SALON

Friday, Mar 8, 2013 3:00 PM UTC

With Hillary gone, will State Department still prioritize women?

Foggy Bottom was run by a great champion for women. What are John Kerry's plans?

By

Topics: women, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, State DEpartment, Secretary of State, Human Rights,

With Hillary gone, will State Department still prioritize women?Secretary of State John Kerry (Credit: Reuters/Lefteris Pitarakis)

It’s no secret that when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously declared in 1995 that “women’s rights are human rights,” she cemented her status as a champion for women and girls around the world. And as secretary of state, Clinton made gender equality and women’s empowerment a pillar of American diplomacy. The question now is whether the departure of the leading advocate for women will signal the end of the State Department’s focus on these key issues.

Among her achievements in this area, Clinton launched the Equal Futures Partnership to increase women’s leadership in politics, and made the case that rights for women and girls are key ingredients for democracy, peace and economic growth in every country. Critically, she led the United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security as well as the United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally, an initiative of USAID and the State Department. If that wasn’t enough, she also shaped the Secretarial Policy Directive on Gender, which has been instrumental in working to end child marriage.

The media is abuzz with comparisons between Clinton’s signature achievements and her successor John Kerry’s prospects in furthering the work that Clinton began. Kerry released a promising statement of commitment to women’s rights and empowerment, in honor of International Women’s Day today. But in order for him to ensure that advancing the status of women and girls remains a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, here are three things he needs to do:

1. Strengthen the global standard to end violence against women and girls. One out of every three women worldwide is physically abused, and violence against women is more than a violation of human rights — it’s also a major barrier to achieving global development goals. By some estimates, women and girls make up 70 percent of the global poor, an alarming statistic compounded by their vulnerability to violence. What’s more, poverty drives early marriage, and adolescent girls in early marriages are often more susceptible to sexual abuse. The 2011 U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security along with the United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally marked important first steps in elevating the status of women, but the U.S. government must now advance these programs and policies that protect women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence. This is an essential building block for achieving human dignity and eradicating global poverty.

2. Ensure that rural women have control over their own land, food and water sources. According to U.N. statistics, women in the developing world comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor force but own only 15 percent of the land. Discrimination denies small-scale female farmers the same access men have to fertilizers, seeds, credit and farmland. Consider Kenya, where 67 percent of people live on less than $2 a day. Kenyan women own only about 5 percent of theland but produce most of the country’s food. Time and again, women have proved to be better equipped than men to enable agricultural economies to thrive. And the World Bank reports that women and girls reinvest an average of 90 percent of their income in their families, compared to a 30 to 40 percent reinvestment rate for men. Our State Department must use its political muscle and moral voice to ensure that rural women in Kenya, India, Nicaragua and elsewhere in the developing world have the freedom to access and own land, grow their own food and feed their own families.

3. Increase funding for girls and women to access sexual and reproductive health services. Currently, only two cents out of every international aid dollar is directed to girls. Girls are almost entirely neglected from existing strategies to stem the spread of HIV, even though women and girls make up an increasing proportion of the population living with the virus. And, unfortunately, rates of female infection continue to rise.

Less than half of all countries dedicate resources to women and girls in their response to HIV and AIDS, and young women aged 15-24 in sub-Saharan Africa are up to eight times more likely than men to be HIV-positive. The estimated 600 million adolescent girls living in developing countries are vulnerable in part because they are consistently lacking access to medical care and reproductive health services, which exacerbates a cycle of poverty, violence and HIV. If these root problems are not addressed along with the virus itself, the AIDS epidemic will continue to undermine these girls’ futures. The PEPFAR Blueprint: Creating an AIDS-free generation offers one critical path for Secretary Kerry to advance the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls.

Former Secretary Clinton made sure that women and girls were a centerpiece of American diplomacy. But we must not be fooled into thinking that the work is over. Achieving global justice depends on the ingenuity of human rights activists around the world and on the strength of U.S. foreign policy to advocate for women and girls — now and for generations to come.

Ruth Messinger is president of American Jewish World Service. To learn more, please visit www.ajws.org. More Ruth Messinger.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
351 points352 points | 114 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
62 points63 points | 3 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
37 points38 points | 2 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
38 points39 points | 4 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
33 points34 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations