around
empowerment of women and prevention of gender-based violence,
including early and forced marriage, part of our platform of
discussions. We are not doing it once. We keep coming back and
doing it over and over and over again.
I do not know what diplomats think when they see us coming,
and our boss, and he is going to talk about these issues. They
probably want to run and hide. But, yes, we keep coming back
and talking about them.
I just wanted to mention on Bangladesh specifically, we
have a very close relationship, working relationship, with the
foreign secretary of Bangladesh on migration issues and on,
because of the Rohingya, refugees coming across, and because so
many poor Bangladeshis leave. So it is very easy. Next week I
promise I will raise this issue with him. Thank you.
Senator Rubio. Well, I want to thank you both for--oh, did
you have an answer?
Ambassador Russell. I was just going to say one quick
thing, which is I think when you look broadly at child
marriage, what we see in these conflict settings is an
exacerbated situation. In a way, it has to be treated somewhat
differently, right? It is such a crisis, and in any crisis,
whatever is happening is going to get worse. We see increased
rates of domestic violence. We see increased early and forced
marriage for different reasons, and sometimes parents literally
will say, look, I am trying to protect my daughter. I do not
want her out wandering around. She is vulnerable to other men,
so we want to get her married so somebody is taking care of her
and she is protected.
So I think, in a way, these conflict settings bring up a
discrete set of issues. From our perspective, just stepping
back more broadly, if you ask me one thing to do, I think it is
to try to keep these girls in school. If we can do that, which
is very challenging, and the relationship of why they drop out
of school and get married is complicated. Sometimes they drop
out of school to get married. Sometimes they drop out of school
and they get married. But regardless, if we can keep them in a
quality education where we can talk to them about your value
and make sure their parents understand that they will
contribute to their families and their communities if they have
the opportunities, I think over time that is how we are going
to address it.
Having said that, these numbers are alarming, as you say,
and even though the numbers of child marriages are declining
around the world, when you look at the population coming up, we
are going to barely be treading water unless we get ahead of
this, and I think we have got to work with other countries to
encourage them to do more, and I think we have got to do this
work which we are trying to do at the State Department, which I
am grateful again for your support, of really trying to address
these issues that women and girls face in a more comprehensive
way.
I think at the end of the day, it is the only way we are
really going to solve the problem. But thank you very much for
your attention.
Senator Rubio. Thank you for your work and for your time
here today, and for your testimony.
We are now going to move to our second panel.
As they are transitioning here, join me in welcoming Ms.
Lakshmi Sundaram, the Executive Director of Girls Not Brides;
and Dr. Suzanne Petroni, who is the Senior Director for Global
Health, Youth and Development at the International Center for
Research on Women.
Dr. Petroni, are you ready?
STATEMENT OF SUZANNE PETRONI, PH.D., SENIOR DIRECTOR, GLOBAL
HEALTH, YOUTH AND DEVELOPMENT, INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR
RESEARCH ON WOMEN, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Petroni. Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Boxer--I wish
you were here--and esteemed members of the committee, thank you
so much for the opportunity to provide testimony on the human
rights abuse that is child marriage.
My organization, the International Center for Research on
Women, has been building the evidence base regarding child
marriage for the better part of two decades now, and during
that time we have worked to raise awareness of this important
issue across the globe. We have also worked with so many in the
U.S. Government, including Ambassador Russell and Assistant
Secretary Richard, to expand evidence-based policies and
programs to prevent this harmful practice. So I am so proud to
testify before you today along with such committed advocates,
and thank you for continuing to advance this cause.
You have already heard today that we know quite a lot about
child marriage, but we are still learning. So I would like to
speak today on some of the emerging evidence that ICRW is
generating on the causes, consequences, and potential solutions
to ending the practice.
Nearly everywhere where child marriage is prevalent, social
and community norms around sexuality and around gender play a
tremendous role. Where girls are valued only for their
positions as wives and mothers; where viable economic
opportunities are available only to men; where even talking to
men and boys, aside from your brothers or fathers, is
forbidden; where girls, but not boys, are taken out of school
to help with household chores because girls' education is seen
as having no value; child marriage will continue. So gender
inequality in itself is a significant driver of child marriage,
wherever it happens.
Now, much of the early evidence that we have on child
marriage came from India, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. These are
places where parents or community leaders were--and still are,
in many cases--the main decision-makers around marriage. Girls
in these contexts are often taken out of school and married off
by an adult, and often to an adult. In contexts like these,
targeting these decision-makers and shifting social norms
regarding the value of the girl, some of the solutions that you
have heard already today, are of utmost importance.
But we now have more evidence from different contexts,
including evidence that my organization is releasing today from
Kenya and Zambia, where girls are forced to drop out of school
not because of marriage but because the practical costs of
attending school outweigh the bleak economic prospects that
girls and young women have for their futures. And once they are
out of school, girls may be forced to marry either because it
is socially unacceptable to be an out-of-school, unmarried
girl, or because marriage may be their only means of financial
support.
We also know from ICRW's research in sub-Saharan Africa and
from the work of Promundo in Latin America, and Tahirih Justice
Center in the United States, that many girls are dropping out
of school and becoming child brides because they become
pregnant, and this is seen as something incompatible with
formal education in many contexts.
So, while understanding the different drivers of child
marriage is important in helping us identify the most
appropriate solutions, our research has shown there are some
solutions, and I am glad that after talking about the
challenges, that we are able to think about some solutions. You
can find more about these solutions in ICRW's report called
Solutions to End Child Marriage.
But, in short, they include empowering girls with
information, skills and support networks; educating and
engaging parents and community members; enhancing girls' access
to quality formal education, as we have just discussed;
providing economic support and incentives to girls and their
families; and lastly, encouraging supportive laws and policies
and their implementation; and again, interventions that use
several of these approaches are most effective.
Given our very latest research findings, I would add to
these solutions that providing adolescents with education about
their bodies and their rights, starting with basic information
about fertility and pregnancy, can also be an important
solution to curtailing both teen pregnancy and child marriage.
I would like to close by making a few recommendations for
your consideration.
First, it cannot be assumed that child marriage will
adequately be addressed as part of the increasing and very
worthy efforts to advance the broader health, rights, education
and welfare of adolescent girls. We need to ensure that child
marriage prevention receives the dedicated attention it
deserves.
So I recommend the Senate consider commissioning a report
by the Administration that details where, how, and how much the
Administration is investing in child marriage prevention. And
once we have that information, let us commit to doubling these
efforts. It may sound like a lot, but I think you may find that
the U.S. is still behind other countries when even that is
added.
Second, do not let married girls get lost in the shuffle.
There are 15 million girls who marry each year. They are among
the neediest and hardest to reach individuals in the world. So
even as we work to better understand their needs, we can
provide them with education, life skills, and appropriate
health care.
Third, support research to better understand what will work
to end child marriage in some of the under-studied regions like
the Western Hemisphere, where child marriage rates are high but
attention to these issues is still low.
And finally, continue to support girls' empowerment and
rights. We cannot overcome this challenge without ensuring that
girls have viable alternatives to marriage, that they know
their rights and are equipped to advocate for them.
Mr. Chairman, I know of no other government in the world
that has articulated as solid a commitment to advancing the
rights of adolescent girls as the U.S. has this year, and there
is no stronger foundation on which to build truly
transformative change. So as we move into a new administration
in the coming months, it will be incumbent upon Congress to
ensure that we build on this foundation and advance the welfare
of girls worldwide.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Petroni follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Suzanne Petroni
Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Boxer, and esteemed members of the
Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today on
the important issue of protecting girls around the world from the
pernicious--yet not insurmountable--human rights abuse of child
marriage.
Our colleagues from the State Department provided an excellent
summary of U.S. efforts to empower girls around the world and to
protect them from numerous rights abuses, including child marriage. My
organization, the International Center for Research on Women--ICRW--has
been building the evidence base regarding child marriage for the better
part of two decades. During that time, we have worked to raise
awareness of this important issue across the globe, and we have worked
with so many in the U.S. government--including Ambassador Russell,
Assistant Secretary Richard, Senator Collins, Senator Durbin and
Senator Boxer--among others, to expand evidence-based policies and
programs to prevent this harmful practice. So I testify before you
today with no small amount of pride that our government is now leading
the world in prioritizing girls in its foreign policy and development
assistance. For that I commend you and your colleagues like Senator
Durbin, who have been tireless advocates for girls around the world.
You have also just received an excellent overview of the practice
of child marriage from our good colleague Lakshmi Sundaram, who sits at
the secretariat of the Girls Not Brides global partnership, of which
ICRW co-chairs the U.S. National Partnership, Girls Not Brides U.S.A. I
could not agree more with her recommendations as to what should be next
for U.S. leadership on this issue.
I'll focus my brief remarks today on some of the emerging evidence
ICRW is generating that we hope will shed more light on not just the
drivers and consequences of child marriage, but also on solutions that
can unlock real and sustainable progress, so that we can end this
practice within a generation. As harmful as this challenge is, it is
not without solutions.
understanding structural drivers and root causes
While there are some common underlying factors, the drivers of
child marriage are different from region to region, country to country,
and even girl to girl. Indeed, as we learn more about the practice, we
learn more about the diverse, and often complex, drivers of it, both
across and within countries. And understanding these drivers is
critical if we are to develop solutions to end the practice.
In nearly all contexts where child marriage is prevalent, social
and community norms around sexuality and gender play a tremendous role.
Where girls are valued only for their roles as wives and mothers; where
viable economic opportunities are available only to men, but not women;
where having sex outside of marriage--or even talking to men other than
your brother or father--is forbidden; where girls, but not boys, are
taken out of school to help with household chores because girls'
education is seen as having no value; child marriage will continue.
Gender inequality is, in itself, a significant driver of child
marriage, no matter where it happens.
Much of the early evidence we had on child marriage came from
India, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, where parents or community leaders
were--and still are, in many cases--the main decision-makers around
girls' marriage. Girls here are often taken out of school and married
off by an adult, often to an adult, often an adult they may not even
know. In contexts like these, targeting these decision-makers and
shifting social norms regarding the value of the girl--solutions that
you've heard already today--are of utmost importance.
But we now have more evidence from contexts where girls are forced
to drop out of school, not because of marriage, but because the
practical costs of attending school outweigh the bleak economic
opportunities that girls and young women have in their communities. And
once out of school, girls may be forced to marry, either because it is
socially unacceptable to be an out-of-school, unmarried adolescent, or
because marriage may be their only means of financial support.
We also know--from our recent research in Senegal, Uganda, Kenya
and Zambia, and that of groups like Promundo in Latin America, and
Tahirih Justice Center in the United States--that many girls are
dropping out of school and becoming child brides because they become
pregnant, something that is seen as incompatible with formal education
in many contexts.
So, while it may add a great deal of complexity to the issue, it is
vital that we understand the different circumstances that contribute to
child marriage, so that we may implement the most appropriate solutions
to it. That said, there are some broad solutions that can be
implemented across contexts.
One of the most important pieces of research ICRW has produced on
this issue is our Solutions to End Child Marriage paper. This was a
systematic review, in which we reviewed more than 150 programs to
determine what works best to end child marriage. We identified five
commonly employed solutions, which are also reflected in the U.S.
Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls that you heard about
earlier today. These are:
I. First, empower girls with information, skills and support
networks. Having girls learn basic skills like literacy and numeracy,
how to communicate and negotiate, to stay healthy, to solve problems,
and to earn and manage money, can help girls can become more
knowledgeable and self-confident. Engaging with peers and mentors can
also help alleviate the social and economic isolation many girls
experience.
II. Second, educate and rally parents and community members. As
you've heard, these adults are often the ones responsible for deciding
when and whom a girl marries. We have seen powerful examples of how
educating these key stakeholders about how child marriage impacts a
girl's health and future can spark significant change.
III. Third, enhance girls' access to quality formal education.
Girls with no education are three times as likely to marry before 18 as
those with secondary or higher education. Providing incentives--such as
uniforms or scholarships--or the necessary skills and support for girls
to enroll and remain in school can help delay marriage. Programs aimed
at improving the safety and girl-friendliness of schools, strengthening
school curricula and making school lessons relevant to girls' lives
also are effective. When girls are in school, they are also less likely
to be seen as ready for marriage, and they can develop social networks
and skills that allow them to advocate for themselves and their
futures.
IV. Fourth, provide economic support and incentives to girls and
their families. Some parents may see a short term financial benefit
from marrying their daughter early, by gaining a bride price, lowering
the price of dowry or simply having one less mouth to feed. And some
girls may find themselves without any financial support from their
families, and thus turn to boyfriends and potential husbands. Providing
a girl or her family with a loan or an opportunity to learn an income-
generating skill, can provide economic relief for struggling families.
And daughters who learn skills that enable them to earn an income in
the future may be seen as adding more value to the family.
V. Lastly, encourage supportive laws and policies--and,
importantly, their implementation. Many countries with high rates of
child marriage have legislation on the books to prohibit the practice.
Advocating for the implementation of such laws, and raising awareness
about them among government officials and community leaders and
members, can help strengthen and/or better enforce existing initiatives
around girls' rights. Where such legislation is not on the books,
advocating for legal and policy reform is a critical first step. We
know that while laws themselves can't solve the problem, they are a
necessary part of the solution.
I should note that the most effective approaches are those that
employ several of these strategies, often in combination with others.
And we also know that siloed interventions do not always work. Recent
research conducted by ICRW, and funded by USAID, for example,
demonstrates this very point. In a rigorous evaluation, we found that a
large-scale conditional cash transfer program that was intended to
delay marriage in India did not work, largely because there was no
corresponding effort to educate families, communities or girls on the
value of girls as their own, independent beings, endowed with rights to
choose if, when and whom to marry. The intervention was thus perceived
by many as the government defraying the economic burden that having
girls placed on poor families. In many cases, that money was even used
for the girl's dowry as soon as she turned 18.
New research we recently conducted in Zambia and Kenya--the
findings of which we are actually publishing today, and which reflect
some of our other recent research in sub-Saharan Africa--indicates that
the main drivers of marriage in these contexts are school dropout and
early pregnancy. So here, interventions to delay marriage would need to
target both of these drivers. In particular, providing adolescents with
sexuality education--starting with basic information about fertility
and pregnancy, as well as youth-friendly reproductive health services,
can also be important solutions to curtailing both adolescent pregnancy
and child marriage.
recommendations
I would like to close with a word about the importance of U.S.
leadership in ending child marriage.
While we all recognize the harms that child marriage does to girls,
we should also understand that child marriage is also actively
undermining American investments in broader goals of global health,
education, democracy and governance, and so much more.
ICRW is currently engaged in a multi-year, global research project,
in partnership with the World Bank, in which we are calculating the
economic impacts of child marriage. While the research is ongoing, our
initial findings show that, in addition to the harmful effects on
girls' health, education, rights, and wellbeing that we've heard about
today, the economic costs of child marriage, from the individual to the
national levels are very significant. In Niger, which has the highest
child marriage rates in the world, for example, eliminating child
marriage today would translate into savings and benefits of about $25
billion by the year 2030, if we consider just the education sector. The
cumulative savings to governments and societies will likely be in the
trillions of dollars. There's much more to this study, and if you
invite me back in about six months, I'll be able to tell you more.
