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INTERNATIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN:

STORIES AND SOLUTIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL 

ORGANIZATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND OVERSIGHT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 21, 2009

Serial No. 111–64

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

HUMAN RIGHTS AND OVERSIGHT

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts, Chairman 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

CLIFF STAMMERMAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

PAUL BERKOWITZ, Republican Professional Staff Member 

BRIAN FORNI, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Janice D. Schakowsky, U.S. House of Representatives .............. 1

The Honorable Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large, Office of Global 

Women’s Issues, U.S. Department of State ....................................................... 10

The Honorable Linda Smith, President and Founder, Shared Hope International (Former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives) ................... 28

Ms. Mallika Dutt, Founder and Executive Director, Breakthrough .................... 38

Ms. Nicole Kidman, Actress, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador ............................ 42

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Janice D. Schakowsky: Prepared statement ............................... 3

The Honorable Melanne Verveer: Prepared statement ........................................ 14

The Honorable Linda Smith: Prepared statement ................................................ 32

Ms. Mallika Dutt: Prepared statement .................................................................. 40

Ms. Nicole Kidman: Prepared statement ............................................................... 44

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 56

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 57

(1)

INTERNATIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: 

STORIES AND SOLUTIONS 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND OVERSIGHT, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:24 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Delahunt (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. This hearing will come to order. The usual practice is for the chair and the ranking member to make opening 

statements. But I am informed that our colleague and good friend 

and leader on this issue has another commitment. So we are going 

to welcome Congresswoman Schakowsky. And Jan, if you would 

proceed with your statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And first let me 

tell you how much I appreciate your leadership on this issue. And 

I am grateful to all of the cosponsors, men and women alike, that 

are on this bill, because it isn’t just a women’s issue. The hearing 

is critical because it is too easy to dismiss violence against women 

as a product of cultural differences or as a byproduct of war, or as 

a women’s issue. The reality is that violence against women is a 

humanitarian tragedy, a vicious crime, a global health catastrophe, 

a social and economic impediment, and a threat to national security. The numbers speak for themselves. One in three women 

worldwide is beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused over the 

course of her lifetime. 

But the stories of individuals are even more powerful. We could 

talk about Barbara from Mexico, who was a volunteer working with 

street children when she was detained without charge and reportedly physically and sexually abused by Mexican police. Or 

Claudina from Guatemala, a 19-year-old student studying to become a lawyer, whose murder, despite evidence of rape, was not investigated. 

You don’t have to look far to find cases of violence against 

women. FBI statistics show there were 89,000 cases of reported 

rape here in the United States last year. However, women in conflict zones face a particularly desperate situation. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the systematic use of rape as a low-tech, 

2

low-cost weapon of war has become a defining characteristic of the 

longstanding conflict in the East. Hundreds of thousands of women 

have been raped. Rape is used to destroy communities and to instill 

a sense of despair within a population. 

One woman, Luma Furaha, told about being gang-raped by over 

50 armed men. After nine surgeries, she has still not physically recovered. 

Another, 50-year-old Zamuda, describes her rape by saying, 

‘‘They wanted to destroy me, destroy my body, and kill my spirit.’’

It is very hard to talk about these stories, but it is really necessary to do so. It is not just the DRC, the Congo, it is also Sudan 

and Chad, where thousands of the women who have fled the conflict in Darfur have continued to face sexual violence as refugees. 

And Eastern Europe, where trafficking of women remains prevalent. And in homes throughout the world, where women are beaten 

by members of their own families. 

Studies show that sexual violence and the attached social stigma 

hinder the ability of women to fully participate in and contribute 

to their societies. Survivors of violence are less likely to hold jobs 

and more likely to live in poverty than other women. 

One study conducted in Nicaragua and cited by the World Health 

Organization found that women who had been abused earn an average of 46 percent less than those who had not, even when controlling for other wage-affecting factors. 

Women often must overcome devastating health consequences as 

a result of sexual violence. Women and girls who survive sexual violence face an increased risk of poor reproductive health, including 

complications during pregnancy and birth, and they are at risk of 

contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. 

Studies have also linked abuse and rape to higher rates of serious psychological problems, including drug and alcohol abuse, nervous system disorders, and posttraumatic stress syndrome. U.N. statistics indicate that rape survivors are nine times more likely to attempt suicide than individuals who have not experienced sexual violence. 

Mr. Chairman, U.S. leadership on this issue is critical, as you 

know. I commend the Obama administration, the leadership of Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Verveer for clearly stating that 

fighting international violence against women will be a priority. 

Still, we need to do more. And I am so proud to work with you, 

Mr. Chairman, on the International Violence Against Women Act 

(IVAWA), which will soon be reintroduced. This unprecedented legislation firmly establishes the prevention of violence against 

women as a foreign policy priority. And it requires the integration 

of this goal into every aspect of our diplomatic and developmental 

policy. IVAWA authorizes a multi-year comprehensive strategy to 

prevent and respond to violence against women in a select number 

of targeted countries. The funding will cover a full spectrum of programs, including judicial reforms, health care, education, economic 

empowerment, and changing social norms. It includes tools to ensure accountability and oversight to determine the effectiveness of 

U.S. efforts. 

In addition, IVAWA recognizes the particular dangers faced by 

women in conflict and post-conflict situations and authorizes trainVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:43 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\IOHRO\102109\52986 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ing for military and police forces operating in these dangerous 

zones to effectively address violence against women and girls. 

Mr. Chairman, violence against women affects us all. As co-chair 

of the Women’s Caucus, I feel strongly that we must do more to 

help the women throughout the world whose lives have been forever altered by violence, and the families, communities, countries, 

and even entire regions of the world that will never be stable, open, 

and prosperous as long as violence against women is perpetuated. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Schakowsky follows:]


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Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, thank you, Congresswoman. And thank you 

sincerely for your terrific leadership on this issue. You have been 

involved in this issue during the course of your public career. So 

thank you. 

And I will make a statement at this point in time, and then I 

will ask my colleague and friend, the ranking member, Mr. Rohrabacher from California, to make his opening statement. And then 

we will go directly to the Ambassador. 

Violence against women should concern all of us, for no other 

reason than it is unjust, it is uncivilized, and it is immoral. The 

reality that domestic violence is perpetrated almost exclusively by 

men against women, as the Congresswoman so rightly alluded to, 

does not make it a women’s issue. It is a male problem. It is important to understand as well that if violence against women is acceptable, then violence, wherever and to whomever it is directed 

against, is acceptable. 

I saw this firsthand, because before coming to Congress, I was 

the elected district attorney in the metropolitan area of Boston. 

And I had the statutory responsibility for investigating crimes committed within the maximum security prisons in Massachusetts. 

And I became very familiar with the social history of inmates incarcerated in those facilities. Invariably, the men there who had 

committed acts of violence were the legacy of violent families, 

where violence was accepted and violence was the norm. It is my 

own opinion that when violence against women is implicitly sanctioned and not punished, violent behavior in general is encouraged, 

whether the victim is an individual, a community, or even a nation. 

It was Secretary Clinton—and I want to acknowledge her leadership on this issue as well, she has really provided us with the kind 

of leadership that we can all be proud of—but it was Secretary 

Clinton who stated, and I am quoting here, that acts of violence 

against women don’t ‘‘just harm a single individual or a single family or village or group; they shred the fabric that weaves us together as human beings. It endangers families and communities, 

erodes social and political stability, and undermines economic 

progress.’’ I completely concur. 

Tragically, examples of extreme violence against women abound. 

Rape is now routinely utilized as a tactic of war. Brutal violence 

is also rampant in countries that don’t face armed conflicts, whether in the home, or at the workplace, or openly, as we have observed, on the streets. 

In Guinea, the New York Times referred to women as ‘‘prey.’’ Reports show that armed soldiers beat, raped and killed women in 

broad daylight. 

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the violence is so profound 

that Major General Patrick Cammaert, former U.N. peacekeeping 

operations commander, opined that it is more dangerous to be a 

woman there than a soldier. 

The United Nations Development Fund for Women estimates 

that nearly 1 billion women globally will be beaten, raped, mutilated, or otherwise abused during their lifetime. Disturbingly, nearly 50 percent of all sexual assaults worldwide are committed 

against girls under 15 years, most often at the hand of family 

members. That is 1 billion with a B. The international community 

8

and the United States must take a stand to protect the women 

around the world. We must act not only because it is the right 

thing to do, but because our own security, American security is implicated. 

Keep in mind that a statement by the Joint Chiefs of Staff emphasizes that one of the most effective forces in defeating extremism is female education. Women hold the key for our progress 

and development around the world. Women hold the key for our 

very own security. And as the Congresswoman indicated, the issue 

knows no boundaries. It is not an issue of the developing versus 

the developed world. It is not a question of imposing one culture 

over another, because every person deserves to live a life free of violence. And I have no doubt that this issue can be addressed successfully. And in time we will see—and it will take time—dramatic 

and even unexpected results. 

As I mentioned earlier, I served as the district attorney for over 

20 years. And in 1978, we created the first domestic violence unit 

in the Nation. That program, I am proud to say, has been replicated all over the country and even internationally. The results 

were truly remarkable. Domestic violence homicides averaged 

somewhere between seven and eight annually every year in my district. Some female died because of abuse and violence directed 

against her. After the program was implemented, not a single domestic violence homicide occurred in my district for more than a 

decade. So we can do it. 

On a larger scale, USA Today indicated that the rate of reported 

rapes in the United States has hit a 20-year low. And violent crime 

in general is decreasing. I believe that this is partially due to the 

more aggressive response we as a Nation, as a society, have taken 

toward violence against women. And like I said, I am confident 

that we can achieve remarkable results internationally if people of 

good will and political leaders everywhere make this a priority. I 

believe we have an unparalleled opportunity at this moment in 

time. 

The U.N. recently adopted resolutions 1888 and 1889 condemning continued sexual violence against women in conflict and 

post-conflict situations, in addition to combining its four agencies 

pertaining to women into one comprehensive agency. 

Domestically, President Obama created the White House Council 

on Women and Girls. He appointed a senior adviser on violence 

against women, and created the position of ambassador-at-large for 

global women’s issues. By doing so, the administration put women’s 

rights at the forefront of its domestic and foreign policy, where they 

should be. 

Now it is time for Congress to act. That is why in the coming 

weeks I plan to introduce, with my colleagues, the International Violence Against Women Act. This legislation would systematically 

integrate and coordinate efforts to end violence against women in 

our foreign policy, promote women’s human rights and opportunities worldwide, support and build the capacity of local NGOs working to end the violence, and finally, enhance training in humanitarian relief in crisis settings. This legislation, as I suggested, is 

the right thing to do, it is the moral thing to do, and it is the smart 

thing to do. 

9

And this past September, on September 29th, 2009, we marked 

the 15th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act. I have 

this memory of testifying on several occasions before our now-Vice 

President Joe Biden, who really led that particular effort. And 

there is no reason, there is no reason why we should not be commemorating the first anniversary of the International Violence 

Against Women Act next year. 

With that, let me turn to my friend and colleague from California, the ranking member of this committee, Congressman Dana 

Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I 

appreciate you focusing the attention of this committee on this very 

significant issue. It is a significant issue because it deals with a 

fundamental issue that we need to confront that has been ignored 

for far too long with our relations of many countries around the 

world. 

I am someone who prides himself on being an advocate of human 

rights. And today we had a great discussion on human rights in 

Burma. But it should escape no one’s attention that almost all of 

the regimes that deny fundamental rights of all of their people are 

also those regimes that are most egregious violators of the rights 

of women. 

We just looked at Burma today. And the fact is in Burma the 

horrendous crimes that are being perpetrated as part of an overall 

strategy by the government of repression is just unbelievable. And 

we need to confront it and confront it publicly and aggressively. It 

shouldn’t be an issue. That is just one of the side issues that we 

are just talking about with governments like this. We need to confront those governments in the world. And we have in the past not 

been confronting them because we have believed that, well, this is 

part of their Islamic faith, that women have to be relegated to a 

certain status, and their rights as compared to men’s rights are different in those societies. 

I happen to believe that rights are given to all people by God. 

All people. And the fact is that there are no rights that are good 

rights over here and not rights over here because of some societal 

trends or some history of their traditions. No. If we believe that 

people have human rights, the rights of women to have equal treatment and to be free from violent attack, just like men in their society, that should be right on the top of our agenda when we discuss 

human rights and other issues with these countries. 

And I happen to believe that we should not be treating countries 

that have very poor human rights records in the same way, with 

the same respect that we treat countries with more democratic and 

more, I would say, respectful of the human rights of their population. 

So today I would hope that we address at least the issue of Islam 

and what we should do about women’s rights in Islamic countries. 

Just because a country is producing oil doesn’t mean we should ignore the type of oppression that goes on with half of their population. 

I am a father of three children. My wife and I were blessed with 

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body in this room, I want you to know. But let me just note—I 

have one boy and two girls—I am totally committed to my girls 

having the same rights and the same opportunities and the same 

freedom that my boy has. And that is the kind of world we want 

to work at, and we want all the little girls of the world to know 

that, and not grow up with a predetermined positioning that they 

have put on them by ‘‘tradition,’’ or by their own governments. 

And especially when we talk about the violence on women, 

women who are arrested in various countries throughout the world, 

so many of them face rape while they are in prison. This is another 

intolerable situation that we have not come to full grips with that 

we need to. If we believe in human rights, we need to put the condition and the treatment of women in prisons and elsewhere in 

these societies high on our list of negotiating points. And again, we 

haven’t done that. 

So I am very grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, that this is the type 

of dialogue that will, we hope, create the momentum so that that 

type of issue is put on the top of the list and not the bottom of the 

list when talking with these less-than-free countries. 

So with that said, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am 

looking forward to the testimony today, getting some of the details, 

but also finding perhaps some of the opportunities we have as 

Americans to prove to the whole world, not just half the world that 

happens to be male, but the whole world that we do believe in liberty and justice for all. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Dana. 

And now we will proceed, I am going to welcome the Ambassador 

to the witness table. 

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Chairman, could I have a short opening statement? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I spoke to the ranking member, and there are 

some time constraints. But we will go back to the customary no 

rules once we have had a chance to hear from our witnesses. 

I am especially pleased to welcome Ambassador Verveer, who is 

the first ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, which I am 

sure is reflective of all of the work I know that she has done on 

these issues during the course of her life, during the course of her 

public service. She works to coordinate foreign policy issues and activities relating to the political, economic, and social advancement 

of women around the world. Welcome, Ambassador, and please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MELANNE VERVEER, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE, OFFICE OF GLOBAL WOMEN’S ISSUES, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador VERVEER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the 

members of the committee, for bringing us together to continue to 

address one of the most serious global challenges of our time: Violence against women and girls. And I also want to thank Congresswoman Schakowsky, who has been a leader on these issues for a 

very long time. 

The time to take concerted action to end international violence 

against women is now. Today we have a far greater understanding 

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tensify our efforts against this worldwide scourge, and of the consequences if we fail to seize this opportunity. We need to chart a 

new era of international cooperation on this global pandemic, to 

create partnerships among governments, multilateral institutions, 

the private sector, civil society, and individuals. 

And I want to applaud Nicole Kidman for bringing her considerable celebrity, generosity, and commitment to working on behalf of 

UNIFEM, which has been such a strong leader on these issues for 

a long time. 

Violence against women cannot be relegated, as you said, Mr. 

Chairman, to the margins of foreign policy. It cannot be treated 

solely as a women’s issue, as something that can be dealt with 

later after we take care of the more pressing issues of our time. Violence against women and girls is a humanitarian issue, it is a development issue, it is a national security issue. 

As Secretary Clinton has observed, there cannot be vibrant civil 

societies if half the population is left behind. Where violence and 

the threat of violence prevents women from participating fully, 

freely, and equally in their societies, in those places good governance, the rule of law, and economic prosperity cannot fully take 

root. 

Around the world the places that are the most dangerous for 

women also pose the greatest threats to international peace and security. The correlation is clear: Where women are oppressed, governance is weak, and extremism is more likely to take hold. 

The current scale, savagery, and extent of violence against 

women and girls are enormous. It affects girls and women at every 

point of their lives, from sex-selective abortion, which has culled as 

many as 100 million girls, to withholding adequate nutrition, to 

FGM, to child marriage, to rape as a weapon of war, to human trafficking, to so-called honor killings, to dowry-related murders, and 

so much more. 

Rape is fueling HIV/AIDS infection among adolescent girls, 

which continues to climb at a rate that should concern us all. And 

life everywhere is touched by violence. It occurs in homes, at 

schools, in the workplace, and all across society. This violence cannot be explained, as you said, Mr. Rohrabacher, as cultural or as 

a private matter. It is criminal. And it is every Nation’s problem, 

and it is the cause of mass destruction around the globe. And we 

need a response that is commensurate with the seriousness of the 

crime. 

Now, the statistics that tell the extent of this humanitarian tragedy are well known. But behind those numbing quantitative data 

are qualitative data, the stories of actual people. We are telling 

their stories here in the hopes of keeping alive around the world 

a simmering sense of collective outrage that can and must spark 

into global action so that other women will be able to lead different 

kinds of life stories with happier endings. 

Mr. Chairman, you have entitled this hearing, ‘‘Stories and Solutions.’’ Stories of real lives should move us to action. And real solutions, ways of successfully combating this violence, should be lessons that we take to scale, lessons without borders. 

Addressing violence against women and girls means ending stories like Waris Dirie’s, one of 2 or 3 million girls and women each 

12

year who are subject to FGM. She underwent the procedure in Somalia when she was five. She survived. But two of her sisters and 

a cousin died. Tostan, an NGO in Africa, has worked effectively to 

reduce the practice of female genital cutting, which is deeply ingrained in many societies. And there both men and women at the 

village level work together to become aware of the harmful effects 

and then take action to end it and ensure the health and well-being 

of the girls in their villages. 

It also means not having any stories like Shamsia Husseini. 

Parts of her face were eaten away by acid last year after a man, 

a stranger, decided that attacking her might prevent her from 

going to school in Afghanistan and getting an education. It didn’t. 

She stayed in school despite the fact that her scars interfere with 

her eyesight. She is one of 2.6 million girls in Afghanistan in 

school, a vast improvement from 2001, when the Taliban prohibited 

any education for girls. But girls are still just one-third of the number of boys in school. Whether the numbers of girls continue to 

grow will say much about Afghanistan’s future. 

Confronting violence means being able to rewrite stories such as 

that of a young Yemeni girl, Najoud. She is a vivacious child with 

a big smile whom I got to know. She was married at the age of 

eight to a man considerably older. She walked out of her house 

after 2 months of rapes and beatings and found her way to a courthouse, intending on getting a divorce. She was lucky to find a caring female lawyer who took her case, as well as that of other girls 

whose fathers had married them off, sometimes just to be free of 

the burden of caring for a daughter. Yemen has, subsequent to her 

case, been debating whether or not to raise the age of consent for 

marriage. 

Girls there still marry at a very young age. For these girls, not 

just from Yemen but from South Asia, from Africa, from elsewhere, 

their childhoods are effectively curtailed, their education is terminated, their emotional and social development interrupted. Maternal mortality is high for girls who have babies, and they face the 

highest risk for fistula and chronic physical disability. With interventions, however, solutions to provide incentives to parents to 

keep their daughters in school, ending school fees, or providing 

families with commodities like a bag of flour, a can of oil, or other 

necessary staples, or feeding children in school, other girls like 

Najoud will be spared potentially the horrors of child marriage. 

And the stories of violence against women include those of an estimated 5,000 who are killed each year to cleanse the family’s socalled honor of the shame of the victim’s or other people’s alleged 

indiscretions. Mukhtar Mai from Pakistan was one woman such 

targeted, gang-raped on the orders of a local village council, because her brother allegedly held hands with a girl from a nearby 

village. It was expected that she would commit suicide because the 

attack on her had dishonored her family. She didn’t. And this illiterate young woman mustered the courage to take her case to court. 

She won a modest settlement, which was used to build two schools, 

one for boys and one for girls. She enrolled herself in the school for 

girls. And when asked why she did this with her small settlement, 

she said, ‘‘Nothing will ever change in my village until we have 

education here.’’

13

Women and children are also at risk in zones of conflict, when 

legal and social norms fall away and armies and militias act without fear of accountability or judicial penalty. In August I traveled 

with Secretary Clinton to Goma. At the Heal Africa Hospital we 

met a woman who told us she was 8 months pregnant when she 

was attacked. She was at home when a group of men broke in. 

They took her husband and two of their children in the front yard 

and shot them, before returning into the house to shoot the other 

two children. And then they beat and gang-raped her and left her 

for dead. Her story, unfortunately, is far too common. 

And in the DRC’s eastern provinces, 1,100 rapes are reported 

each month. Rape is used in armed conflict as a deliberate strategy 

to subdue and destroy communities. 

Secretary Clinton took this issue to the U.N. Security Council, 

and 2 weeks ago spoke on behalf of a U.S.-sponsored resolution focused on protecting women against sexual violence in armed conflict. That counsel was unanimously adopted. Now we need to work 

to ensure that we see results. 

The stories I have outlined represent a humanitarian tragedy 

and more, a tragedy for all of our efforts to build a better world. 

These abuses not only destroy the lives of individual girls and 

women, families and communities, but they rob the world of the 

talent it urgently needs. 

There is a powerful connection between violence against women 

and the unending cycle of women in poverty. Women who are 

abused or who fear violence are unable to realize their full potential and contribute to their country’s development. There are enormous economic costs that come with violence against women. Ending violence against women and girls is a prerequisite for their social, economic, and political participation and progress. 

There is a common thread among these stories. Each of them is 

fundamentally a manifestation of the low status of women and girls 

around the world. Ending the violence requires elevating their status and freeing their potential to become agents of change for good 

in their communities. 

We need a greater response to this global pandemic. In my written testimony, I have submitted numbers of ways that we are trying to address this challenge and how much more there is we can 

all do. Women are critical to progress and prosperity. And when 

they are marginalized and mistreated, humanity cannot progress. 

When they are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations. 

It is time that violence against women and girls became a concern of all of us. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Verveer follows:]

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you so much, Ambassador. And I have 

read your testimony and that of the other witnesses. And I would 

commend to all of my colleagues to read it. It is poignant, and it 

in some cases is heartbreaking in terms of the violence against 

women. 

I am going to waive my opportunity to question. I will go to the 

vice chair of this committee first, and then I will go to Mr. Rohrabacher, and we will alternate. 

Mr. Carnahan. And I would request my colleagues, because we 

are trying to get that third panel here in a timely way, I know 

there are some time constraints, if you could be succinct. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. As always, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Ambassador. It is great to have you here, to have you speaking out on 

these issues. 

I apologize for running late, so I didn’t get to hear it all. But I 

wanted to start with a few questions, in particular with regard to 

what actions the U.N. has taken to combat violence against 

women. In fact, how effective have the U.N. Security Council resolutions been in combating violence against women? And what steps 

have other member states, including the U.S., taken to implement 

those resolutions? And I guess, finally, what are the best efforts 

that we could take to supplement those actions through the administration and through Congress? 

Ambassador VERVEER. Thank you, Congressman Carnahan. In 

areas of peace and security, as you know, Resolution 1325 was 

adopted almost 10 years ago now. In fact, the observance will come 

before us next year. And it basically said that in matters of peace 

negotiations, reconstruction of societies, the kinds of discussions 

that get made about where one goes during conflict in terms of 

ending that conflict, that women need to be part of the solution. 

And I regret to say that so far the record is not a very positive one, 

and that we have got a great deal of work ahead of us if the observance next year will be worth celebrating. So we all need to do a 

lot better to push women’s participation. Because where it has occurred in post-conflict societies, from Northern Ireland to Rwanda, 

et cetera, it has made an enormous difference for the peace holding 

and for the future security of all involved. 

In the same ways, Security Council Resolution 1820 that the 

U.S. promoted last year, that was adopted, addressed issues of sexual violence as connected to serious matters of international peace 

and security and needing to be dealt with appropriately. What the 

United States sponsored this year was an effort to strengthen that 

resolution to ensure that a special representative will be appointed 

by the Secretary General, and we need to ensure that that happens 

quickly and that happens with somebody who is tremendously 

equipped to take on the job to be the Secretary General’s responsibility on these issues of sexual violence against women, as well as 

to make available a pool of experts who can go into countries before 

the worst happens and ensure that they begin to take steps on 

matters of impunity and other serious issues concerning the rule 

of law that result in these kinds of terrible calamities. 

In terms of other ways in which the United Nations has been active, as the chairman pointed out, there is an effort now to create 

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a stronger entity to deal with these kinds of issues and other matters related to women. 

But UNIFEM, for example, has done tremendous work in its everyday work, but also with the trust fund that has been set up to 

which the United States has contributed. That has made such a 

difference on these issues. But clearly, the record is not one that 

any of us can take a great deal of pride in. There is a tremendous 

problem all over the world, and we need a much more serious, constructive, prioritized, strategic way to go at these issues, to engage 

them, to provide resources so that we can collectively do a better 

job. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And just, I guess, one other quick one to wrap 

up is: With regard to having a central office at the State Department to focus on these issues, can you just give me a short answer 

of how effective that has been in terms of coordinating these efforts? 

Ambassador VERVEER. Well, in a very short time already, Congressman, we have been able to do what the President and the Secretary have asked; that is, to integrate these issues into the overall 

work of the Department. And that means on issues ranging from 

Afghanistan to Iraq to what we are discussing today, we have been 

very much engaged in a significant way, and are continuing to find 

better ways that we can ensure the kind of outcomes I am sure all 

of you would like to see. 

Beyond that, the major initiatives of the administration that the 

Congress has been supportive of, like food security, climate change, 

the global health piece, all of them have a very serious lens applied 

to them on these issues with respect to women. So that the hopes 

are that we will get better outcomes because we are looking at 

them in a way where we can ensure that men and women are appropriately participating in ways that will help us achieve the kind 

of goals we want to see. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Ambassador. Mr. Rohrabacher? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I will be very quick. I think that what we see 

in the Congress so often is just hyperbole and people talking. They 

come in here and they are very concerned about an issue that is 

very significant, and everybody is trying to prove how sincere we 

are, and we are going to beef up the language on this and that resolution and all that. I don’t think, although I do believe consciousness-raising is important, and that is an important thing, I think 

that at some point we have got to have accountability factors put 

into policy that will make our moral pronouncements real. And I 

was wondering if we have any of those in place at this time. 

For example, do we permit Millennium account money or other 

assistance money to go to countries that have a standard of violation of women’s rights that is unacceptable? 

Ambassador VERVEER. Well, I don’t think we have that as such, 

Congressman, but as you know, for example, the Trafficking Report 

rates countries on the basis of their providing appropriate actions 

with respect to that tremendously difficult challenge. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What penalties do they pay if they get bad 

ratings? 

Ambassador VERVEER. Well, there are penalties that are in 

there. I am not familiar with what has happened specifically on 

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them. But you make a good point. These issues have been raised 

in bilateral discussions. They are not off the table. You are right, 

rhetoric alone is not enough. And we have to do all that we can 

to move things forward. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I will tell you something. As I say, human 

rights is an important part of my agenda. But when you sit down 

over the years, all these people who claim to believe in human 

rights but they don’t want to have any penalty for China to pay, 

even though it is the world’s worst human rights abuser on a scale 

because of its bigness and also the nature of its regime, but there 

is never a penalty to pay. And when you sit down with a gangster, 

a thug who is abusing his people, when you bring up an issue, 

whether it is women’s rights or other human rights issues and you 

just bring it up and then you walk away and there is nothing, no 

penalty to pay for it if he hasn’t listened, you might as well not 

have brought it up, because what you have given him is a bad lesson. You have given him a lesson that what we are doing is just 

verbalizing things, and that is all that counts, is that we are able 

to verbalize something, not that we are really looking for any results because we haven’t made any demand on you. 

Do you have a list of demands? Maybe we can ask that. 

Ambassador VERVEER. You know, Congressman, I don’t mean to 

sort of take a pass on this, but I have been there in a very short 

time. But I can tell you in the time, in the last few months, I think 

we have brought a great deal to bear on the situation in DRC. 

Now, that is a terrible conflict that has been going on for a long 

time. But we have tried to bring an array of responses, including—

I was with the Secretary when she raised these issues with President Kabila and other members of the government there, and has 

been consistently since working to try to bring about change on 

several levels. These things did not happen overnight, and we have 

to do all that we can with the arsenal of tools we have. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It didn’t happen overnight, but I have been 

hearing hyperbole here for 20 years. And let me just note, unless 

people have penalties, all of the good verbs and verbiage, that 

doesn’t mean anything to these people. And we have a President 

who goes over and apologizes to Iran that we helped—that we unjustly interfered with their country so many years ago, and didn’t 

bother to bring up the murder of their own activists, and especially 

the rape of women in Iranian jails. Didn’t happen to bring that up. 

No, we were too busy apologizing. 

Now, I will tell you, I think this is an important issue, and I 

think a lot of things about human rights are important. And if you 

want us to be taking things seriously, let’s make demands on people who are violating women’s rights and say, I am sorry, any 

country that doesn’t meet a certain rating that you have now been 

determined that you violate women’s rights and other human 

rights to this point, you are no longer eligible for this, this, and 

this. 

And you know, maybe our Export-Import Bank doesn’t want to 

do that because they like to loan money to dictatorships, because 

then they can have their country, you know, paying off these loans 

for the rest of their lives, or the interest on these loans. 

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So I would suggest that maybe as you go forward on your job 

that you come back to us with some specific suggestions of what 

we can do that will penalize people so they will know that our 

words mean something, rather than just expressions of some good 

feeling. So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Are there any other questions for the Ambassador? Congresswoman DeLauro. 

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I particularly want to say thank you to you for allowing me to be able 

to participate on this committee hearing, because I am not a member of the subcommittee, but have done some work in the area. And 

I want to thank—I wasn’t here for our colleague, Jan Schakowsky, 

but thank her and the Ambassador, and Mallika Dutt, Representative Smith, Nicole Kidman, all of you are working to raise the profile on this issue, and what it is we can do to address it. 

Let me just say one or two things. I love the notion that we 

ought to come back now and deal with penalties. My question is 

where were we in Srebrenica? Where were we years ago when 

some of these things were there? And you know, our voice has to 

be constant, our voice has to be consistent. It doesn’t make a difference where we are and who is in charge and so forth. It has to 

be a consistent voice. 

I applaud the work that you and the Secretary are doing with 

regard to the issue of violence against women and, in fact, how it 

impinges on national security in so many ways, and that we have 

to address it. 

I wanted to talk to you about the issue of—my view is poverty 

contributes to gender-based violence, and gender-based violence 

contributes to poverty. It keeps women from getting an education, 

women from earning an income. And I think the facts—and you 

would be a good person to talk to us about this—women who have 

economic opportunities experience less violence and have more options in the face of that violence. Research shows that when women 

get more resources they put their money into making sure their 

children have better nutrition, education, health care, strengthening families and communities over time. And the data is there. 

So, in that context, what I am trying to get at, and you can deal 

with the issues of penalties, that is fine. But what I want to know 

is what is it that we can do as the United States Congress, in this 

instance the House of Representatives, in terms of what are the 

good economic opportunities, how do they translate into benefits to 

women internationally and the issue of violence? What are the innovative programs that we can engage in and that we can initiate 

that would have some impact internationally for women? 

We can’t take on the whole ball of wax. We are not going to solve 

it all at once. But discretely, what are the issues or the efforts that 

we can make, pass legislation, provide resources for, to address the 

issue and not to pontificate, not to lay blame, but take it on; and 

if we believe we have a moral responsibility to do something about 

what is happening to women overseas? 

Ambassador VERVEER. Thank you, Congresswoman. And this fits 

very much with the theme of today’s hearing, which is stories and 

solutions. And there is a very close relationship between poverty, 

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lack of opportunity, desperation, the low status of women, and the 

need to rectify that. 

And you know, when you look at violence against women, it is 

not that there is one magic program that makes all the difference, 

but it is critical that education and economic viability are absolutely important tools to address this problem beyond the array of 

other protections that are required and rule of law programs to ensure that the perpetrators are prosecuted. 

But in terms of economic development, we know what works. We 

have seen how small amounts of credit, microcredit, what it has 

done all around the world to change the lives of women and enable 

them to contribute to their families. We need to grow those microbusinesses to small- and medium-sized businesses and provide the 

kinds of incentives to get to the next place. And among the best 

things we can do is ensure that women’s capacity, training and 

other capacity-building opportunities are there so that they can 

move to that place and be competent at it. 

And one of the tremendous changes I think that has been occurring, and we have alluded to, is the need to come together in a 

more collaborative way, with the business community as a partner. 

You know, I don’t think we would have a violence against women 

law in this country potentially yet if many Members hadn’t been 

persuaded that there is a connection between violence and the diminution of our own economic productivity. We pay a price in terms 

of economic productivity. 

Well, it works the other way too. Where there is this contribution 

to the economic life, women are less put in situations where they 

are abused. So we need to do more in terms for the prevention. 

We usually talk about prevention in terms of raising awareness. 

Well, a lot of prevention is investing in creating economic opportunity here and overseas, obviously. But microcredit, capacity 

building, training for management and business, a lot of the kinds 

of programs that we are doing now in Afghanistan with respect to 

agriculture and animal husbandry, very small artisan kinds of 

projects, sustainable work, the kind of programs we are doing even 

in DRC to heal women to come back and provide for themselves 

economically. These do make a difference. Thank you for that. 

Ms. DELAURO. If it would be helpful, it would be helpful to me, 

I suspect it would be helpful to the committee members, if we could 

work with you on the specifics of what those programs are. What 

in fact could be the increase in resources? Sometimes with these 

programs, you know, we are not talking about billions, you know, 

as we do with some programs here, but how you can truly make 

a difference, I think, with health issues, with the issues of fistula 

for women and how we can help deal with that problem. 

You know, it is interesting to note in our own country in terms 

of health insurance, you know oftentimes violence against women 

can be considered a preexisting condition. So we have to think 

about what we are doing here as well. But it would be enormously 

helpful to get that kind of a blueprint, if you will, so that we can 

start to move forward on these issues. 

Ambassador VERVEER. And we are also looking in a more concerted way at the array of programs that we do support to create 

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systems of metrics and measure outcomes so that we can actually 

show you the kind of benefit correlations that exist. 

Ms. DELAURO. I think it is interesting to note that women are 

the world’s farmers. You talked about agriculture. Most of the 

farmers in the world are women. And what we might be able to 

do—and I chair the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, 

which is why this is of interest to me—what we can do in order 

to assist with the productivity of the land. 

Ambassador VERVEER. Right. 

Ms. DELAURO. We have spent a lot of time on emergency funding, which we need to do on many occasions. But it is about productivity and land and agriculture so that they can become self-sustaining. I appreciate your work, but I need your help. 

Ambassador VERVEER. That is really significant, because food security is a very big initiative that the Congress is involved in, administration is involved in. And the great majority of smallholder 

farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, are women. If we don’t have 

programs that respond to them where they are in terms of moving 

this out, whether it is training or credit or land reform, which is 

so critically important, we aren’t going to have the kind of agriculture productivity that could result. So you are exactly right, 

these are all in our interest. 

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think we have a final question from the gentleman from California, Mr. Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador, child marriage, honor killings, human trafficking, 

denial of education, far too prevalent in many corners of the globe. 

And my chief of staff has traveled and worked with these victims 

of human trafficking. The stories that she has told, returning from 

countries like Cambodia and India, are really horrific. Girls as 

young as three or four sold into prostitution because they have no 

value to their parents. 

And one of the questions I was just going to ask you, the question refers to a Tier 3 country, which is Burma, one of the worst 

offenders in this regard. I know that the administration is going to 

have high-level negotiations with the Burmese officials. 

Have you requested that this be at the top of the list in terms 

of the discussion points, ending this type of abuse that is going on 

in Burma today? 

Ambassador VERVEER. Congressman, it is a very serious issue, 

and the engagement that has been discussed is predicated first and 

foremost on issues with respect to the opposition and human 

rights. So these issues are very much on the table. 

And it is not just trafficking. And it is terrible, and I have been 

to the border, I know what happens in that part of the world. But 

it also has to do with the rapes that are occurring and the kind 

of human rights record that has been well documented. 

Mr. ROYCE. Yes, systemic rapes in Burma. Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Congressman. And thank you, Ambassador, for your testimony. And I am sure that we will be communicating and addressing the concerns that have been expressed 

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by members, including the gentlewoman and my friend from California, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

And now we will proceed with our third panel. As our witnesses 

come to the table, let me provide the introductions. This panel is 

comprised of three unique voices on violence against women. 

Testifying first will be Linda Smith. Congresswoman Smith was 

elected in 1994 to represent Washington’s Third Congressional District. While still in Congress, she founded Shared Hope International, which builds partnerships with local groups to provide 

homes and shelters where women and children of abuse can seek 

refuge. She has also founded the War against Trafficking Alliance, 

and has been a passionate advocate for women affected by trafficking and abuse, both domestically and abroad. Linda, it is good 

to have you back. We are proud of the work that you have done. 

And keep it up. 

Next we will be joined by Mallika Dutt, the founder and executive director of Breakthrough. Breakthrough is an international 

human rights organization that uses the power of popular culture, 

media, and community education to transform public opinion and 

attitudes. Breakthrough addresses critical global issues, specifically 

those dealing with the plight of women. Thank you for joining us 

here today. 

Finally, I am happy to introduce Nicole Kidman. In addition to 

being an Academy Award-winning actress, since January 2006 she 

has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women. As UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador, 

she has worked to raise awareness on the infringement of women’s 

human rights around the world, with a particular focus on addressing the issue of violence against women. Welcome. 

Ms. KIDMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I guess I am supposed to add, or I should note that in 2009, the United States Government contributed $4.5 

million to UNIFEM’s core budget to empower women and strengthen women’s human rights, approximately 2 million for specific 

projects, and 21⁄2 million to the UNIFEM-managed U.N. trust fund 

to end violence against women. Ms. Kidman, thank you also for 

your service. And we are interested to hear from all of you. 

Let us proceed with Congresswoman Linda Smith. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LINDA SMITH, PRESIDENT 

AND FOUNDER, SHARED HOPE INTERNATIONAL (FORMER 

MEMBER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES) 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Delahunt. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Linda, you forgot, you got to hit; when you are 

on that side of the table, you have got to hit that button. 

Ms. SMITH. There we go. It has been 11 years. There we go. 

Chairman Delahunt, Ranking Member Rohrabacher and distinguished members, it is an honor today to testify with such a distinguished group of presenters both before and on this panel. First I 

would like to say I will summarize my comments, but I would like 

to request that my full written testimony be submitted for the 

record, and that the research documents DEMAND and the National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking that are the foundation for my testimony be submitted for the Congressional Record. 

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Without objection. 

Ms. SMITH. For nearly 11 years now, Shared Hope has been committed to building communities around the world that restore and 

empower women and children in crisis. We have particularly focused on trafficked women, but the line blurs in any kind of sexual 

violence. We do this through Villages of Hope, and we founded 

them around the globe. We don’t put flags on them because bad 

guys like to pick up the product again. 

Commercial sex is extremely violent. In all the countries that we 

work in and we researched, commercial sex is violent. A large portion of our budget at Shared Hope International is for the restoration, healing and treatment of diseases created and caused by commercial sex. 

We found common forces throughout the world destroying the 

lives of girls like Renu. Renu is from Nepal. Renu spent 4 years 

in sexual slavery. When she was 14, she was told by her brother 

that she could go on a little trip with him to the village. He 

drugged her, moved her 1,000 miles south to Mumbai, India, where 

he sold her to a brothel. Her story shows that even though the 

country of India has laws, reports, and commitment to fight trafficking, this girl for 4 years was sold every day to 20 and as many 

as 40 men, every day, every day. 

The laws did not hinder her sale for a reason: Because there is 

a local, active, culturally accepted sex market. This culture toward 

men buying sex has created a market that puts Indian and Nepalese girls in constant danger of kidnap, rape and the violence of 

commercial sex. And why? Because they are just providing a product to market. 

This painful story varies only slightly from the core elements of 

trafficking in other countries. And I have girls that I restore now 

as much as 11 years who are in college, having children, married, 

but it is very similar. And now over the last 4 years, rescuing and 

restoring in the United States children the same age as the middleschool age of my grandchildren has become a part of my life. 

Tonya’s story demonstrates this. Tonya was only 12 years old 

when, on the way to school—she is a gifted child—she walked for 

6 months, and the man approached her. Each day he approached 

her, he built a relationship. It was okay, he wasn’t a stranger, he 

was a nice man. Well, one day she got in the car, it was probably 

something like raining, and she didn’t appear again. 

Well, she really did appear, because we found her in the system. 

But let me tell you some of her comments in the interview that I 

did with her after her pimp was arrested, and you will want to 

know he is in jail for a long time. Let me share with you just a 

little bit of her interview: It didn’t take long before I experienced 

the real treatment, being beaten, stomped on, manipulated and 

sold all day every day. When I think about how it must have 

looked to people, a baby-looking girl like me with an older boyfriend, it makes me wonder why no one was ever there to stop it 

or even ask any questions at all. It is a very strange world when 

you are in it. It is a very strange world, she said. In a really 

screwed up way I had a family. Each time I was arrested and 

transferred from out of State back to Ohio, it was in handcuffs and 

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leg shackles, and I was surrounded by policemen that I felt were 

my enemies. 

I felt like I was hearing from Renu right here. 

Despite my age, I spent 8 months in prison when my pimp 

caught a Federal case. Yes, I am the one that went to prison, and 

I will say to you, yes, I am talking about America today. 

Well, the severity of trauma bonding keeps girls like Tonya 

bound in these situations worldwide, but cultural and official inability to see them as victims and the continuing use of terminology such as ‘‘child prostitutes’’ prevents entire cultures from perceiving the victimization and, as a result, fails to prioritize the pursuit of demand reduction as a solution to this particular form of violence against women. Demand for commercial sex with 

unempowered women and children is one of the greatest reasons 

that violence against women thrives in many cultures. 

Now, at the conclusion of the research, and we have researched 

now 4 years in the United States and around the world looking at 

markets, Shared Hope has accumulated information that strongly 

suggests a national crisis in the United States, a security crisis. 

Our youth, our middle-school kids, are at risk of extreme violence 

through prostitution. Astoundingly, the number of prostituted children in America is at least 100,000. Now, that is each year. The 

National Center for Missing and Exploited, who has written the 

foreword to a book I have written from the voices of these children, 

they say it is as high as 300,000. We can document that there is 

at least 100,000. The average age of these girls—the youngest that 

I have heard of is 11, many times they are 12—the average age is 

13. 

Sex trafficking is an international crime and an international 

form of violence against women, and America is a part of that 

international community. As a requirement of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, each year we do evaluate the other countries, 

and I commend Congress, any of you that worked to pass that bill. 

It passed right after I left. India’s evaluation in the TIP Report 

rates India lower for a couple of reasons, several reasons, but two 

are they don’t provide protection or justice to the domestic children 

trafficked within India, and they do not arrest the men that buy 

the children. They are a country on watch. Many of us think they 

should be a country that is a Tier 3 and stays there until they 

change. 

Well, with the knowledge of 100,000 or more American children 

prostituted in commercial sex in the United States, the men that 

arrest them are not brought to justice—there was not even a 

charge brought against one under the Federal act until February 

of this year, and with no penalty, in most cases, at all for the 

facilitators, we must ask how would the United States fare if other 

countries rated us on the trafficking of individuals in the United 

States. 

Now, as a woman, I am thankful I am in a country where I can 

sit here before a committee of men who are taking it easy—excuse 

me, taking it seriously, not taking it easy. That will be the quote. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I can assure you we are not taking it easy. 

Ms. SMITH. I know you are not. And I am proud of America. But 

when I got done with the research—first of all, I thought I am 

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going to retire totally; I am not going to just retire and then retire, 

I am going to retire. Because I saw the undercover footage and 

faces of little girls as young as my granddaughters—they are now 

13 and 14 years old, but they were a couple of years younger when 

I started this. But I couldn’t because there was another little girl. 

It was a police arrest case. We went into the arrests of the children 

in the United States who were traffic victims, and we started looking at their cases. When we started looking at them, some folks 

gave us some inside, some arrest records. And should we have 

them? I don’t know, but I got them. Adding that to the video of the 

undercover research we did, I decided I had to do something. 

This example is a 12-year-old, which I found so very common 

around the United States. The declaration of arrest brought in that 

the officer wrote said this: After watching the truck slow down and 

the female approach the truck, then later finding the truck on a 

side street with the female in the truck, through my training and 

experience, I know this is a common practice for prostitution-related crimes. We then approached the vehicle and came on a juvenile, date of birth—she is 12—and a male, date of birth—he is 48—

involved in a sex act. 

Due to the above circumstances, the stated agreement for $40 for 

a hand job, observation that he had $45 in U.S. currency hanging 

from his left front pocket, had lotion on both hands, she stated she 

was engaging in prostitution, she was placed under arrest for soliciting prostitution and was transported to jail. Probable cause—I 

will not say which jail it was—probable cause exists to hold said 

person pending plea and trial. 

The outcome of this arrest I had thought would be the 48-yearold man. Well, the little girl was handcuffed, she was put in the 

vehicle. The man was allowed to drive away. When I saw this, I 

thought, no way. So we went out to 11 more States, 11 more assignments under a Department of Justice grant, and we found the 

same in every city, every city, every environment in the United 

States. 

Well, we submitted next steps for each city, but the latest research that we just had delivered to your offices is the National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Linda, I am going to ask you to wrap it up. We 

are going to take a good look at that data. Those stories are very, 

very powerful and they really speak for themselves. 

Ms. SMITH. In conclusion, in conclusion, the devaluation of these 

children really makes it so America to stand, as we look at other 

nations, needs to look at ourselves. Yes, Renu is important in 

India, Tina is important in Fiji, but this little girl in this case is 

just as important. She is in jail again. They gave her back to her 

pimp by letting her out. She is, at 15, back in jail. The pimp is not 

in jail, and none of the 6,000 men a year that have bought her 

since have gone to jail. 

With that, I want to thank you for listening to this very tough 

issue and taking a really tough stand. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]

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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. And you give us a certain perspective 

when we talk about responsibility and accountability in introspectively examining ourselves. 

We will now proceed with Ms. Dutt. 

STATEMENT OF MS. MALLIKA DUTT, FOUNDER AND 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BREAKTHROUGH 

Ms. DUTT. Thank you, Chairman Delahunt, Congressman Rohrabacher, members of the committee, for giving me this opportunity 

to talk with you today about how we can all join hands in ending 

the pandemic of violence against women. I have been working on 

this issue for the past 25 years and have dealt with all of the forms 

that you have heard described today, whether it is female infanticide, domestic violence, dowry-related deaths, trafficking women; 

and for the last 10 years I have been running Breakthrough, which 

is, as Congressman Delahunt described, an international human 

rights organization that uses mass media prevention tools to really 

challenge violence against women. 

And I would like to share with you a story of a campaign that 

we have been undertaking in India for the last year. Bell Bajao, 

which means ‘‘Ring the Bell,’’ is a multimedia campaign that calls 

on men and boys to take a stand against domestic violence. It was 

launched last year with support from the UNIFEM-managed U.N. 

Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, and I commend the 

United States for their support of UNIFEM. And we entered into 

a pro bono partnership with an advertising agency called Ogilvy & 

Mather and the Ministry of Child and Women Development in 

India joined us as a dissemination partner. 

Since the campaign launched last fall, we reached more than 130 

million people in India alone through a combination of television, 

radio and print ads. And thousands of young men and women have 

joined community-based organizations around the country to take 

Bell Bajao into homes, communities, malls, workplaces, all kinds of 

spaces, with one simple message, that ending domestic violence is 

everyone’s responsibility. 

The stories that I want to share are a little bit different from the 

violations that you are hearing about. I want to tell you some of 

the stories of people taking action, because it has been very exciting for us to see how a call to action that is inclusive, that is bottom up, that includes men and boys actually can show results. So 

there are three short little stories that I want to share with you. 

In a small town called Mandya, which is in the State of 

Karnataka in India, which is where the city of Bangalore is in 

which is probably a place that you might recognize and know, a 

group of teenagers, after watching the Bell Bajao ads, decided to 

go and listen to television in their neighbor’s home every evening 

because they noticed that there was a pattern of his beating his 

wife when he returned home from work. And they continued to just 

go hang out at the neighbor’s house every evening for a long period 

of time. And even after they stopped, they discovered that the beating had stopped, that they had actually intervened and taken an 

action that was positive. 

In the city of Kanpur, which is a big city in the State of Uttar 

Pradesh, a protection officer who was responsible for the implemenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:43 Feb 01, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\IOHRO\102109\52986 HFA PsN: SHIRL
39

tation of the Domestic Violence Act in India took a pledge after 

being exposed to the Bell Bajao campaign that he would redouble 

his efforts to prosecute as well as raise awareness. And in preliminary studies that we have done in areas of intervention, we have 

seen a 15–20 percent increase in reporting under the act since Bell 

Bajao came around, which has also been extremely encouraging. 

I am going to read to you an e-mail that we got on our blog from 

a young woman called Christina Lobo, who lives in an apartment 

building in Mumbai. And she says,

‘‘There is a women in my building who goes to hell and back 

once a week while all the neighbors sit quietly in their flats 

pretending to have heard nothing. Last week the screaming 

and crying started at 8 a.m. It stopped when her husband left 

for work. Come 8 p.m., the husband was home again, and then 

it started again. By 1 a.m. the screams were louder than ever. 

‘‘I couldn’t take it anymore and marched upstairs with my 

dog Kelly and rang the bell. Her husband shooed my dog out 

and told me not to interfere, but I haven’t heard any more 

screams since then. I hope it stays that way. I won’t hesitate 

to ring the bell again and call the cops, too.’’

This campaign, Bell Bajao, Ring the Bell, is just one example of 

the kinds of initiatives that women are taking around the world to 

fight for their lives. In villages and towns in every corner of the 

world, women are challenging social and cultural norms and laws 

that make them second-class citizens. They are engaging in courageous acts to stop the pandemic of violence that permeates their 

lives and denies us all the talents and strength of half the world’s 

population. 

I ask you to imagine how the voices of these hundreds of thousands of women could be strengthened if IVAWA became a reality. 

An American foreign policy made the ending of violence against 

women a priority in our diplomacy on foreign aid. As you consider 

the provisions for this new act, I urge you to keep in mind some 

of the following recommendations, which are lessons that we have 

learned from best practices of the work that we have been doing 

for the last 10 years. 

Invest in partnerships with local organizations and encourage 

bottom-up initiatives that can work effectively in their own context 

and create long-term, sustainable change. 

Maintain a focus on women’s empowerment while partnering 

with multiple stakeholders, men and boys, community leaders, religious institutions, business heads. It is everybody’s problem. 

Make youth outreach and participation a key priority. That is a 

great way to transform cultural norms that permit violence against 

women, and also to build the next generation of human rights leaders. 

Through strong leadership and local partnerships across a range 

of actors, the International Violence Against Women Act can have 

a direct and immediate impact on saving the lives of millions of 

women and girls. For a small investment the U.S. could see an 

enormous return, that of ensuring that women and girls can realize 

their potential and contribute more fully to society. 

40

Thank you so much for the leadership that you have demonstrated in moving this agenda forward and for ensuring that 

women’s rights, in fact, can be human rights. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dutt follows:]


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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Ms. Dutt. 

And, Ms. Kidman, please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MS. NICOLE KIDMAN, ACTRESS, UNIFEM 

GOODWILL AMBASSADOR 

Ms. KIDMAN. Thank you, Chairman Delahunt, Congressman 

Rohrabacher, Chairman Berman and members of the committee, 

for granting me this opportunity to speak in my role of Goodwill 

Ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women. 

Violence against women and girls is perhaps the most systematic, widespread human rights violation in the world. It recognizes 

no borders, no race or class. I became UNIFEM’s Goodwill Ambassador in 2006 to amplify the voices of women and shine a light on 

solutions that work and make a lasting difference. 

Until recently violence against women and the instability it 

causes hid in the shadows. I think the attention today underscores 

a new recognition that the issue is urgent and really deserves to 

be center stage. And while I have learned a lot by working with 

UNIFEM, I am far from an expert. I am here just to be a voice. 

I rely on people I have met to make the case. 

A year ago I was honored to talk with Marie Zaina from the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo. Like the speaker who just 

spoke, Mallika Dutt, Marie’s work on the ground merited a grant 

from the UNIFEM-managed United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. Through contributions, including essential 

funding from the United States for which UNIFEM is very, very 

grateful, the Fund promotes the implementation of existing commitments. There are laws in many countries to end discrimination 

against women, to punish rape, to outlaw spousal abuse, child marriage and more. But in the real world the laws go unenforced, and 

impunity is the norm. 

I learned from Marie that she was a survivor of violence. Forced 

by her father into an abusive marriage as a young adult, she fled 

after her first pregnancy, found support to further her education 

through a religious organization, and confronted with the cruel impact on women and girls from the continuing conflict in the DRC—

where rape is systematically used as a tactic of war—Marie took 

action. She started an organization to help victims of violence, 

mostly widows and orphans, many affected by HIV/AIDS. Over the 

years she built a national network of NGOs to care for survivors 

and empower women. And with the Trust Fund grant, her group 

expanded services to include medical care, counseling, legal and 

economic support. