PRESS RELEASE

Ending Abuses of Girl Children Theme of U.N. Conference

By Lea Terhune
USINFO Staff Writer

February 13, 2007

Washington – Gender equity and the elimination of discrimination and violence against girl children are themes of the upcoming 51st session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The United States delegation is working on two resolutions to end violence against girls, according to Patricia P. Brister, U.S. representative to the CSW.

Brister said the U.S. team has drafted and is soliciting support for a resolution against forced and child marriages. “There actually has never been a resolution with that title, although it has been mentioned in other U.N. documents,” she told USINFO.  “We are also talking with other countries, trying to build consensus on female infanticide, [and] sex-selective abortion,” she said.

Forcing young girls into marriage “contributes to the economic downfall of a community,” Brister said. “When girls are married at 12 years old they certainly have no way of being educated or moving up in their system to a more economically advantageous situation.”

In addition to the economic impact, there are serious medical consequences when young girls are forced to marry. Maternal and infant mortality rates are higher in child mothers. Prevention of obstetric fistula, a life-altering problem, will figure in the U.S. resolution, Brister said.

Fistula commonly afflicts immature girls who give birth where skilled obstetric care is unavailable and who have obstructed labor. If there is no timely medical intervention, and the baby’s head compresses against the mother’s pelvic bone for several days, the baby dies and the mother is rendered incontinent because of the fistula, or hole, torn in her soft tissue. Usually the condition condemns the mother to a life as an outcast. 

The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) has campaigned to end obstetric fistula since 2003. According to UNFPA, “Poverty, malnutrition, poor health services, early childbearing and gender discrimination are interlinked root causes of obstetric fistula.” Female genital mutilation and violent rape also cause the condition.

The health and well-being of girls are paramount, Brister said. “Twelve- and 14-year-old girls are married; they are often kidnapped into marriage; they are beaten; they are raped by their husbands; they have no freedoms whatsoever.”

EMPOWERING WOMEN AND GIRLS

Financial independence helps free women from such victimization. “We’ve been very involved in the economic empowerment of women and girls, too,” Brister said, citing microfinancing programs funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “When you empower women, you empower a family,” she said.

Brister said 70 percent of microcredit loans go to women. “I think that’s very telling in and of itself that women do want to further their goals and bring themselves out of this situation,” she said.

Andrea Bottner, senior coordinator of the State Department’s Office of International Women’s Issues, agreed. She told USINFO that programs funded through her office aim to support women in areas where they need it most: education, health care and protection from violence so they can contribute to society. “Women have a lot to offer,” she said.

“A woman needs to be safe at home … then she is more enabled to be empowered and succeed outside the home. To me it is a ripple effect.  A woman that is outside in society as a role model of courage, of vision, of entrepreneurial ability – other women see that.” She said, “That’s one of the most powerful things you can give young women and other women who might be despairing,” to see “a woman who is in control of her life.”

Resolutions introduced at the CSW with a strong consensus among countries draw attention to critical problems and engage governments and organizations in seeking change. Past resolutions introduced by the United States on the economic advancement of women and fighting trafficking in persons helped bring results.

Brister said work on such issues continues, and highlighting them at international meetings is important. “What we hope for,” she said, “is bringing enough attention to a situation and bringing it out in public enough it will encourage other governments … to get involved.”

The United States also will lead a panel on Burma and the Darfur region of Sudan at the CSW session, which will run from February 26 to March 9.

 

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(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)