For now, however, we have sufficient evidence to confidently
recommend the following:
1. It cannot be assumed that child marriage will be adequately
addressed as part of the increasing and very worthy efforts to advance
the broader health, education and welfare of adolescent girls. To
ensure that child marriage prevention receives the dedicated attention
it deserves, I recommend the Senate commission a report that details
where, how, and how much the Administration is currently investing in
ending child marriage. Once we have that information, let's double
these efforts. Even then, I suspect the U.S. may still find itself well
behind many other countries in addressing this issue. But it would be a
good start.
2. Don't let married girls get lost in the shuffle. We critically
need robust investments to delay the age of marriage. But at the same
time, those 15 million girls who still marry each year are among the
neediest and hardest to reach individuals in the world. Even as we work
to more fully understand their needs, we know that they should be
provided with educational opportunities and with critical health care
services, including youth-friendly family planning, maternal health,
HIV screening and treatment, and mental health care.
3. Continue to invest in research to better understand what will
work to prevent child marriage in regions where we don't know as much--
starting with the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East and North
Africa, where child marriage rates are high, but attention to and
funding to combat the challenge are low. Let us also implement and
evaluate new interventions, so that we can develop scalable models that
are most effective across different contexts.
4. Finally, continue and expand the growing emphasis on girls'
rights and empowerment. As the research demonstrates, we cannot end
this problem without ensuring that girls have viable alternatives to
marriage, know their rights and are equipped to negotiate them with the
gatekeepers of their lives: parents, teachers, community and religious
elders.
I know of no government in the world that has articulated as solid
a commitment to girls in their foreign policy as the United States has
this year. There is no stronger foundation on which to build truly
transformative change. As we move toward a new Administration, it will
be incumbent upon Congress to ensure that we build on this foundation
and continue to advance opportunities for adolescent girls around the
globe. Thank you for your leadership in this regard.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
Ms. Sundaram.
STATEMENT OF LAKSHMI SUNDARAM, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, GIRLS NOT BRIDES, LONDON, UK
Ms. Sundaram. Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Boxer, and
esteemed members of the committee, thank you so much for the
invitation to provide testimony today. I am Lakshmi Sundaram,
and I am the Executive Director of Girls Not Brides, The Global
Partnership to End Child Marriage. We are a global civil
society partnership bringing together over 600 organizations,
working in 80 countries, dedicated to ending child marriage.
Our members are diverse. They range from tiny community groups
to some of the large international NGOs that you will have
heard from before. And we are represented here in the United
States by our U.S. national partnership, Girls Not Brides USA.
I would urge you to consider their excellent testimony that
they have submitted for the record which contains a
comprehensive view of U.S. efforts on this issue to date, and
recommendations for future action.
Now, for those in the room who are married, I want you to
think back to your wedding day. Hopefully, it was a day of joy
and love and promise. Hopefully, it was a day that opened up
new horizons and opportunities.
For the 15 million girls around the world who are married
every year, their wedding day represents a closing down of
horizons. As you said, Chairman Rubio, child marriage is not
linked to any specific region, tradition, or religion. It
happens all over the world. You mentioned Brazil and Mexico as
being two of the countries with the greatest number of child
brides. Other countries that you may find surprising are
Indonesia and Nigeria.
I would like to spend a few minutes to talk about why it
happens, and it is important to remember as we discuss child
marriage that the vast majority of parents love their daughters
and want to do what is best for them.
But most fundamentally, child marriage happens to girls
because they are girls, because girls have less value than boys
in society, and there is an out-sized value that is placed on
their virginity.
Child marriage is linked to poverty. Parents may feel that
giving a daughter in marriage will reduce family expenses, and
in some communities there may even be a financial transaction
involved, like a dowry or a bride price.
Many parents marry off their daughters young in areas where
girls are at high risk of physical and sexual assault, as you
heard earlier. Parents see marriage as a way of ensuring their
daughters are protected without necessarily thinking about the
significant violence that they will encounter within marriage.
And why should we tackle child marriage? We should because
ensuring girls have the right to choose if, when, and whom to
marry can create long-term change for girls themselves, their
families, and their countries.
But what is more, child marriage is at the heart of many of
the challenges we want to overcome as an international
community. Think about it. Our efforts to reduce child and
maternal mortality will be hindered as long as girls are giving
birth as children. Our efforts to ensure every child can finish
school are undermined when girls have to leave to get married.
Our efforts to end violence against women are held back as long
as so many girls are trapped in marriages where they have no
voice.
As my colleague Dr. Petroni said, we now know what it will
take to end child marriage. It will take working with girls
themselves to ensure that they know and are able to exercise
their rights. It means changing community attitudes that
devalue girls and hold them back, including by engaging with
parents, boys, Christian, Muslim, Hindu priests, and
traditional leaders as well. It means ensuring that we have
education, health, and legal services that are available, high-
quality and accessible to girls, both through government and
civil society. And it also means ensuring that we have a
supportive policy and legal framework in place.
We have seen some amazing progress over the last few years.
For example, in the international arena, ending child marriage
was included as a global development priority in the Global
Goals for Sustainable Development. And we have seen a number of
countries take leadership and strengthen their legal frameworks
and develop national action plans to end child marriage.
But this is not a problem that we can legislate our way out
of. We need far, far more investments in programs as well. In
this country, as has been mentioned before, we saw the launch
earlier in the year of the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls. This strategy enshrines a commitment to
girls' rights in U.S. foreign policy and assistance, bringing
much-needed attention and, I hope, resources to the diverse and
urgent needs of adolescent girls, including the right to choose
if, when, and whom to marry.
The U.S. is poised to be a leader in the fight to end child
marriage and has already done so much towards this end, but I
urge you to escalate this work to improve the lives of
adolescent girls globally. So to that end, Chairman Rubio, if I
may, I would like to respectfully make a few recommendations
for some initial measures that you can take.
First, please use the powers of Congress, of the purse, and
of oversight to make sure the Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls is robustly institutionalized and implemented.
Do not let child marriage get lost in larger efforts to promote
girls' health and education. Mandate regular progress reporting
so that Congress and civil society know exactly what is being
done to end child marriage and meet the needs of married girls,
how successful these efforts have been, and where more
investment is needed.
And show your full support for this issue on the
international stage by investing fully in achieving the target
to end child marriage under the Sustainable Development Goals.
Chairman Rubio, one of the most motivating things for me in
my work is hearing the stories of girls who have actually been
able to avoid marriage and are now fulfilling their potential
and doing amazing things around the world. I do hope that you
will join us in creating that positive world for girls all over
the world.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sundaram follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lakshmi Sundaram
Chairman Rubio, Senator Boxer, and esteemed members of the
committee; thank you for the invitation to provide testimony today. I
am delighted that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has decided to
hold a hearing on the important issue of child marriage. As the
Chairman alluded, I am Lakshmi Sundaram and I am the Executive Director
of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage. We
are a global civil society partnership bringing together over 600
organisations from 80 countries dedicated to ending child marriage in
our lifetime. Our members range from tiny community groups to large
international NGOs, and include amazing organisations you have heard
from before, such as the Kakenya Center for Excellence or World Vision.
We are represented in the United States by our U.S. National
Partnership, Girls Not Brides U.S.A.--who is here today and has been a
tireless leader working with Congress and the Executive Branch to
develop and cement U.S. leadership to end child marriage. The efforts
of Senator Durbin and other champions merit recognition in that regard.
And so before I begin my testimony I would like to commend to you the
testimony that was submitted for the record by our U.S. National
Partnership, which contains a comprehensive view of U.S. efforts on
this issue to date and recommendations for future action, many of which
I will highlight for you today.
But first, for those of you who are married, I want you to think
back to your wedding day. Hopefully, it was a day of joy and love and
promise. Hopefully, it was a day that opened up new horizons and
opportunities.
For millions of girls around the world, their wedding day is the
opposite. Rather than a joyous event, marriage is linked to dropping
out of school and focusing on children and household chores; it
represents a closing down of horizons.
how many girls are affected?
Approximately 15 million girls are married every year before
they reach 18 years.\1\ That is, approximately 41,000 every
day, or one girl every two seconds.
In the developing world, 1 in 3 girls is married by age 18,
and 1 in 9 is married by age 15, some as young as eight or
nine.\2\ And, while we lack reliable data for developed
countries, we know that the practice happens there too,
including in the U.S.
If there is no reduction in the practice, 1.2 billion women
will have married as children by 2050--that's the equivalent of
the entire population of India. These girls and women face
distinct challenges and need assistance so they, their children
and communities can thrive.
Child marriage affects boys too, but the overwhelming
majority of those who marry as children are girls, reflecting
the roots of gender inequality that drive the practice. It is
therefore fitting that this hearing is convened in the
subcommittee tasked with global women's issues.
where does it happen?
Child marriage is not linked to any specific region,
tradition, or religion. It happens all over the world. You
might be surprised to hear that, of the top ten countries with
the highest absolute number of girls married before 15, four
are in Africa, three in South Asia, one in East Asia/Pacific
and two in Latin America.
45% of girls under age 18 are married in South Asia; 40% in
sub-Saharan Africa; 29% in Latin America and the Caribbean; 18%
in the Middle East and North Africa; and in Europe and North
America too.\3\
what is the impact, and why does it happen?
When a girl becomes a bride, the consequences are lifelong and
devastating--for the girl, for her family and, indeed, for her nation.
My colleague Dr. Suzanne Petroni will walk you through some of those
macro-level impacts in her testimony. Child marriage is a gross human
rights violation that deprives girls of their rights to health,
education, freedom from violence and the right to choose if, when and
whom to marry.
Child marriage traps girls, their families and societies in a cycle
of poverty, limits millions of girls from fulfilling their potential
and leading happy, safe and productive lives. Child marriage spells
disastrous effects for our shared goals of prosperity, maternal and
child health, education and democracy. It means the end of school for
girls, a lifetime of domestic servitude, increased risk of violence and
sexually-transmitted infections like HIV, increased complications and
even death in pregnancy and childbirth.
child marriage is linked to maternal and child mortality and morbidity
Countries with high rates of child marriage typically have
high rates of maternal mortality. Investing in child marriage
could dramatically improve the health outcomes of both mothers
and babies.
Child brides are under intense social pressure to prove
their fertility, which makes them more likely to experience
early and frequent pregnancies.\4\
Early pregnancy endangers child brides' health because many
become pregnant before their bodies can safely carry or deliver
children.
Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the second
leading cause of death in girls aged 15-19 globally.\5\
Child marriage is a major driver of adolescent births: 95%
of the world's births to adolescents occur in developing
countries and 90% of these births are to girls who are already
married.\6\
Furthermore 65% of all cases of obstetric fistula occur in
girls under the age of 18 resulting in long term physical,
emotional and psychological consequences for girls who go
untreated.\7\
Early childbearing also increases the risks to newborns. In
low and middle income countries, babies born to mothers under
20 years of age have a 50% higher risk of being stillborn or of
dying within the first few weeks of life than those born to
older women.
child marriage undermines a child's right to education
Child marriage often denies children of school age their
right to the education they need for their personal
development, their preparation for adulthood, and their ability
to contribute to their family and community. Married girls who
would like to continue schooling may be both practically and
legally excluded from doing so.\8\
There is a complicated causal relationship between child
marriage and education, as child marriage is both a driver and
consequence of poor educational attainment.
Girls tend to drop out of school during the preparatory time
before marriage, or shortly afterwards when their marital and
domestic demands increase. For example, almost 30% of young
women who left secondary school before completion in Chad and
Nigeria cited early marriage as the main reason.\9\
Girls with higher levels of schooling are less likely to
marry as children. With half of the world's population under
the age of 25, educating youth is crucial to ensuring a
sustainable and prosperous future.
child marriage is linked to poverty and impacts national productivity
Child marriage is most common in the world's poorest
countries and is often concentrated among the poorest
households. It is closely linked with low levels of economic
development.
Girls from poor families are nearly twice as likely to marry
before 18 as girls from wealthier families, as marriage is
often seen as a way to provide for a daughter's future.\10\
However, girls who marry young are more likely to be poor and
remain poor.\11\
Girls who marry young do not receive the educational and
economic opportunities that help lift them out of poverty and
which are necessary to build a sustainable and prosperous
future for their communities and countries.\12\
child marriage is linked to violence and hiv infection
Child brides have little say in whether, when or whom they
will marry. In many cases their husbands are much older.
Girls who marry before the age of 18 are more likely to
experience violence within marriage than girls who marry
later.\13\
Child marriage exposes girls to a high risk of violence
often from their partners or their partners' families. The
greater the age difference between girls and their husbands,
the more likely they are to experience intimate partner
violence.\14\
Women exposed to intimate partner violence are one and a
half times more likely to acquire HIV in regions with high HIV
prevalence.
child marriage increases during humanitarian crises and conflicts
Growing evidence shows that in times of humanitarian crisis,
child marriage rates increase, with a disproportionate impact
on girls.\15\ Yet adolescent girls continue to be left behind
in humanitarian response efforts.
Seven out of the ten countries with the highest child
marriage rates are considered fragile states. We cannot ignore
child marriage in such contexts.\16\
Child marriage rates have increased in some crisis
situations. While gender inequality is a root cause of child
marriage in both stable and fragile contexts, often in times of
crisis, families see child marriage as a way to cope with
economic hardship exacerbated by crisis and to protect girls
from increased violence. But in reality, it results in a range
of harmful consequences.
For example, in Syrian refugee communities in Jordan, the
proportion of registered marriages for girls under 18 years has
rapidly increased. Between 2011 and 2014, the rates of
registered child marriages almost tripled, from 12% to just
under 32%.\17\ Protection of family honour and control of
girls' sexuality were major drivers of child marriage in this
context.\18\
Child marriage is not being adequately addressed in
situations of crisis. It is a cross-cutting issue which
requires coordinated action across all sectors from the
earliest stage of crises. More research is needed to understand
how different types of crises affect child marriage, how
programmes which tackle child marriage can be adapted for these
settings, and how child marriage can be integrated into
humanitarian response efforts. However, research must support
interventions to address child marriage, and the need for more
research should not be used as an excuse for inaction.
What you may not know is why. Why, in the year 2016, do 15 million
girls marry as children each year? It is important to remember that the
vast majority of parents want to do what is best for their children.
They love their daughters. There are many drivers of child marriage
that vary significantly from one context to another:
First and foremost, gender inequality: child marriage
happens to girls because they are girls. Girls are accorded
little value in many societies. They are second-class citizens
or perhaps commodities to be bought, sold or exchanged in
marriage. It is because girls have less value than boys in
society, and outsize value is placed on her virginity.
Poverty: Where poverty is acute, parents may feel that
giving a daughter in marriage will reduce family expenses by
ensuring they have one less person to feed, clothe and educate.
In communities where a dowry or `bride price' is paid, it is
often welcome income for poor families.
Security: Many parents marry off their daughters young
because they feel it is in her best interest, often to ensure
her safety in areas where girls are at high risk of physical or
sexual assault. However, they do not realise the significant
violence she will encounter within marriage.
why should we tackle child marriage?
Ensuring girls have the right to choose, if, when and whom to marry
can create long term change for girls themselves, their families and
their countries--and I'd argue it's one of the best returns on
investment that you can hope for in your foreign assistance efforts.
What's more, child marriage is at the heart of many of the
challenges we want to overcome as an international community. It is a
barrier to achieving many development goals, including those on poverty
eradication, nutrition, health, education, gender equality, economic
growth and reduction of inequality.
Our efforts to reduce child and maternal mortality will be hindered
as long as girls are giving birth as children. Our efforts to ensure
every child can finish school undermined when in some communities more
than 75% of girls have to leave to get married. Our efforts to end
violence against women are held back as long as so many girls are
trapped in marriages where they have no voice.
Investing in delayed marriage and childbearing is
recommended as a smart investment by the High Level Task Force
for the International Conference on Population and Development,
which will have ``high pay offs for improved wellbeing and
quality of life, poverty eradication, economic growth and
sustainable development, with multiplier and inter-generational
effects that will yield benefits for decades to come.'' \19\
The World Bank has highlighted that ``delays in marriage are
strongly associated with greater education, higher earnings and
health-seeking behaviour.'' \20\
And addressing child marriage can be an entry point. It's also a
way to address the more aspirational goal of ensuring equality for
girls and women. By tackling child marriage, we are necessarily
addressing the way that girls and women are viewed in society.
We can break this cycle, because when a girl is able to avoid
marriage as a child she is less likely to marry off her own daughters
as children.
so, what will it take to end child marriage?
In 2014, over 150 experts, organisations and researchers came
together to develop a global Theory of Change on child marriage, which
identified four areas where we should focus our efforts to accelerate
change:
Empower girls, and make them aware of--and able to
exercise--their rights and alternatives to marriage through
programmes that invest in girls.
Work with traditional leaders, fathers, boys, communities to
change the attitudes that devalue girls and hold them back. We
have seen interesting programmes working with Christian
priests, Muslim imams and Hindu clerics, as well as traditional
leaders, where they are now champions for change.
Provide services, like education, legal and health services,
both through government and civil society.
Enact and enforce effective laws and policies that put in
place a minimum age of marriage at 18 and don't allow loopholes
for traditional or customary laws, and make sure these laws are
enforced.
where are we today?
In the past few years, there has been unprecedented global action
to end child marriage, notably:
New global and regional commitments: Child marriage was
included as a global development priority in target 5.3 of the
Sustainable Development Goals. Resolutions at the U.N. General
Assembly and Human Rights Council have mobilised political
support and strengthened the global normative framework. Other
regional and intergovernmental bodies, including the African
Union and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation,
have set out plans of action to end child marriage.
Strengthened legal and policy frameworks: National
strategies have been developed or are being developed in at
least 14 countries. Many countries have also taken steps to
strengthen their laws to address child marriage and put in
place a minimum age of 18. I would encourage the U.S. to follow
suit. Currently, in every American state, children under the
age of 18 can marry.
But we cannot legislate our way out of this practice. Urgent
and sustained investment is needed to support new programmes:
the number of programmes addressing child marriage has grown
dramatically, with increased action from international NGOs,
community based organisations and many others. UNICEF and UNFPA
have launched a new Global Programme to Accelerate Action to
End Child Marriage in 12 countries. Yet this represents just a
fraction of what is needed. The U.S. has been a leader in many
regards, although it is unclear how much money you have
actually invested to end the practice and meet the needs of
married girls.
Earlier this year Secretary of State John Kerry released the
U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls, the first
foreign policy in the world geared toward protecting the rights
of, and providing pathways of opportunity for, adolescent
girls. This strategy enshrines a commitment to girls' rights in
U.S. foreign policy and assistance, bringing much-needed
attention--and I hope, resources--to the diverse and urgent
needs of adolescent girls, including the right to choose if,
when and whom to marry. The release of this strategy marked the
culmination of years of intense work by those in government and
civil society, including Girls Not Brides U.S.A., to shape
foreign policy and foreign assistance around the needs of
girls. This is a great accomplishment.
But releasing a strategy and living the spirit of it are two
different things. As much as we want to point to the strategy as an
triumph in and of itself, the real, critical issue is how robustly it
is institutionalized and implemented--and that is where Congress can
help. I urge you to use your powers--of the purse, and of oversight--to
ensure this important piece of foreign policy is not just words on
paper, but truly directs the diplomatic and development might of the
U.S. to transform girls' lives. I hope you will work with whoever comes
into office next year to ensure that child brides and those at risk of
marriage will not be left behind.
The U.S. is poised to be a leader in the fight to end child
marriage and has already done so much toward this end, but I urge you
to escalate this work to improve the lives of adolescent girls
globally. Through U.S. foreign assistance, your leadership and
influence both bilaterally and in multilateral arenas, and through the
strength of Congressional action, I respectfully recommend the U.S.
take three initial measures to end child marriage:
1. Ensure U.S. commitments to end child marriage are honoured by
giving those efforts the full force of the U.S. government, in terms of
policies, programmes and, of course, funding;
2. Don't let child marriage get lost in larger efforts to promote
girls' health and education. Mandate regular progress reporting so that
Congress and civil society know exactly what is being done to end child
marriage and meet the needs of married girls, how successful those
efforts have been, and where more investment is needed; and,
3. Show your full support for this issue on the international stage
by investing fully in achieving the target to end child marriage under
the Sustainable Development Goals.
conclusion
Chairman Rubio, Senator Boxer and members of the committee, I
thought I would end with a more personal story. It is the story of
Laxmi Sargara, an 18 year-old girl from Rajasthan, India. Laxmi was
married when she was just one year old, to a boy named Rakesh who
himself was only three. She knew nothing of this betrothal until the
moment, 17 years later, when her parents announced that the time had
come to leave home and live with her husband. Laxmi was upset because
this was not the future she wanted.
Laxmi's story stands out for me, not only because she has the same
name as me, but because she did something remarkable. In what is
thought to be the first case of its kind in India, Laxmi turned to the
courts and had her marriage annulled. Laxmi is a disruptive woman who
was brave enough to stand up against a centuries-old tradition,
determined to build a brighter future for herself.
If I had been born in a different context, Laxmi's fate may have
been mine. Indeed, child marriage may have been the future facing my
own rambunctious two year old daughter. In the work that I do, I am
grateful every day that I was spared the experiences of girls like
Laxmi. And I hope we can work together to ensure that we end this
practice for girls everywhere.
Thank you.
----------------
Notes
\1\ UNICEF, Ending Child Marriage: Progress and Prospects, 2014
\2\ UNICEF, Progress for Children: A report card on adolescents,
2012
\3\ UNICEF, The State of the World's Children, Table 9: Child
Protection, 2015
\4\ Levine, R., Lloyd, C., Greene, M., & Grown, C., Girls Count: A
Global Investment and Action Agenda, Center for Global Development,
2008
\5\ WHO, Adolescent Pregnancy Fact Sheet, No.364, September 2014
\6\ UNFPA, Motherhood in Childhood, 2013
\7\ WHO, Fact Sheet, Why is giving special attention to adolescents
important in achieving the millennium development goals? 2008 available
at; http://www.wiredhealthresources.net/resources/NA/WHO-
FS_PregnancyAdolescent.pdf
\8\ UNICEF, Early Marriage: Child Spouses, UNICEF Innocenti
Research Centre, 2001
\9\ Lloyd and Mensch, `Marriage and childbirth as factors in school
exit: an analysis of DHS data from sub-Saharan Africa', Population
Studies, 62(1): 1-13, 2008
\10\ International Center for Research on Women, How to End Child
Marriage: Action Strategies for Prevention and Protection, 2007
\11\ International Center for Research on Women, Child Marriage
Factsheets: Child Marriage and Poverty, 2007
\12\ IPPF and the Forum on Marriage and the Rights of Women and
Girls, Ending child marriage: a guide for global policy action, 2006;
International Center for Research on Women, Too Young to Wed: Education
& Action towards Ending Child Marriage: Seeking Policy Solutions, 2005
\13\ Kishor, S. & Johnson, K., Profiling Domestic Violence--A
Multi-Country Study, ORC Macro, Calverton, Maryland, 2004
\14\ UNICEF, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Statistical Analysis of
Violence against Children, 2014
\15\ See Girls Not Brides list of useful resources on child
marriage in humanitarian crises.
\16\ Niger, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali, South Sudan,
Guinea and Bangladesh are listed as fragile states as defined by OECD.
See definition in States of Fragility 2015: meeting post-2015
ambitions. Revised edition, 2015.
\17\ UNICEF, A Study on Early Marriage in Jordan, 2014.
\18\ Op.cit. CARE U.K., To Protect Her Honour: child marriage in
emergencies, the fatal confusion between protecting girls and sexual
violence, 2015.
\19\ High Level Task Force for ICPD, `Smart Investments for
Financing the Post 2015 Development Agenda', January 2015, available
at; http://icpdtaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/
FinancingBriefSmartInvestments2015.pdf
\20\ World Bank, World Development Report, Gender Equality and
Development, 2012
Senator Rubio. Thank you, and thank you for your testimony.
It is why we are here today, to try to figure out the way
forward both in our existing programs--I mean, the purpose of
these hearings are three-fold. One, to call attention to the
fact that this is happening. It gets lost in the broader
stories about everything else that is going on in the world.
The second is to look at what we are doing and make sure it is
efficient in terms of dollars. And the third is are they
actually programs that work.
So let me start out with the first part, a question for
both of you. Part of the issue here in both your testimony and
what I have heard here today as well is the decision-makers in
these cases are not the girls. The decision-makers are often
either their families and/or the community or religious
leaders.
Number one, how do you influence what programs--what is a
realistic and positive way to influence better decision-making
by families and religious leaders, and are there examples of
programs that have been successful at doing that anywhere in
the world?
Anyone can go first.
Dr. Petroni. So, as I said, based on the evidence that we
have seen in many contexts, you are absolutely right, it is the
parents, it is religious leaders and community leaders who are
driving that decision in the context where girls are not
valued. There are some excellent examples out there where
educating and rallying and engaging these adults have been
successful once they understand the harms that child marriage
can pose to the girl herself, as well as to their family and
their community in terms of health outcomes, educational
outcomes, economic outcomes. They can be very powerfully
engaged in ending that practice.
So there are very good examples from Senegal, from India
where adults are leading the charge, religious leaders are
leading the charge, parents are leading the charge for girls'
education against child marriage that we can certainly emulate
and expand.
Senator Rubio. But are those programs that happened
internally that they took upon themselves, or did someone help
prod them, move them, resource them?
Dr. Petroni. I think there is a combination of factors. I
mean, there are some parents, fathers of daughters like
yourself, who recognize that their daughters have value beyond
just being a wife and a mother; their daughters should be
educated, their daughters should be engaged in communities.
Look at Malala as a terrific example. Her father was and still
is a tremendous leader in ensuring that she was able to
continue her education.
At the same time, programs, including those supported by
the U.S., have been very helpful in identifying for community
leaders some of the challenges that can be faced if girls marry
and helping parents to understand that there are alternatives.
So I think we have seen a combination of efforts, and we
certainly have not seen enough at scale to make the type of
change that we need to.
Ms. Sundaram. And if I could just add quickly to that, when
we look at the membership of Girls Not Brides, a number of the
organizations who we work with were set up either by former
child brides or people who saw maybe their sister get married
who are from the communities and who work directly with some of
the decision-makers to help create that understanding of the
negative impact.
One of the things that has actually led to the creation of
Girls Not Brides was that many of these efforts were taking
place in isolation, and we have been trying through our work to
create a platform where people can learn from one another,
because the types of discussions that you need to foster are
often the same whether it is in rural Pakistan or rural
Cameroon or in Brazil, and actually finding a way to share what
works, how it needs to be done, how it can be scaled up, is
incredibly important.
Senator Rubio. Can I just ask, is this largely a rural
phenomenon, or do you find it even in large urban areas? In
terms of around the world, do you see it everywhere where there
are these characteristics?
Ms. Sundaram. It really depends on the country. It
definitely happens a lot in the rural areas, but it can also be
seen very much as a coping mechanism in urban settings,
particularly in areas where there is a high risk of violence to
girls.
Senator Rubio. The second question I have for both of you
is along the lines of what I asked earlier, and that at the
government end. We interact with a lot of these governments,
and in many cases not just government but regional or local
governments who have even more of an influence than the
national government might have on an issue like this. I
imagine, in my view or from what I have read, that they come in
three strains. There are governments that actually think this
is a priority and want to do something about it. There are
governments who say this is a priority but it is not a priority
for them in terms of action. And then there are those
governments who, quite frankly, have accepted this as part of
who they are, and even if some of them might be embarrassed by
it, it is just not something they have time and interest, and
maybe culturally think this is fine.
Is that an accurate characterization of the governments we
are interacting with, to the extent we are talking about places
that have governments? In some cases there might be some
ungoverned spaces. But is this the experience we have had,
depending on the country, that you get varying degrees of
cooperation and/or hostility from governments?
Ms. Sundaram. Sure, yes. And actually, our members in a
number of countries have come together to form national
partnerships, just like in Girls Not Brides USA. There are
Girls Not Brides Nepal or Girls Not Brides Zambia and in other
countries.
But one thing that our members find a lot is that when they
work with government and when they have a progressive
government that is actually interested in addressing this
issue, there is a lot of openness to creating a national
strategy, a national action plan, but often these governments--
take the case of Nepal that has developed a national action
plan on child marriage--they do not have the resources to
actually really implement that plan in any deep way because
they have been facing so many other problems as well.
So even in governments where there is a huge will, they
need increased support from foreign friends, and this is where
I think the United States could really play an incredibly
important role.
In some other countries, I think having the United States
ask about what is going on within their country and how they
are addressing child marriage is something that could also be
incredibly helpful, because it highlights that talking about
child marriage, talking about issues affecting girls is not
just some nice-to-have thing in the ghetto of the women's
ministry but is actually an issue that is of great interest to
a foreign policy behemoth like the United States.
Dr. Petroni. I can add that you heard from Ambassador
Russell and Assistant Secretary Richard about the same point,
that when they do raise in diplomatic discussions this issue
with governments, it helps to draw their attention to it.
We also have the State Department Human Rights Reports
which now report on child marriage in each country, and that
raises the level of diplomatic engagement and attention by
governments to this issue.
One of the things that we are trying to do to get some of
those governments that are not yet on board with this is to
help them understand the economic impacts of child marriage. So
ICRW is working in collaboration with the World Bank to do a
rigorous assessment of the economic costs of the practice with
the idea that we know the health-related costs, we know the
human rights challenges, we know the education outcomes for
child brides. That gets us only so far, unfortunately, with
some of those governments that are not as attuned to the issue.
If we can share with them the economic impacts that the
high prevalence of child marriage has not only at the level of
the girl and the household but on up to the national level, and
if we can help them understand that ending child marriage will
save them literally billions and billions of dollars, that may
help increase some of those finances that are needed to
implement programs to end the practice.
Senator Rubio. When I heard that and I did not have a
chance to follow up, I understand how interacting with a
diplomat from one of these countries, the diplomat might be
embarrassed and say, yes, this is bad, because these diplomats
travel the world, they are worldly and probably highly educated
and exposed to the West and beyond the world. My concern is
more those countries where, at the regional or local level,
there really just is not a commitment, and really, quite
frankly, an acceptance and/or perhaps even participation by
some of these government officials in some of this. That is the
point I am trying to drive. There are governments in the world
who at least at the place where policy is truly driven and
implemented, not discussed at an international forum but
actually driven on the ground by the local police department,
the local municipal authority and beyond, this is not only not
an issue but, in fact, to them, this is none of our business,
and this is the way things have been, and this is the way
things are and so forth.
Is that a fact? There are places where at their regional,
local, and perhaps even at the national level, the policymakers
who are implementing these things do not view it--would look at
this conversation here today and strongly disagree. Am I
accurate in stating that? And, if so, are you comfortable
telling us who some of these places are?
Ms. Sundaram. That is why just putting in place laws is not
enough. It is not just a legislative fix. In a number of places
there has been increasing amounts of work in working with a
wide variety of actors. So parliamentarians, for instance, are
getting together to really try and see what they can do to
change the practice.
But it is also about working on educating police
departments and local and regional decision-makers so that they
also see their role within addressing the challenge. It cannot,
as you say, just be at the national level. That interest in
tackling the issue is something that has to come down, and that
is where it is really important to have that combination of
local and national civil society pushing the decision-makers to
really show this is not a concern that is coming from the
outside, that is coming from the West, but that is really
coming from the people who are most affected by it, with the
enabling environment and the support that is coming from
external countries.
We are seeing change in a number of countries where five
years ago, it was completely taboo to talk about child marriage
in any sort of national, regional, international context. Last
year there was at the African Union a big summit of heads of
state. Some of the countries have been vying with one another
to see--it is almost like a little competition of who can
actually put in place a national strategy, who is making
commitments to address child marriage, but it is not enough.
There is still a huge amount to be done, but even starting to
get that change of mindset in the heads of government is
something that is a really good step in the right direction.
Senator Rubio. Just my view. I have known of and have seen
cases of local governments and regional governments in parts of
the world that will not investigate rape charges. They just
will not do it. They ignore it. They laugh about it. They
sometimes insinuate that it is not a big deal or perhaps it was
not rape at all. If that is how they feel about that, getting
them to prioritize and actually do something about child
marriage at that level of government I would imagine is a heavy
lift. And I am not arguing that we should not try or do
something about it. But ultimately it goes back to the argument
you made in that these programs are important. We want to make
sure which are the ones that work. But there has got to be a
change in government culture in these places and leadership
culture to actually view this as something that is wrong, not
just that it is the way things have been done for a thousand
years and that is how we are going to keep doing it.
Dr. Petroni. You are absolutely right on that point. This
is a challenge I think Ambassador Russell said. There is no one
single solution to this challenge. We have to tackle it at
different levels and in different ways. Certainly, getting the
engagement at the national level is critical, and we are doing
that increasingly and seeing some amazing examples out there. I
think you mentioned Nepal and Zambia. Those are two tremendous
leaders at the national level, and they are using that
leadership to then work down through the regional and community
levels.
But at the same time, that engagement from the community on
up is critical. So this is where the diplomacy and development
connection is really important. We need the State Department to
continue engaging at that high level, and we need USAID and
other programs, the Peace Corps, Millennium Challenge
Corporation, to work at the community level and to support
those local organizations and local leaders who are willing to
make change in various ways.
Senator Rubio. Which brings me to my last point, and I hope
that we can end on a high note here, and that is one of the
best ways I think to achieve these goals, as you have argued,
is to convince leaders that this is not just the right thing to
do but that it is actually good for your country. So we would
want to point to examples of places that have made these
changes and as a result can point to economic progress, a more
stable society, better governance, things that are good for
everyone.
I think you just mentioned one or two, but could you just--
let us just reiterate for the record the one or two countries,
or more, hopefully, that are great examples in terms of the
steps they have taken and the trajectory that they are on in
terms of addressing this, and perhaps even eliminating child
marriage in the context they are facing. Where is the good
news?
Ms. Sundaram. There is good news in a number of places, but
we are still very much at the early stage of this work. So in
countries like, as we said, Nepal and Zambia, there has been a
huge amount of work that has already started. We are seeing
change in the lives of individual girls, but we still need that
great expansion of work to see a nationwide change. In places
like Ethiopia, we have seen programs that have been taken from
addressing the needs of a few hundred girls to now addressing
the needs of a few thousand girls. That is incredibly
important, and that has had a huge impact, but it is still not
enough to meet the scale of the problem.
So until we actually are able to massively scale up the
work that is going on and that is showing promise, it is going
to take a really long time to get to that answer of which
country has been able to eliminate child marriage, because we
know it can be done, and we have seen it happen in small
pockets, but for it to happen at that nationwide scale we
really need that massive increase in investment, in political
support, and in policies.
Dr. Petroni. I completely agree with Lakshmi. I would just
add that this is a challenge that can be overcome, but it will
take some time. We like to say--Girls Not Brides has this
phrase that child marriage can be overcome within a generation.
It will likely take that long. This is a practice that is
deeply entrenched. It has existed for centuries, for millennia,
and we have seen some tremendous examples of positive change--
Nepal, Zambia, Ethiopia. In Malawi, the latest figures are
looking very promising. The more investment, the more
attention, the more focused attention on advancing the rights
of girls that we have in these countries, the multi-layered
approaches that we implement, and the diplomacy, the continued
discussions can help us overcome this challenge.
Senator Rubio. Well, I want to thank both of you for being
a part of that, for your testimony, both oral and in writing,
for your time, and for your work and advocacy on this.
The record on this hearing is going to remain open for 48
hours.
By the way, without objection, I want to submit for the
record testimony provided by several other non-governmental
organizations who are working on this issue.
Senator Rubio. Again, I want to thank both of you for being
involved. There might be some questions from members, even
those who did not attend. To the extent possible, I ask that
you get those, because this all becomes part of the record that
could ultimately be in the future part of justifying or
supporting legislation and/or correspondence on behalf of the
Senate on this issue.
I hope we will be able to revisit this again in a few
months as we get into the funding cycles once again and really
hope to incentivize resources towards not just spending so we
can say we spent money on a line item called preventing child
marriage but, in fact, on programs that are functioning and
working that we can prove results, because it allows us to
replicate that in other places and, quite frankly, convince our
colleagues to continue to prioritize it.
So again, I thank you both for being a part of this.
And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:03 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses of Ambassador Cathy Russell to Questions
Submitted by Senator Marco Rubio
Question. Given that child marriage is a global issue which is
prevalent even in our own Hemisphere, how does the U.S. handle cases in
which a ``married'' couple applies for visas and one of the individuals
is a minor? Do we recognize these unions as legal? Are U.S. consular
officers given guidance in this regard? Are there channels whereby a
girl can appeal for asylum or some other protected status should she
find herself in this situation?
Answer. In the context of immigration law, the marriage law in the
place of the marriage celebration determines marriage validity. If the
marriage complies with and is recognized by the place of celebration's
law, then the U.S. Department of State typically deems the marriage
valid for immigration purposes. However, there are exceptions. For
example, for immigration purposes, the Department does not recognize
marriages considered void under state law as contrary to public policy,
such as polygamous or incestuous marriages, even if legal in the place
of marriage celebration. In the case of a minor whose marriage is valid
where it was celebrated, a consular officer refers to the law of the
state in which the immigrant intends to reside to determine whether the
marriage is considered void under state law as contrary to public
policy. The legal minimum marriage age varies state by state. In cases
where a consular officer suspects marriage invalidity for immigration
purposes, the officer is instructed to contact the Department for
guidance.
We provide beneficiaries of an immigrant visa based on marriage
with the International Marriage Brokers Act (IMBRA) pamphlet, which
includes information about domestic violence, immigrant spouses' rights
in the United States, and available resources for victims. The Bureau
of Consular Affairs' website, www.travel.state.gov, dedicates a page to
forced marriage, which explains victims' rights and provides links to
advocates. Please contact the Department of Homeland Security for
information on the availability of asylum or other protected status in
these cases.
Question. Many NGOs who work on this issue note that while child
marriage is viewed as one of the forms of gender-based violence, U.S.
Government programming on the issue has been sporadic at best. What
programs are the U.S. currently implementing, and how much are we
currently spending per year, on programs designed *specifically* to
address child marriage and in which countries?
Answer. The United States is taking a whole-of-government approach
to addressing child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) and has
undertaken several key actions to combat this practice across a broad
range of government agencies. The Department of State, USAID, the Peace
Corps, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation joined together to
release and implement the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent
Girls in March of 2016, and that strategy places a strong emphasis on
addressing CEFM and other forms of gender-based violence, in addition
to the efforts already underway to address CEFM under the U.S. Strategy
to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally and the U.S.
National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.
The Department of State's implementation plan for the U.S. Global
Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls Globally includes three specific
objectives that the Department has prioritized, one of which is
addressing CEFM. Enhancing and expanding comprehensive programs to
empower adolescent girls is among the set of approaches that we are
adopting in pursuit of this objective, along with diplomacy, public
engagement, coordination, and integrating a focus on adolescent girls
throughout the Department's operating structure. The Department has a
number of programs in place to address CEFM in conflict affected and
fragile states:
In November 2015, the White House announced that the
Department would undertake a new $1,500,000 effort in one or
more of Syria's neighboring countries impacted by the Syrian
refugee crisis to help prevent and respond to CEFM. Activities
will focus on increasing awareness of the benefits of delaying
marriage for both girls and their communities, countering the
perception that CEFM is a way to protect girls, and
underscoring the value of continuing access to education for
adolescent girls. Efforts will also aim to reach already
married girls with services, to support civil society
organizations working to protect at-risk girls, and to broaden
protection laws to support women and their children.
In March 2016, Secretary Kerry announced $7 million in
programming to empower adolescent girls in Afghanistan, where
the Department of State will fund efforts to change perceptions
about CEFM at the district and community level through grants
for girls to go to school and support for counseling, networks
for girls, and training on life and vocational skills.
Ensuring that girls stay in school and have continued access
to quality education are two effective ways of preventing CEFM.
The United States invests in education for refugees and host
communities through humanitarian and development assistance to
international and non-governmental organizations. As part of
the Leader's Summit on Refugees, the United States provided
nearly $37 million to UNHCR and $15 million to UNICEF to fill
funding gaps for refugee education through the end of 2016 and
to help reach our goal of one million more refugees in school.
USAID invests in both research to expand our knowledge on effective
interventions to prevent CEFM and programs to address the needs of
married adolescents in regions where the practice is most prevalent.
Guided by rigorous project evaluations and the latest research
findings, USAID's interventions include promoting girls' education,
supporting married children, strengthening the enactment and
enforcement of laws and policies that delay marriage, and building
community outreach efforts to shift attitudes that perpetuate the
practice.
In FY 2015, USAID doubled its investment to more than $10,000,000
to prevent CEFM and support married children, building on decades of
engagement on these issues, including addressing the needs of more than
50 million girls and boys who are already married but have limited
access to education, health services and economic opportunities.
Although addressing CEFM globally, USAID has funded projects in
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi,
Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, South
Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The USAID Vision for Action to Ending Child Marriage &
Meeting the Needs of Married Children provided health care and
access to education to married children and adolescents and
educated students, teachers, parents, and community leaders,
through programs including the Zero Tolerance-GBV-Free Schools
In Nepal Program, focusing on the importance of delaying
marriage and the harmful effects of CEFM.
USAID also conducted research to study the effectiveness of
programs to delay CEFM in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Burkina Faso.
Data on the impact of programs in Tanzania and Ethiopia were
shared through a global dissemination of results (http://
www.popcouncil.org/research/building-an-evidence-base-to-delay-
marriage-in-sub-saharan-africa) in the fall of 2015.
In addition, in September 2015 USAID released a resource guide on
preventing and responding to CEFM. This resource guide provides
information on how partners and USAID sectors, missions, and staff can
integrate CEFM prevention and response into their programming. USAID
will continue to work in partnership with lawmakers, international
organizations, the private sector, and change agents at the national,
local, and community levels to address the practice of CEFM.
Question. How is the U.S. explicitly integrating prevention of
child marriage and assistance to married children into U.S. support for
programming in the areas of education, health, law reform and law
enforcement, and local governance?
Answer. CEFM occurs in response to a range of complex and
interrelated factors, including lack of education, poverty, and
discriminatory gender norms and legal and policy frameworks.
Consequently, the evidence that we have seen suggests that this issue
cannot be addressed through any one particular approach--there is no
magic bullet--but is instead most effectively addressed through
holistic, multi-sectoral interventions which aim to tackle the multiple
drivers of the practice. Accordingly the United States is addressing
CEFM both through targeted programs, as well as integrating it as a
focus of our broader foreign assistance programs across a range of
sectors.
This includes engaging with communities and traditional leaders to
change cultural norms; efforts to address household poverty and
overcome the costs of schooling; working to improve the availability
and quality of education and making schools safe and girl-friendly;
providing skills and services directly to girls--especially married
girls--to make them aware of the options and opportunities that are
available to them, improve their self-confidence, and raise their
aspirations for their lives; and working to ensure that the appropriate
policy and legal frameworks are in place and are appropriately
implemented and enforced.
That is why we have adopted the approach that I have described in
our Let Girls Learn Challenge Fund countries of Malawi, Tanzania, Nepal
and Laos. We are designing and piloting comprehensive programs that
incorporate all of these activities to ensure that girls are protected
from CEFM and are able to attain a quality education that allows them
to achieve their full potential. Through our work in these countries,
we are engaging with host governments to identify areas where national
legal and policy frameworks can be strengthened to promote the rights
and empowerment of girls, including through improved implementation and
awareness of the rights and protections adolescent girls are granted
under the law, to include the prohibitions against CEFM. Our planned
efforts in the Let Girls Learn Challenge Fund countries will also
deliberately seek to work with local government officials and
traditional and religious leaders to help them understand why CEFM is a
threat to the health, well-being, and prosperity of everyone in their
communities; improve local governance efforts around CEFM; and recruit
these key stakeholders as allies in our work, thus promoting the
sustainability and effectiveness of our investments.
In addition, the United States invests in education for refugees
and host communities through humanitarian and development assistance to
international and non-governmental organizations. As part of the
Leader's Summit on Refugees, the United States provided nearly $37
million to UNHCR and $15 million to UNICEF to fill funding gaps for
refugee education through the end of 2016 and to help reach our goal of
one million more refugees in school. Our partners are committed to
getting more refugee girls in school as we know that ensuring girls
stay in school and have continued access to quality education are two
effective ways of preventing CEFM.
Globally, to address household poverty and empower women and girls
to engage fully in their countries' economic growth, the Department of
State recently launched the U.S. State Department Strategy for Women's
Economic Development to assist the Department in creating greater
economic independence and empowerment for women and girls across our
foreign policy strategies and programs. In humanitarian contexts, Safe
from the Start is an important initiative to build the capacity of the
humanitarian system to reduce risk of gender-based violence (GBV),
ensure quality services for survivors through timely and effective
humanitarian action, and hold the humanitarian community accountable to
a higher standard of addressing the risks faced by women and girls
consistently in emergencies. It seeks to transform the international
system for humanitarian response so that the needs of women, girls, and
others affected by GBV, including CEFM, are a priority in emergencies.
As part of the Department's implementation of the U.S. Strategy to
Empower Girls Globally, we have also pledged to promote legal and
policy frameworks that empower girls across all of our work, including
through U.S. Department of State programs. Promoting the enactment of
laws and broader awareness of laws to protect girls against CEFM is a
key priority, and will become an even greater focus as the strategy
continues to be implemented.
The enforcement of laws against CEFM is something that must be
approached thoughtfully and with great caution. At the extreme this
could result in the criminalization of parents--who often marry their
daughters in response to dire poverty and who may believe that they are
acting in their child's best interests. This would ultimately
exacerbate that driver for the rest of the family, including
potentially increasing the rates of CEFM in that family to compensate
for the loss of their income.
That said, through both our programs and our diplomatic efforts, we
are working to identify and stop officiants who perpetuate this
practice and to deter local government officials from attending illegal
marriage ceremonies, which has the effect of sanctioning these events.
We are also working to support the efforts of high-level tribal leaders
who annul marriages and hold accountable the lower-level tribal leaders
that have allowed them to happen.
The Department of State is funding projects in Afghanistan and
Syria's neighboring countries that are specifically focused on
addressing CEFM. The project in Afghanistan is just starting, but will
engage with elders and religious leaders to prevent CEFM through
awareness-raising on the negative health, economic and social
consequences of this practice for both girls and their families. It
also intends to raise their awareness of the customary, religious,
traditional, and civic laws that protect the rights of children and
protect them against CEFM. The project in Syria's neighboring countries
will also work with communities, including local government officials
and traditional and religious leaders, to counter the perception that
early and forced marriage is a way to protect girls, and to underscore
the value of continuing access to education for adolescent girls.
Question. What are the next steps for implementing the U.S. Global
Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls? How will implementing agencies
measure and report on progress?
Answer. As outlined in the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls, an interagency working group will measure the
progress of the implementation of the strategy. The working group, in
consultation with the National Security Council, will meet regularly to
coordinate the strategy's implementation. Additionally, implementing
agencies will hold consultations with civil society to discuss ongoing
efforts and preview future plans for implementation. These
consultations will be an opportunity for civil society to continue to
provide feedback and inform prospective implementation of the strategy.
For the Department of State, the implementation of the U.S. Global
Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls will be led by the Secretary's
Office of Global Women's Issues (S/GWI). Since the release of the
strategy in March, S/GWI has worked to develop toolkits for our
colleagues in embassies around the world that succinctly explain why
the strategy was launched and what it intends to achieve, and outline
the specific outcomes that the Department of State will pursue in its
implementation of the strategy. Importantly, they also provide specific
recommendations on the kinds of actions officers can take to advance
the Department's implementation of the strategy and examples of what
other embassies have done in this regard. These toolkits were recently
soft launched to test their effectiveness and S/GWI is working to
distribute the toolkits more broadly.
In addition to the toolkits, S/GWI is also working to assemble
existing tools and resources online for overseas diplomats and officers
across the Department to highlight and address the challenges facing
adolescent girls. We are integrating discussion of adolescent girls
into ongoing gender working groups that will feed into the interagency
working group outlined into the strategy. We have also begun to hold
meetings with regional and functional bureaus to explain the intent of
the strategy, discuss how the strategy is relevant to their work, and
explore specific entry points for increased efforts to empower
adolescent girls.
The Department also educates diplomatic personnel on the U.S.
Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls--as well as the National
Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (NAP), the U.S. Strategy to
Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally, and other gender
policies--through a devoted online and in-person course on gender
equality and foreign policy at the Foreign Service Institute.
The Department of State's implementation plan for the U.S. Global
Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls includes a number of illustrative
indicators that embassies and bureaus can use to demonstrate and track
their efforts to implement the strategy. S/GWI will integrate its
request for information on the Department's implementation of the
strategy into the ongoing annual reporting process already underway
around efforts to advance women and girls' empowerment through the NAP
and GBV Strategy.
Question. Following the Girl Summit held in London in July 2014,
the United Nations and donors have been encouraging countries with a
high prevalence and/or high burden of child marriage to each develop a
national action plan on how they will achieve the Sustainable
Development Goal of ending child marriage by 2030.
Could you describe how, and in which countries, the U.S. government
is supporting the development of national action plans to end child
marriage?
Could you also describe how on the political level, the U.S. is
encouraging countries with high rates of child marriage to make it a
priority to develop and implement such a plan?
Answer. The United States is an active proponent at United Nations
and in other multilateral fora for resolutions condemning CEFM and
calling on other states and stakeholders to address this practice.
Department officials also raise the issue of CEFM, as appropriate, in
meetings with government officials and in bilateral strategic
dialogues. S/GWI in particular engages strategically with host
government officials to intervene in cases where governments appear to
be stagnating or even backsliding on this issue.
The legal status of CEFM in most U.S. states complicates the
efforts of the Department of State to promote the enactment of laws
internationally establishing the minimum age of marriage. However, the
Department's implementation plan for the U.S. Global Strategy to
Empower Adolescent Girls outlines the intent to encourage governments
to develop and implement strategies to prevent CEFM and address its
consequences, including protecting girls who have already been married,
and to offer policy collaboration and technical support as appropriate
in supporting countries who have demonstrated political will to address
CEFM.
In developing and implementing the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls, the Department has worked closely with Girls Not
Brides, a global partnership of more than 600 civil society
organizations from over 80 countries committed to ending child
marriage. That organization has developed a toolkit to help governments
draft national action plans to address child marriage, and local civil
society organizations that comprise its local chapters are working
closely with governments, including those like Ghana and Mozambique, to
help them develop such plans. Under the new strategy, the Department
expects to continue to support the efforts of such local organizations
and encourage governments to collaborate with them.
Where legal frameworks exist against CEFM, the Department of State
engages through programs, diplomacy, and public engagement to promote
broader awareness of the laws that are in place. We find often that
citizens of countries where CEFM is prohibited under the law are
unaware that this practice is criminalized. Simply educating them on
their rights and those of their children can be a powerful tool in
deterring this practice.
As outlined in the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls
Globally, the United States believes that one of the best ways to
address CEFM is to ensure girls stay in school. Under the Let Girls
Learn initiative, the Department, along with interagency counterparts,
has worked to secure a range of commitments from our international
counterparts--including the United Kingdom, Korea, Japan, Canada,
Mexico, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland--to coordinate
efforts and jointly support international diplomacy to improve girls'
access to education and address the range of barriers that cause them
to drop out of school, including CEFM. These commitments currently
total $600 million dollars. Finally as part of our efforts in the Let
Girls Challenge Fund countries of Malawi, Tanzania, Laos, and Nepal--
which were selected in part because of their high prevalence of CEFM,
as well as the demonstrated political will to address these and other
challenges faced by girls in their countries--the United States designs
and implements holistic programs to empower adolescent girls, we are
working closely with other international donors to ensure that our
efforts are closely coordinated, are based on country-specific best
practices, and achieve maximum geographic coverage.
In addition, the United States remains actively involved in the
Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies
(Call to Action), now lead by Sweden, including by encouraging States
and other organizations that did not sign the communique to join the
initiative. We are working hard to bring more partners, particularly
governments, on board not only to join the Call to Action but also to
make commitments in line with the Road Map in order to expand
international coordination and prioritization of violence against women
and girls, including CEFM.
Question. I was the lead Senate sponsor of the Girls Count Act
which seeks to address the lack of birth registry systems around the
world that leaves approximately 51 million children annually without
proper registration, most of whom are girls. Proof of birth verifies
citizenship, nationality, parentage and age, which are critical to
ensuring that children remain a part of society and do not fall victim
to various forms of exploitation to include child marriage.
This is now the law of the land. Can you please provide an update
on its implementation?
Answer. USAID will respond to this Question for the Record
directly.
Question. My understanding is that many civil society groups have
made recommendations for improving responses when U.S. victims are
taken abroad for forced marriages. Please share with the committee what
further steps the Department of State has taken since that February
2016 roundtable to better protect U.S. citizens from forced marriages
abroad and to improve the Department's ability to respond when they are
alerted to such cases, as well as to more closely and regularly
coordinate with U.S. NGO stakeholders on these issues.
Answer. To improve the Department's ability to respond to forced
marriage cases, the Bureau of Consular Affairs' Overseas Citizens
Services directorate (CA/OCS) expanded training opportunities for
consular staff. CA/OCS offers a 3-day victim assistance course designed
to equip consular staff with the skills needed to effectively assist
victims of violent crime. Since January 2016, CA/OCS has incorporated
new modules on support for victims of crime, including forced marriage,
into the crime victim assistance course and other relevant training
programs. Such training programs include the victim assistance courses
in Dubai in January 2016 for Near East/South Central Asia region staff,
as well as training conducted in Johannesburg in April 2016 for Africa
region staff. The next overseas trainings will be offered in November
2016 and February 2017. CA/OCS staff regularly consults with consular
staff overseas who respond to these cases.
CA/OCS also expands its reach to U.S. citizens who need assistance
overseas through the creation of more customer-centric consular
information products. CA/OCS works with stakeholders to make
information available to the U.S. public more effective and user-
friendly. This includes information on forced marriage and other crime
victim issues, travel safety, passport requirements, and additional
consular topics.
Given the complexity of forced marriage cases, consular staff
tailor responses to individual cases. Factors that affect responses
include: host country laws; availability and quality of local resources
and support (e.g., shelters and shelter safety); local environment
(e.g., the ease and efficacy with which victims can obtain help);
logistics (e.g., a victim's distance from a U.S. embassy or consulate,
law enforcement, etc.); a country's security environment; and other
factors.
CA/OCS values the critical work of foreign and domestic civil
society groups in assisting victims of forced marriage, and will
continue to work with them to provide the safest and most appropriate
response to individual victims, and to discuss broader policy and
resource issues.
Question. In Pakistan, how would you describe the extent of the
problem of forced marriage and conversion of Christian and Hindu girls
particularly in the Sindh and Punjab regions? How is the U.S.
government working with Pakistani counterparts to ensure Pakistan
adheres to national and international legislation and agreements to
protect children and to raise awareness among vulnerable communities
who are targeted and victims of forced marriage of children?
Answer. The Aurat Foundation, a non-governmental organization in
Pakistan, estimates that there are 1,000 forced conversions of women
and girls each year in the country, often as a result of forced
marriage or bonded labor. The practice is an abuse of the rights of
women and girls and we condemn it in no uncertain terms.
We regularly engage with senior government officials on the
importance of respect for religious freedom and human rights. We
continue to urge the Government at all levels to protect religious
minorities, bring the perpetrators of violence against religious
minorities to justice, and fully implement the June 2014 Pakistani
Supreme Court order on the rights of members of religious minorities
under Pakistan's constitution and international commitments. We were
encouraged when, on September 27, Pakistan's National Assembly
unanimously passed a landmark bill giving the country's Hindu community
the capability to register marriages for the first time. If enacted,
the law has the potential to lessen the frequency of forced conversion
of Hindu girls. The province of Sindh, where the majority of Pakistan's
Hindus live, passed a similar law earlier this year.
As in far too much of the world, Pakistani girls, including
religious minorities, face a range of barriers that limit their
opportunities to succeed, including gender-based violence. One of the
most effective ways to overcome these barriers is by ensuring girls
remain in school. Through the Administration's Let Girls Learn
initiative in Pakistan, our Embassy in Islamabad is working closely
with USAID to coordinate a comprehensive effort to help keep girls in
school across the country, including by raising awareness of harmful
and traditional practices and gender-based violence against women and
girls. In May, the Embassy convened representatives from Sindh, Punjab,
Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad Capital Territory, the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and
Gilgit-Baltistan to discuss challenges to adolescent girls' education
in Pakistan, steps currently being taken to overcome them, and areas to
prioritize in supporting and promoting adolescent girls' empowerment
and education. In the first phase of the comprehensive effort to help
girls enroll and stay in school, Let Girls Learn will create a
framework for the United States to engage Pakistani provinces and
administrative areas on key barriers to girls' education, including
gender-based violence.
Our Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
(INL) is working to enhance the capacity of Pakistani women to preserve
law and order, promote gender equality, and serve as role models in the
justice system. INL-Pakistan (INL-P) employs a full-time gender advisor
whose role is to design, coordinate, implement, and oversee INL-P's
gender programming. Through its Gender Program, INL-P is working to
improve the safety of women and girls by strengthening civilian law
enforcement nationwide. According to Public Radio International,
international women's organizations have long recognized the connection
between increased women police officers and reducing violence against
women, stopping rape, and preventing terrorism. INL programs are
helping to strength the role of women police officers through training,
infrastructure assistance and equipment, with over 900 women trained
and over 1,100 pieces of equipment donated to date.
In addition, INL recently signed an agreement with U.N. Women that
will build the capacity of law enforcement, the justice sector, and
social service providers to prevent and respond to violence against
women in Balochistan, Sindh, and Punjab. INL-P is also supporting
gender-sensitivity training as part of the overall human rights
training for police, judges, and prosecutors in training academies.
Question. South Asia has the highest prevalence rate of child
marriage of any region in the world, with approximately 1 in 2 girls in
the region married before the age of 18. The highest rates of child
marriage in South Asia are in Bangladesh (52%), India (47%), Nepal
(37%) and Afghanistan (33%). Can you please describe for us what
actions the U.S. is taking in each of these four countries to help
prioritize the eradication of child marriage?
Answer. In South Asia, we have worked through U.S. diplomacy and
programming to elevate and prioritize our engagement on CEFM. One of
the most effective ways we can counter CEFM is by ensuring adolescent
girls remain in school. Last month, President Obama announced Nepal's
selection as a Challenge Fund country under the Let Girls Learn
Initiative. Through the initiative, the Department of State will work
with the Government of Nepal to ensure all girls have the opportunity
to learn and thrive free from violence, coordinating closely with other
Let Girls Learn partners--including USAID, the Peace Corps, and the
Millennium Challenge Corporation--as well as the Department of Defense.
In Nepal, we are also supporting a 3-year, $5 million collaborative
effort with USAID and UNICEF through the Secretary's Full Participation
Fund aimed at reducing the prevalence of school-related gender-based
violence (GBV) and establishing child- and adolescent-friendly
procedures to respond to incidents of GBV when they occur. Through
training, mapping of services for GBV survivors, advocacy and awareness
raising activities, school actors are gaining knowledge of the impact
of GBV, including on CEFM and its legal and social consequences. This
project is developing a systematic reporting and referral mechanism to
monitor and respond to incidents of school-related GBV.
The United States has raised the empowerment of adolescent girls as
a key U.S. priority in India during several U.S.-India Strategic and
Commercial Dialogues and Secretary Kerry's diplomatic outreach in
India. We continue to urge the Government of India to reconvene the
U.S.-India Women's Empowerment Dialogue, launched in 2009 to exchange
lessons learned and best practices to address challenges facing women
and girls, including CEFM, as one way to deepen our engagement and
coordination on this key issue.
In December, Embassy New Delhi will host a mission-wide training on
gender integration with focus on preventing and responding to GBV,
including CEFM. The training will provide mission staff with culturally
specific, gender-sensitive strategies as well as tools and resources to
address gender based violence through U.S. diplomacy and programs.
Embassy New Delhi is partnering with Save the Children to combat
GBV, including CEFM, in North India through a public advocacy caravan.
The roadshow will travel to North India cities, stopping in each city
for two days, and will be organized as part of a campaign to address
the prevalence of GBV in this region. During each stop, a team of
experts, working with local stakeholders and institutions, will hold a
series of high-profile street plays, film screenings, and panel
discussions.
Since 2014, the Department of State has been in ongoing discussions
with the Government of Bangladesh at all levels regarding its proposals
to amend the Child Marriage Restraint Act to reduce its legal age of
marriage. During the last U.S.-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue in June,
the Government of Bangladesh reaffirmed its commitment to uphold 18 as
the legal age of marriage without exceptions. We will continue to
engage with the government on its efforts to prevent and respond to
early and forced marriage among other initiatives to foster women's
empowerment and gender equality.
The Public Affairs Section (PAS) elevates the status of women and
girls in Bangladesh by offering cultural and educational programs and
through federal assistance awards to civil society organizations
working to promote women's rights. The American Center Girls' Club is
the centerpiece of a female-focused engagement strategy that has nearly
doubled the number of girls and young women ages 14 to 24 that benefit
from PAS's educational and cultural programming, opportunities and
resources. The club provides a safe space for girls and young women to
exercise leadership, build confidence, recognize their value and power,
and pursue academic and professional goals. With financial support from
S/GWI's Full Participation Fund, PAS awarded a 2-year grant to the
Bangladesh Legal Assistance and Services Trust (BLAST) to establish a
mobile legal clinic that is increasing access to justice for young and
working class women by focusing on divorce, maintenance, property and
gender-based violence issues.
The USAID program, ``Women and Girls Lead Global'' (www.WGLG.org)
includes a Bangladesh specific campaign on Child Marriage and Girl's
Education. Also, since its inception in 2011, USAID has supported the
Protecting Human Rights (PHR) Program that has prevented more than
1,300 child marriages in the program's working areas. The PHR has
several activities planned to carry out should parliament pass a new
Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2015 replacing the Child Marriage
Restraint Act, 1929. However, the PHR Program is scheduled to end in
March 2017, so very little time remains to prepare.
The United States has prioritized the promotion of gender equality
and rights of women in all of our activities in Afghanistan. To this
end, we support women's rights civil society organizations to develop
their capacity to advocate for women's rights and to monitor the
government's implementation of their rights. The Department also is
advocating for the full implementation of the Law to Eliminate Violence
Against Women (EVAW Law).
One of our flagship programs is a new effort that was announced at
the launch of the Adolescent Girl Strategy. In March 2016, Secretary
Kerry announced $7 million for programming to empower adolescent girls
in Afghanistan, where the Department of State will fund efforts to
change perceptions about CEFM at the district and community level. The
Afghanistan initiative will also increase adolescent girls' education
through grants for girls to go to school and support for counseling,
networks for girls, and training on life and vocational skills.
Question. According to the NGO Girls Not Brides, Brazil ranks
fourth in the world in highest absolute number of child marriages.
Please describe how the U.S. government, working with our partners in
the Western Hemisphere including countries like Brazil and Guatemala,
is raising awareness among vulnerable communities who are targets for
child marriage?
Answer. According to UNICEF, Latin America and the Caribbean is the
only region where CEFM is not declining. Girls are married or enter
into informal unions for a variety of reasons, including because of
traditional/indigenous practice, pregnancy, protection from violence,
and poverty.
Guatemala has one of the highest rates of CEFM in the Western
Hemisphere. According to UNICEF, 30 percent of Guatemalan women 20 to
24 years of age were first married or in union by age 18, and seven
percent of them by 15 years of age. The practice is most common in
indigenous, rural, and poorer populations and is particularly prevalent
among Mayan communities, where rates of CEFM are as high as 40 percent.
The minimum legal age for marriage in Guatemala is 18, and in November,
the Guatemalan Congress eliminated a provision that previously allowed
girls to marry at 14 and boys at 16 with parental consent.
Brazil has the highest absolute number of girls who are married or
in informal unions in the region. According to data from UNICEF, more
than 11 percent of women age 20-24 were married or in informal unions
before age 15, and 36 percent of women age 20-24 were married or
informal unions before age 18. The legal minimum age of marriage in
Brazil is 18 (age 16 with parental or legal representative consent).
However, a recent study of this practice has highlighted that, in
contrast to other regions, CEFM in Brazil often takes the form of
informal unions rather than formal marriages. Girls are married for a
variety of reasons including economic stability, early pregnancy, or
lack of educational and economic opportunities.
The Department of State and USAID address CEFM in the region
through policy and programming engagements on the root causes of the
practice. These include addressing poverty and gender-based violence,
increasing access to education, and engaging vulnerable populations
including indigenous and people of African descent. The Department
utilizes the tools and resources of the interagency through the U.S.
Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls and the U.S. Strategy to
Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally to share best
practices with governments and ensure that women and adolescent girls
in the Western Hemisphere can reach their full potential. The U.S.
Strategy for Engagement in Central America aims to address GBV by
increasing policing capacity, strengthening the judicial sector,
assisting survivors, and facilitating enhanced messaging to increase
public awareness of GBV and women's rights. Through the Secretary's
Full Participation Fund, Embassy Brasilia is supporting a UNICEF
project called ``Today a Girl, Tomorrow a Woman'' (Hoje Menina, Amanha
Mulher) to empower adolescent girls and address issues that affect
their lives such as violence and insecurity, health, and education. In
Guatemala, USAID is supporting efforts through civil society to
disseminate information about the recent law increasing Guatemala's
marriage age to community leaders, parents, youth, judges, and mayors
in rural areas.
Question. In March, two Nigerian girls were kidnapped and subject
to forced conversion and marriage in Northern Nigeria. Only after
public outcry and unprecedented public pressure were they ultimately
returned. Of course we've seen similar tactics employed by Boko Haram.
Would you say this issue is prioritized in our dealings with the
Nigerian government? In your view is the Nigerian government and its
security forces taking sufficient steps to protect civilians,
especially young girls, from this horrific human rights abuse?
Answer. Through the U.S. government's Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls, the Department prioritizes efforts to empower
adolescent girls so that they are given opportunities to thrive,
including in school. This is true for the Chibok girls, as well as the
thousands of others affected and held by Boko Haram. We continue to
engage and support Nigerian efforts to liberate hundreds of women and
children forced into marriage, indoctrinated, and impoverished by Boko
Haram. The United States, through USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign
Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA), provides life-saving protection
services--including health care, livelihoods assistance, and
psychosocial support--for displaced women and girls in northeastern
Nigeria, particularly survivors of gender-based and those released by
Boko Haram. We have also provided trauma counseling and essential
humanitarian aid to refugees, internally displaced persons, and other
populations of concern affected by this conflict in Cameroon, Chad, and
Niger, as well.
During my recent visit to Abuja in August, I met with the leaders
of the #BringBackOurGirls Campaign, who are anxious for the Chibok
girls to be returned. We expressed concerns that the International
organizations are doing their best to assist, but the level of
humanitarian need remains extremely high and insecurity complicates aid
delivery. The U.N. is in the process of rapidly scaling up its
response; turning this situation around will require the urgent and
robust collective efforts of the Government of Nigeria and the
international community.
The Nigerian Defense Headquarters inaugurated a Defense Advisory
Committee on Human Rights to monitor and investigate allegations of
human rights abuses within the military. While these efforts appear to
still be in the very early stages, they are steps in the right
direction, we have advocated in addition to the effort outlined above,
a nuanced and sustained communication strategy by the Government of
Nigeria to the impacted communities, and we hope to see efforts such as
these receive the necessary authority, staff, and funding to carry out
their mandates.
Question. There have been reports over the years of Coptic
Christian women and girls in Egypt being abducted and forced into
marriage and to convert to Islam. The State Department has often
neglected to give this issue sufficient attention in either the annual
TIP report or the IRF report citing insufficient evidence. However
multiple NGOs have documented the phenomenon. To what extent is this an
issue that the Department is following? Has the Department, including
embassy staff, received similar reports of this human rights abuse?
Answer. We closely follow reports of violence against women and
religious minorities--including reports of forced marriages and forced
conversions--and we consistently call on the Egyptian authorities to
investigate and prosecute these crimes. We continue to highlight that a
failure to do so has created an environment of impunity that
exacerbates sectarian tensions and gender inequality, which hinders a
transition to real democracy.
During the past 5 years, the Department has received several
reports of Coptic Christian women and girls in Egypt being abducted and
forced to convert to Islam. When such reports come to our attention, we
take them very seriously and make efforts to determine the details with
the NGOs that made the report, church and community leadership in
Egypt, and the government as appropriate. The majority of these cases
occur in parts of the country that are difficult to access and in which
there is frequent conflict within and among the local communities.
Despite our efforts, we have not often been able to document or
independently verify reports of abduction, although we continue to
pursue relevant information and to raise our concerns as appropriate.
Nevertheless, we have included reports of cases of abduction and forced
marriage and conversion in the 2011, 2012, and 2014 International
Religious Freedom Reports, and the 2015 Report covered the case of a
Coptic Christian man who was abducted and forced to convert to Islam.
Coptic Christians face legal and social discrimination, and reports
of violence against them often go uninvestigated and unprosecuted by
Egyptian authorities. At the same time, Egyptian women and girls of any
religion often face deep familial and societal pressures that limit
their choice of whom and when to marry as well as violence in their
homes, which may motivate them to run away or elope. As we reported in
the 2012 International Religious Freedom Report, ``Families sometimes
claimed kidnapping when women or girls ran away for reasons ranging
from abuse to voluntary conversion or elopement.''
Forced conversions and forced or coerced marriages constitute a
serious human rights abuse, but the Department only includes such cases
in the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report when they amount to human
trafficking as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
(TVPA). Human trafficking and forced marriage intersect when marriage
is used in conjunction with force, fraud, coercion, or abuse of power
and as a means to subject people--most often women--to conditions of
servitude, often in the form of domestic and/or sexual servitude. The
2016 TIP Report acknowledged the heightened vulnerability to
trafficking faced by members of religious minorities around the world,
stating ``traffickers have been known to target women and girls from
religious minorities and force them into religious conversions and
subsequent marriages, in which they may be subjected to domestic or
sexual servitude.'' We have not, however, received reports of such
cases in Egypt that meet the definition of trafficking outlined in the
TVPA.
______
Responses of Assistant Secretary Anne Richard to Questions
Submitted by Senator Marco Rubio
Question. The Washington Post recently ran a piece titled ``The
story of a girl married at 11 tracks the horrors of Yemen's War,''
which recounted the plight of a young pre-teen ``married'' to a 25-year
old man and her attempts to flee the forced union. Other recent new
stories detailed horrific accounts of refugee girls living in Lebanon,
Turkey and Jordan, some as young as eight being married off to help
their desperate families. What sort of programming is the U.S.
undertaking to confront this issue?
Answer. We are facing the greatest displacement crisis in history
and three-quarters of the displaced are women and children. We know
that early marriage is a practice that can increase during times of
conflict and displacement. To reduce instances of early marriage, the
State Department takes a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach,
including funding programs carried out by multilateral and non-
governmental organizations.
First, we provide assistance to ensure that the basic needs of
vulnerable people--such as shelter, food, clothing, water and
sanitation, and healthcare--are met. This helps them survive and also
reduces the risk of exploitation and violence. Ideally, we also provide
opportunities for vulnerable individuals to gain skills or earn a
living. If basic needs are met, families are less likely to turn to
other coping mechanisms, including early marriage.
Second, we try to dissuade families and communities from marrying
daughters early through education, as well as through programs that
seek to provide services and support to girls and their families and to
engage the broader community. Engaging families and whole communities
is the most sustainable approach. For example, the White House has
announced a $1 million program to help prevent and respond to early
marriage in the countries neighboring Syria. This program will increase
awareness of the benefits of delaying marriage for both girls and their
communities, counter the perception that early and forced marriage is a
way to protect girls, and underscore the value of continuing access to
education for adolescent girls. Services will also be available to
married girls and we will support civil society organizations working
to protect at-risk girls.
Third, we require partner organizations to assess the gender
dynamics that exist in the countries where they work. We also encourage
them to consult affected populations when developing programs.
Fourth, because many refugees in the Middle East do not reside in
camps and face additional challenges in obtaining services in cities,
we provide programs in camps as well as in cities, where more and more
refugees choose to live. Services supported by the United States are
grounded in the needs and realities of girls in the places where they
live.
Additional examples include the following:
In Lebanon, we funded a non-governmental organization to
identify local agencies that specialize in assisting women and
girl survivors of violence in the north and in Bekaa valley.
These agencies are conducting training for two clinics so they
can appropriately receive and manage gender-based violence
cases.
In Jordan we support the agencies conducting the ``Amani''
campaign to raise awareness of issues around gender-based
violence and child protection, including early marriage. The
multi-year campaign has developed materials that help initiate
conversations about these issues in Jordan. We also support
training judges and police to prevent and respond to early
marriage.
Question. Nine of the top 10 countries with the highest rates of
early marriage are considered fragile states. Given that the new U.S.
Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls includes specific attention
to both child marriage and adolescent girls displaced by conflict and
disaster. How is PRM tracking and reporting on its commitments under
the Strategy with regard to programs focused on combatting child
marriage in fragile and conflict affected states?
Answer. The Department of State's implementation plan for the U.S.
Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls Globally includes three
specific objectives that the Department has prioritized, and addressing
early and forced marriage is one of these. Enhancing and expanding
comprehensive programs to empower adolescent girls and address the risk
factors that are the drivers of early and forced marriage is one
approach that we are adopting in pursuit of this objective, along with
diplomacy, public engagement, coordination, and integrating a focus on
girls throughout the Department's operating structure.
Through the Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and
Migration (PRM), funding and support is provided to international and
NGO partners to respond to gender-based violence (GBV) among refugee
and conflict-affected populations. With our continued support, these
organizations are delivering urgently needed food, shelter, water,
health care, education, protection, and other services to people
affected by conflict. We encourage these partners to ensure that
protection responses, including addressing early and forced marriage,
are integrated into their programs particularly education, reproductive
health, and psycho-social care.
This assistance has advanced programming, research, and innovation
aimed at increasing girls' access to education, training, and skills
development as separate from boys recognizing that girls' developmental
and social needs are different during adolescence. These programs,
alongside those that engage parents and entire families help to reduce
girls' exposure to violence and exploitation. They also help girls to
become valued participants in their communities and contribute to long-
term development outcomes.
PRM staff works closely with partners to ensure their programs meet
existing standards such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee
Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Action
and meets with partners regularly to get updates, problem-solve
challenges that may come up in the field, as well as feed in real-time
learning, so that the work we fund is contextual and culturally
appropriate to the country and response.
All of PRM's efforts are guided by and informed by the Strategy to
Prevent and Respond to GBV Globally, the new U.S. Global Strategy to
Empower Adolescent Girls and the National Action Plan on Women, Peace,
and Security (NAP). Those strategies have existing monitoring and
reporting requirements including indicators that PRM feeds into on a
regular basis. We work consistently and closely with our interagency
colleagues including USAID to ensure we are coordinated and continuing
to make progress on our collective effort to advance U.S. government
policies.
Question. What concrete steps is State Department taking to
disseminate the strategy to our embassies in fragile and conflict
affected states to facilitate ownership of the strategy and build
capacity for its implementation at the country level?
Answer. Since the release of the strategy in March, the Secretary's
Office of Global Women's Issues (S/GWI) has worked to develop toolkits
for colleagues in embassies around the world that succinctly explain
why the strategy was launched and what it intends to achieve, and
outlines the specific outcomes that the State Department will pursue in
its implementation of the strategy. Importantly, it also provides
specific recommendations on the kinds of actions officers can take to
advance State's implementation of the strategy and examples of what
other embassies have done in this regard. These toolkits were recently
soft launched to test their effectiveness.
To distribute this toolkit more broadly, S/GWI has prepared a cable
that will go out to all embassies that will introduce the U.S. Global
Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls to a broader audience, explain how
it intersects with our other gender strategies, and outline reporting
expectations. This cable will request the designation of strategy leads
at each post to facilitate communication and create a network of
Department staff working across sectors.
S/GWI is also working to assemble existing tools and resources
online for overseas diplomats and officers across the Department to
highlight and address the challenges facing adolescent girls. In
addition to the toolkits mentioned previously, these includes one
pagers with talking points and key statistics for use in op-eds and
speeches, and a collection of research and resources related to
adolescent girls empowerment.
In Washington we are integrating discussion of adolescent girls
into ongoing gender working groups that will feed into the interagency
working group outlined into the strategy. We have also begun to hold
meetings with regional and functional bureaus to explain intent of the
strategy, discuss how it is relevant to their work, and explore
specific entry points for increased efforts to empower adolescent
girls.
The strategy complements the NAP, which charts the course that the
Department, USAID, and Department of Defense take to support women and
girls' protection and empowerment in countries affected by war,
violence, and insecurity. Together, these documents represent a
fundamental shift in how we address conflict prevention and response.
Of central importance to adolescent girls in crisis and conflict
settings, the NAP outlines actions that increase women and girls'
access to health, education, and economic opportunities.
The Department educates diplomatic personnel on these strategies
and other gender policies through a devoted online and in-person course
on gender equality and foreign policy at the Foreign Service Institute.
In addition, the Department has created toolkits for diplomats
deploying to U.S. missions around the world on its gender priorities,
including on adolescent girls and women, peace, and security. Annual
reporting on efforts to advance women and girls' empowerment through
the NAP is an additional vehicle through which the Department has
socialized gender policies with U.S. in conflict-affected regions while
also soliciting input on lessons learned, best practices, achievements,
and challenges associated with engaging women and girls in conflict
affected regions. PRM is also sharing the strategy and ensuring field
staff and partners are familiar with it through orientations, regular
communications, and proposal review processes.
Question. What diplomatic efforts is State Department taking to
encourage international counterparts to prioritize combatting child,
early and forced marriage within their own foreign policy, and in what
ways are you coordinating with other donors on policy and programmatic
efforts in fragile and conflict affected states where child marriage
rates are high?
Answer. The United States is an active proponent at United Nations
and in other multilateral fora for resolutions condemning child, early
and forced marriage and calling on other states and stakeholders to end
this practice. As the lead for this issue, the S/GWI along with other
department officials also raise the issue of early and forced marriage,
as appropriate in meetings with government officials and in bilateral
strategic dialogues.
PRM supports efforts to prevent and respond to early and forced
marriage through assistance and diplomatic efforts. This includes
bilateral conversations with other donors to share lessons, provide
technical insight, and encourage them to adopt similar strategies that
have proven to elevate and guide the U.S. government approach to women
and girls. For example, PRM recently shared information with a group of
European donors about our funding mechanisms and programs to engage men
and boys in responding to GBV. We will continue these efforts with
other donors, including those from the Global South, to emphasize our
work, promote best practices, and encourage them to adopt similar
policies like the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls to
advance our collective effort around these issues.
We also continue to engage in robust humanitarian diplomacy to:
Encourage more partners to join the Call to Action on
Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies (Call to
Action) and make commitments in order to expand international
coordination;
Promote policies and programs that support access to and
provision of sexual and reproductive health services for
crisis-affected individuals;
Prioritize child protection, education, and youth engagement
in humanitarian emergencies;
Develop policies to better address the unique needs of
displaced women, children, and other at-risk populations
whether in or out of camps; and
Integrate the promotion of gender equality into the full
range of humanitarian partners and donor planning and
activities.
Question. To what extent are you talking with our European allies
as it relates to the incidence of child marriage among the refugee
populations entering the continent? How are these governments
responding to this emerging challenge?
Answer. In 2013, the United Kingdom's Department for International
Development (DFID) launched the Call to Action to mobilize donors, U.N.
agencies, NGOs, and other stakeholders to protect women and girls in
humanitarian emergencies. The Call to Action culminated in a high-level
event, co-hosted by the U.K. and Sweden on November 13, 2013. That
event produced a ground-breaking communique, in which donors and
humanitarian agencies signed and committed to preventing violence
against women and girls from the start of humanitarian emergencies.
The Call to Action is an important framework to help coordinate
efforts with other donors, affected countries, and non-government
stakeholders to maximize our impact and change the nature of how we
respond to GBV in humanitarian crisis. From 2014-2015, the United
States assumed leadership of the Call to Action. Secretary Kerry hosted
follow-on Call to Action events on September 22, 2014, and October 1,
2015, in New York during the U.N. General Assembly. The October 2015
event included the unveiling of the Call to Action Road Map which was
developed under United States guidance and handover of Call to Action
leadership to Sweden.
The United States remains actively involved in the Call to Action,
now led by Sweden, including by encouraging States and other
organizations that did not sign the communique to join the initiative.
We are working hard to bring more partners, particularly governments,
on board not only to join the Call to Action but also to make
commitments in line with the Road Map in order to expand international
coordination and prioritization of violence against women and girls. In
the last month, we have reached out to six governments to join the Call
to Action in advance of the U.N. General Assembly. We also continue
regular calls with the States and Donors working group to coordinate
closely with other governments and donors on this issue of GBV in
emergencies. This includes partners like the U.K. Department for
International Development, the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency, Irish Aid, European Community Humanitarian Office,
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, among others.
Through ongoing conversations we aim to show European governments
what has worked well, share lessons, and learn more about how to better
address this issue. To date, the Call to Action is an important
framework to help coordinate efforts with other donors, affected
countries, and non-government stakeholders to maximize our impact and
change the nature of how we respond to GBV in humanitarian crises,
including those targeted towards girls and early and forced marriage.
However, this is not the only forum that is used to influence other
governments and track their responses to important issues like early
and forced marriage. As an example, PRM and USAID/OFDA recently held a
call with the European Commission on United States government
programming to engage men and boys in the prevention of gender-based
violence, including early and forced marriage, and address the issues
boys face when they are survivors of sexual violence. In that call, the
United States government shared best practices to date including
learning and areas for programs to be taken to scale.
______
Responses of Assistant Secretary Anne Richard and Ambassador Cathy
Russell to Questions Submitted by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin
Question. When crisis strikes, refugee and internally displaced
girls are the first to become ``invisible''--kept at home to manage
more adult responsibilities or for their own protection. Lacking
skills, information, and resources these girls are vulnerable to a
multitude of risks, not limited to exploitation and child marriage.
Because they are not ``seen'' or counted immediately following
displacement, emergency programming does not adequately address their
needs or concerns. The U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls
makes no explicit commitment to gather data, disaggregated by age and
sex, to capture the full scope of the problem as it relates to
displaced adolescent girls. I am concerned that because girls are
``invisible'' during emergencies and that without timely and accurate
data, girls will be ``lost.''
What steps are the Department of State and USAID taking to
assess the number and needs of displaced girls and adolescents?
Recognizing gathering data in an emergency is difficult, what
steps are being taken to ensure that State and USAID, as the
largest global donors to emergency, are setting high standards
for ensuring emergency assessments include disaggregated data
by age and sex?
Will this information be available publicly? Is there a
timeline (for example, within 30 days of a disaster
declaration) for when this disaggregated data can be collected?
If not, why not?
What efforts have the Bureau of Population Refugee and
Migration taken to encourage the U.N., especially UNHCR, as
well as other implementing partners to ensure this information
is being gathered and shared?
Answer. The United States government provides support to
international and NGO partners to respond to gender-based violence
(GBV), including early and forced marriage of girls, and violence
against children among refugee, natural disaster, and conflict-affected
populations through GBV and child protection programs. With our
continued support, these organizations are delivering urgently needed
food, shelter, water, health care, education, protection, and other
services to people affected by displacement. We encourage all partners
to ensure that protection responses, including those which address
early and forced marriage, are integrated into their programs
particularly education, reproductive health, and psycho-social care. We
do this in the following ways:
The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and
USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA)
require NGO partners to submit a gender analysis in program
applications submitted for funding.
PRM and USAID/OFDA ensure proposals and reporting submitted
with a gender component or gender-related indicators are
reviewed and evaluated by a Gender/GBV and/or Protection
expert.
USAID/OFDA subsequently requires that every proposal
submitted for funding has integrated and mainstreamed
protection across all of its proposed sectors to demonstrate
how their activities will address and mitigate risks, such as
those particularly faced by women and girls in crisis.
PRM and USAID/OFDA require NGO partners to submit quarterly
reports in line with their program design.
PRM and USAID/OFDA regularly monitor protection and gender
mainstreaming, GBV, and child protection programs through site
visits, phone calls, meetings, briefings, etc.
PRM encourages partners to provide gender and age
disaggregated data in their proposals for relevant and
appropriate indicators, as well as in their quarterly
reporting.
USAID/OFDA is also working with partners to develop tools to
better address the unique needs of adolescent girls in
emergencies, including mapping existing services, adapting
design and implementation of programming that addresses
critical needs across sectors for adolescents, particularly
adolescent girls.
PRM and OFDA work closely with partners to ensure their programs
meet existing standards such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee
Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Action
(IASC GBV Guidelines) and meet with partners regularly to get updates,
problem-solve challenges that may come up in the field, as well as feed
in real-time learning, so that the work we fund is contextual and
culturally appropriate to the country and response. At every stage, the
United States government advocates and asks questions about sex-
disaggregated data and adherence to the IASC GBV Guidelines, which
provides guidance as well as gender and GBV-specific indicators that
can be incorporated into program design to address many of these risks.
As per the IASC GBV Guidelines, United States government staff is
trained and integrate into their monitoring of international and NGO
partners the following considerations:
GBV prevention and response is a priority, as we know that
life-saving interventions should be included in the earliest
stages of any emergency.
Assessments should always build upon and never duplicate
existing data or information that is already available.
Assessments should be done at the outset of program planning
and at regular intervals for monitoring and evaluation
purposes. However, while the provision of data is critical in
informing programming, we should never use the absence of
``data'' as an excuse for not prioritizing GBV response
activities at the earliest stages of an emergency.
All assessments, including those that focus on issues that
extend beyond GBV, should be done according to ethical and
safety standards, in a participatory nature, and never put the
beneficiaries at risk.
GBV Assessments should be undertaken to generate sex-
disaggregated data and information that highlights the gaps and
needs of women and girls as well to inform new programming.
The Department of State has a close relationship with the United
National High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who receives funding
to institutionalize and prioritize GBV from the outset of every
emergency under Safe from the Start. The Department regularly
encourages and supports UNHCR efforts to undertake safe and ethical
emergency assessments in new and protracted conflicts. UNHCR, as part
of the global task team, is also supporting the rollout and
implementation of the GBV Information Management System (more
information here: http://www.gbvims.com/). This system is the standard
for collecting ethical GBV information in emergency contexts and has
procedures for compiling and sharing that data with relevant
stakeholders early in an emergency.
All of the U.S. government's efforts are guided by and informed by
the Strategy to Prevent and Respond to GBV Globally, the new U.S.
Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls and the National Action
Plan on Women, Peace, and Security. These strategies have existing
monitoring and reporting requirements including indicators that PRM
feeds into on a regular basis. We work consistently and closely with
our interagency colleagues inside the Department of State and USAID to
ensure we are coordinated and continuing to make progress on our
collective efforts to advance U.S. government policies. This includes
assessing and responding to the needs of displaced women and girls.
Question. Launched 3 years ago, the United States leadership on
Safe from the Start is now losing momentum. One objective of Safe from
the Start was to increase accountability within the international
humanitarian architecture by prioritizing gender-based violence
prevention. NGOs are required on the front end to conduct a gender
analysis as part of their proposals. Why are NGOs not required to
routinely report on GBV issues, such as in their quarterly reporting
mechanism, during program implementation to ensure accountability in
addressing GBV?
Answer. Despite significant focus, attention, and investment in
these issues over the last decade, gaps still remain in preventing and
responding to GBV, particularly during the earliest, and often most
critical, stages of an emergency. Recognizing these challenges, the
Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
(PRM), together with USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
(USAID/OFDA) developed a framework for action in the spring of 2013 to
analyze these challenges, identify solutions, and mobilize the
humanitarian community to take concrete action to address GBV more
effectively in emergencies. As a result of this framework, Secretary
Kerry launched Safe from the Start in September 2013. Safe from the
Start is a U.S. government initiative to build the capacity of the
humanitarian system to reduce risk of GBV and ensure quality services
for survivors through timely and effective humanitarian action, and
hold the humanitarian community accountable to a higher standard of
addressing the risks faced by women and girls consistently in
emergencies. It seeks to transform the international system for
humanitarian response so that the needs of women, girls, and others
affected by GBV are a priority in emergencies. We do not believe that
Safe from the Start is losing momentum; we actually believe significant
strides have been made. The initiative has made important inroads in
changing the way that humanitarian partners implement programming to
ensure that GBV is prioritized in humanitarian emergencies. The impacts
of these investments need to be assessed over time, given that these
activities aim to help build the capacity of the system to change the
way in which organizations respond--this does not occur overnight and
is quite different from assessing the impact of a typical emergency
response where one typically sees the impact more immediately.
Approximately $55 million is being channeled by the U.S. government
through this initiative since 2013 to build and strengthen the core
capacity of humanitarian partners to address GBV from the earliest
phases of an emergency. Given the focus on capacity building,
institutionalization, and integration of GBV prevention and response
into other programs efforts, it is too early to assess or evaluate the
full impact of Safe from the Start. The United States government is
currently preparing plans to evaluate Safe from the Start programs to
date. This evaluation would assess what has worked, what has not
worked, and what needs to be improved moving forward. We know from
anecdotal information and program reports that there have been many
successes under Safe from the Start, including the deployment of
experts on protection and GBV at the onset of emergencies and the
provision of core services to respond to the needs of survivors.
In an effort to realize the objectives of Safe from the Start,
USAID/OFDA is supporting the Real-Time Accountability Partnership
(RTAP), a joint project between OFDA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNFPA, OCHA, and
the International Rescue Committee. The RTAP is a global, multi-agency
initiative that aims to harness the collective power of the
humanitarian community to ensure that all individuals, particularly
women and girls, are free from the threat of GBV. Specifically, the
RTAP's goal is that all actors prioritize and coordinate GBV response
services and integrate GBV prevention across sectors from the outset of
an emergency.
In addition to Safe from the Start, we also continue to engage in
robust humanitarian diplomacy to:
Promote policies and programs that support access to and
provision of sexual and reproductive health services for
crisis-affected individuals;
Prioritize child protection, education, and youth engagement
in humanitarian emergencies;
Develop policies to better address the unique needs of
displaced women, children, and other at-risk populations
whether in or out of camps; and
Integrate the promotion of gender equality into the full
range of humanitarian partners and donor planning and
activities.
All of these efforts are to increase accountability and improve
life-saving GBV responses in acute emergencies. The Call to Action is
an important framework to help coordinate efforts with other donors,
affected countries, and non-government stakeholders to maximize our
impact and change the nature of how we respond to GBV in humanitarian
crises, including those targeted towards girls and early and forced
marriage. From 2014-2015, the United States assumed leadership of the
Call to Action. The United States remains actively involved in the Call
to Action including by encouraging States and other organizations that
did not sign the communique to join the initiative and make commitments
in line with the Call to Action Road Map.
We are also working hard to encourage more partners, particularly
governments, to join the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based
Violence in Emergencies and make commitments in order to expand
international coordination and prioritization of violence against women
and girls. In the last month, we have reached out to six governments to
join the Call to Action in advance of the U.N. General Assembly.
On a programmatic level, PRM requires that all partners who receive
funding submit detailed quarterly reports on their activities, which
are closely reviewed. Reports are required to include information about
accountability to affected populations and explain how beneficiaries
have been involved in program implementation and how their feedback has
been incorporated into performance monitoring and program improvement.
At PRM, accountability of affected populations is closely tied to our
work around gender and GBV mainstreaming and promoted within all of the
programs and sectors that receive financial support.
Question. Every day, 39,000 girls under the age of 18 become child
brides. In the midst of emergencies, including war and natural
disasters, adolescent girls have a unique set of vulnerabilities: their
age and gender makes them more vulnerable to sexual violence and they
lack critical information and skills to help them make informed
decisions. When traditional protection mechanisms erode during times of
crisis, families marry girls off in order to protect them, viewing
marriage as an alternate protection mechanism and even seeing early
marriage as an opportunity for girls to have a better life.
What specific actions are the State Department and USAID
taking to address the unique vulnerabilities of refugee and IDP
girls and adolescents, especially as they relate to early
marriage? Please provide specific, concrete, tangible actions.
Answer: The United States government takes a holistic approach to
ending early and forced marriage. We know that the vulnerabilities of
refugee and displaced girls are exacerbated in times of crisis. This
means that the already ingrained social norms that discriminate against
women and girls become compounded with the loss protection mechanisms,
support, and services that individuals and families may have received
pre-displacement. The United States government aims to not only address
the exacerbating factors that perpetuate early and forced marriage in
displacement but also the underlying root causes. We believe that
addressing such issues as discrimination and oppression of women and
girls can change social dynamics that fuel early and forced marriage
and give the communities' opportunity to transform harmful norms so
that countries are more likely to transition into stability and peace.
We have seen time and again, that women and girls may be able to
express themselves and make decisions in displacement in ways that they
never could before. In situations where men are no longer seen as the
only head-of-household, women and girls may have opportunity to speak,
earn a livelihood, and go to school. The United States government
believes that these are opportunities we should build upon to
encourage, support, and educate women and girls as well as their
communities which may have otherwise not been possible.
To address early and forced marriage, the United States government
delivers integrated programs in refugee and displaced contexts around
the world. We believe that addressing this complex and serious problem
requires a multi-faceted response and a comprehensive approach. This is
why we work to end this practice through education, and programs to
combat gender-based violence, improve sexual and reproductive health
and rights, increase livelihoods, and encourage other types of
protection such as child protection. These programs aim to provide
services and support to girls who have experienced all types of
violence. They also work to engage parents, caregivers, and community
leaders in order to address the norms that both cause and perpetuate
early and forced marriage.
The Department has a number of programs in place to address child
marriage in conflict affected and fragile states. For example:
In November 2015, the White House announced that the
Department would undertake a new $1,000,000 effort in one or
more of Syria's neighboring countries impacted by the Syrian
refugee crisis to help prevent and respond to early and forced
marriage. Activities will focus on increasing awareness of the
benefits of delaying marriage for both girls and their
communities, countering the perception that early and forced
marriage is a way to protect girls, and underscoring the value
of continuing access to education for adolescent girls. Efforts
will also aim to reach already married girls with services and
to support civil society organizations working to protect at-
risk girls.
In March 2016, Secretary Kerry announced $7 million in
programming to empower adolescent girls in Afghanistan, where
the Department of State will fund efforts to change perceptions
about child marriage at the district and community level
through grants for girls to go to school and counseling,
networks for girls, and training on life and vocational skills.
The United States government gives funding to multilateral and NGO
partners to implement life-saving and critical programs for adolescent
girls. We require partners to assess the gender dynamics that exist in
any country in which they are proposing programs. We also encourage
them to take specific and targeted approaches to working with women,
men, boys, and girls. We know that adolescent girls face unique
problems and have needs that are specific to them in crisis and
conflict. We must ensure that they do not slip through the cracks but
that we focus our efforts on protecting and empowering them. This is
why Secretary Kerry launched Safe from the Start in September 2013.
This initiative as well as other United States government
assistance has supported programming, research, and innovation aimed at
increasing girls' access to education, training, and skills development
as separate from boys, recognizing that girls' developmental and social
needs are different during adolescence. These programs, alongside those
that engage parents and entire families, help to reduce girls' exposure
to violence and exploitation. They also help girls to become valued
participants in their communities and contribute to long-term
development outcomes.
Other specialized programs aimed at preventing and responding to
violence that are supported by the United State government, include:
Medical care and counseling services for GBV survivors,
Child protection case management support for vulnerable
children and their families,
Safe learning and healing spaces for children, particularly
girls, and
Awareness-raising and programs that transform the behaviors
which support early and forced marriage, as well as human
trafficking, child labor, and a wide range of gender-based
violence so that refugees understand their rights and the
resources available to them.
For instance, PRM and USAID/OFDA protection partners identified
early and forced marriage as a critical issue facing Syrian and Iraqi
adolescent girls and are addressing it through nuanced and targeted
age-appropriate child protection interventions focusing on access to
informal education, psychosocial support, and building life and
resiliency skills.
Additionally, we support host governments and U.N. agencies to
increase their capacity to provide services and addresses these issues.
In Jordan, we support the Family Protection Department, affiliated with
the Jordanian Public Security Department, to strengthen its capacity to
address GBV and provide psychosocial support services in the northern
part of the country. In Iraq, UNHCR works through its partners to raise
awareness of GBV in the refugee and displaced populations, establish
women's centers in camps, and carry out training on GBV core concepts
and case management. Several PRM partners also work to develop referral
pathways among local relief agencies, as well as encourage higher
enrollment of girls in formal education programs.
Question. The reasons behind child marriage vary from context to
context: In some places, young girls may be married early to protect
them from exploitation, whereas in other contexts, young girls may be
married to bring their families a dowry. To eradicate the practice of
child marriage, it is critical that donors and implementers understand
the community and family dynamics that drive families to marry their
girls at a young age.
In protracted emergencies like Syria, has the State
Department and USAID analyzed the specific drivers of why girls
are married at a young age, and what specific interventions
would be most useful to prevent child marriages in different
context? What are those interventions?
What actions are USAID and the State Department taking to
elevate girls as a vulnerable group and prioritize them so
their voices are considered and incorporated into both
emergency and non-emergency programming?
Answer. We are facing the greatest refugee and displacement crisis
since World War II. This demands a proactive policy and programmatic
approach that addresses the significant needs of women and girls around
the world. We know that countries where rights are respected, where
opportunity abounds, where women and girls have the same opportunities
as men and boys, are safer, more prosperous, and more secure.
Therefore, we must include specific perspectives of women and girls in
our planning, in our bilateral and multilateral discussions, and our
programming so that we see a reduction in violence against women and
girls and an increase in access to education, livelihoods, health,
psycho-social and other services.
With over 70 percent of those affected by conflict being women and
children and the average refugee being displaced nearly two decades, we
must rise to the challenge of developing unique solutions that respond
to the long-term needs of these communities. This means increasing
programming as well as research that build an evidence base for what
works in crisis contexts. While much has been done to understand the
issues linked to early and forced marriage by numerous research
organizations, humanitarian organizations, and coalitions, more needs
to be done to test and prove the impact of humanitarian services and
programs in order to advance our collective efforts. Programming to
address violence against women and girls is still very new in the
humanitarian arena compared to other sectors and we admittedly need to
continue our collective work until this field is as advanced and
sophisticated as other sectors such as health, nutrition, and hygiene.
At the same time, we know from practice and years of programming in
this field both in the U.S. and abroad that integrated programming that
engages families and whole communities is the most sustainable
approach. We must ensure that girls are part of the larger change in
their communities in order to transform their futures and increase
their opportunities. We support the approach of working ``with girls''
instead of for them given what we know about their resilience, power,
and potential. We must rewrite the narrative that portrays girls as
victims by allowing them a leadership role as we create and implement
programs. This will allow girls to be empowered and become future
leaders of the communities where they live.
In displacement, we believe that early and forced marriage is
perpetuated not only by a crisis, natural disaster, or the risk
associated with conflict but the underlying inequalities that exist
around the world. In many societies, women and girls are seen as
second-class citizens and discriminated against from an early age.
Therefore, any program working to address violence that girls
experience must take this reality into account.
Whether within Syria, Iraq, or in a refugee hosting country, the
U.S. government works closely with multilateral partners like the U.N.,
national and international non-governmental organizations, other
donors, and government actors to identify the concerns of girls and
deliver a coordinated response to the complex humanitarian needs of all
women and girls. Many Syrian refugees do not reside in camps and face
additional challenges in obtaining services in urban areas. In Lebanon,
we are funding a non-governmental organization to map local agencies
that specialize in assisting women and girl survivors of violence in
the north and Bekaa valley and who are conducting intensive GBV
capacity development training for two clinics so they can appropriately
receive and manage GBV cases.
The United States government supports programs around the world
that address early and forced marriage. These programs take a
comprehensive approach to addressing deep seated discrimination and
oppression of girls as well as the immediate risks that they might face
in displacement. Partners, funded by the U.S. government, typically
undertake quick, emergency assessments to understand the specific
dynamics in a particular community. From there, they set up services
that include child-friendly spaces, case management, psycho-social
support, education, health and reproductive health, and legal
assistance. After the immediate days of a conflict or crisis, these
organizations also work to implement long-term behavior change and
prevention programs that engage men, boys, and whole communities to
change the underlying gender inequalities that perpetuate and condone
early and forced marriage.
In addition to emergency assessments, the United States government
supports UNHCR's community-based approach which is ``a way of working
in partnership with persons of concern during all stages''. This
approach pushes the humanitarian community and U.S. government partners
to understand and consider the context, including the gender dynamics,
of any community before responding and recognizes that more effective
and sustainable outcomes are those that come from community
consultations.
The United States, through PRM, supported the Women's Refugee
Commission and UNHCR-led Global Youth Consultations (GYRC) that
occurred in 2015 and 2016. The GRYC provided an opportunity for refugee
youth to discuss issues that affect them with host country youth and
representatives from the United Nations, NGOs, and government
officials. The refugee youth themselves, many of which were young
women, were able to fully participate in the processes leading up to
the Consultations and to inform and shape the dialogue and outcomes.
The GRYC placed youth at the center of participation and decision
making processes that affect them and recognized their potential. This
project ended with a Stakeholder Dialogue in Geneva in June where youth
from various national consultations presented outcomes and
recommendations in the form of the Core Action for Refugee Youth to key
international agencies, organizations, and governments. We are
currently looking at ways in which we can further support and amplify
these core actions into our policies and programming.
Question. We know that the escalation of the armed conflict in
Yemen has catapulted women and girls there into a humanitarian
catastrophe. Given the unique impact of conflict on women and girls,
what is the administration doing to ensure that the U.N. deploys a
gender advisor in Yemen so that a gender analysis is conducted at all
stages of the crisis?
Answer. We remain deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation
in Yemen. The United States is committed to helping the millions of
men, women, and children who continue to suffer in Yemen and across the
region because of this crisis. Since FY 2015, the U.S. government has
provided more than $500 million in humanitarian aid for Yemen and for
those in the region affected by the current crisis there. This aid has
included the provision of food, water, health care, shelter, and other
emergency relief.
The United States government takes protection issues very seriously
and is a leading advocate for women and girls worldwide through Safe
from the Start. We provide support to a variety of humanitarian
agencies that provide protection services in Yemen, including the
Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is the
protection cluster lead, as well as IOM, UNICEF, and INGOs. Recently,
an individual was temporarily deployed to act as a senior interagency
resource and to take on the role of interim protection cluster
coordinator. The coordinator looked at the national responses to, in
particular, IDP situations of concern, including gender issues. The
United States also supports OCHA's Gender Capacity (GenCap) and
Protection Capacity (ProCap) rosters. At the request of OCHA, GenCap
deployed a senior gender advisor in January of this year to support the
humanitarian response in Yemen for a 4-month period, including ensuring
a gender analysis was incorporated into the development of the 2016
Humanitarian Response Plan.
Expatriate deployments to Yemen are generally quite difficult due
to visa restrictions for individuals of certain nationalities, security
concerns, and other issues, but we continue to reinforce to the U.N.
the importance of these deployments. The U.N. remains committed to
ensuring it has both adequate quantity and quality of staff working in
Yemen, in particular people who have experience working in other Level
Three emergencies. We continue to encourage the U.N., particularly
UNHCR as the protection cluster lead and the U.N. Special Envoy as lead
on peace negotiations, to integrate women's voices and a gender
perspective into conflict resolution and security deliberations while
committing staff and specialized training to this end, including gender
advisors. We also continue to encourage and support programs like the
one U.N. Women sponsored earlier this year. The organization brought
seven Yemeni women to Kuwait from May 7-10 to meet with both
negotiating delegations and diplomats working on finding a solution to
the conflict in Yemen. U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Matthew Tueller met
with these women bilaterally and heard their suggestions on increasing
women's participation.
U.S. engagement also includes encouraging UNHCR to attract and
train an adequate number of fully-trained staff to serve as cluster
coordinators worldwide, but particularly in Yemen. We also continue to
urge the U.N. to deploy adequate staff with gender expertise, to
regularly consult with Yemeni women leaders to ensure women's
perspectives are part of decision-making in all phases of the conflict
and during the rebuilding period, and to impress upon U.N. agencies the
importance of mainstreaming gender in the humanitarian response.
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