BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SJR 24|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SJR 24
Author: Yee (D)
Amended: As introduced
Vote: 21
WITHOUT REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE OR FILE
SUBJECT : Proposed federal International Violence Against
Women Act
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This resolution urges the United States Congress
to pass the International Violence Against Women Act, and
establish the offices and policies therein.
ANALYSIS :
This resolution makes the following Legislative findings:
1. Violence against women and girls is rooted in multiple
causes and takes many forms, including physical, sexual,
and psychological. It affects all countries, social
groups, ethnicities, religions, and socioeconomic
classes and is a global health, economic development,
and human rights problem of epidemic proportions.
2. According to the World Health Organization,
approximately one in three women in the world will
experience violence in her lifetime, with rates of up to
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70 percent in some countries, and one in five of the
women in the world will be the victim of rape or
attempted rape in her lifetime.
3. According to the 2006 United Nations Secretary General's
report entitled Ending Violence Against Women, 102
member states have no specific laws on domestic
violence.
4. Women and girls face many different types of
gender-based violence, including forced or child
marriage, so-called "honor killings," dowry-related
murder, human trafficking, and female genital
mutilation. The United Nations estimates that at least
5,000 so-called "honor killings" take place each year
around the world and that more than 130 million girls
and young women worldwide have been subjected to female
genital mutilation.
5. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief 2006
Report on Gender-Based Violence and HIV/AIDS reports
that violence against women is a public health and
development problem that significantly increases
susceptibility to HIV/AIDS. A United Nations study on
the global AIDS epidemic found that in sub-Saharan
Africa, women who are 15 to 24 years of age can be
infected at rates that are up to six times higher than
men of the same age.
6. Recent studies in Africa indicate that many girls in
primary and secondary school report sexual abuse or
harassment by male teachers or classmates. Girls who
experience sexual violence at school are also more
likely to experience unintended pregnancies or become
infected with a sexually transmitted infection,
including HIV/AIDS.
7. Rape and sexual assault are weapons of war used to
torture, intimidate, and terrorize women and
communities. Amnesty International reports that women
have suffered from sexual violence during conflicts in
Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and most
recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where
women have suffered from brutal and systematic sexual
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assaults.
8. Displaced, refugee, and stateless women and girls in
humanitarian emergencies, conflict settings, and natural
disasters face extreme violence and threats because of
power inequities, including being forced to exchange sex
for food and humanitarian supplies, and being at
increased risk of rape, sexual exploitation, and abuse.
9. According to the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID): 70 percent of the 1.3 billion
people worldwide living in poverty are women and
children, two-thirds of the 876 million illiterate
adults in the world are women, two-thirds of the 125
million school-aged children who are not in school are
girls, more than three-quarters of the 27 million
refugees in the world are women and children, and 1,600
women die unnecessarily every day during pregnancy and
childbirth.
10.In 2003, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women concluded that violence against
women violates the basic human rights of women, results
in "devastating consequences for women who experience
it, traumatic impact on those who witness it,
de-legitimization of states that fail to prevent it and
the impoverishment of entire societies that tolerate
it."
11.Violence against women is an impediment to the health,
opportunity, and development of women and society.
According to an October 2006 study of the United Nations
Secretary General entitled Ending Violence Against
Women, "Violence against women impoverishes women, their
families, communities and nations. It lowers economic
production, drains resources from public services and
employers, and reduces human capital formation."
12.The World Bank recognizes that women's health,
education, and economic opportunities directly impact
the development and well-being of their families and
society. A 2001 World Bank Report, entitled Engendering
Development, reports that greater gender equality leads
to improved nutrition, lower child mortality, less
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government corruption, higher productivity, and reduced
HIV infection rates.
13.Increased access to economic opportunities is crucial to
the prevention of and response to domestic and sexual
violence. Both microfinance-based interventions and
increased asset control have been shown to reduce levels
of intimate partner violence in addition to providing
economic independence for survivors.
14.Campaigns to change social norms, including community
organizing, media campaigns, and efforts to engage and
educate men and boys, have been shown to change
attitudes that condone and tolerate violence against
women and girls and reduce violence and abuse.
15.The International Violence Against Women Act creates
within the United States Agency for International
Development, the Office of Women's Global Development
and establishes the Office of Women's Global Initiatives
and the Advisory Commission on International Violence
Against Women, within the U.S. Department of State, to
develop a strategy and direct resources to prevent and
respond to violence against women and girls throughout
the world.
16.The act establishes policies to prevent and respond to
violence against women, including directing the
preparation of a five-year international strategy to
prevent and respond to violence against women and girls
internationally, collecting data and conducting research
about efforts to prevent and respond to violence,
including information on violence against women and
girls in human rights reports, enhancing the training of
foreign military and police forces on violence against
women and girls, and authorizing the appropriation of
$5,000,000 annually through fiscal year 2012 to support
the United Nations Development Fund for Women Trust Fund
in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against
Women.
This resolution states that the the Legislature of the
State of California hereby urges the United States Congress
to pass the International Violence Against Women Act, and
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establish the offices and policies therein.
FISCAL EFFECT : Fiscal Com.: No
RJG:do 4/12/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED
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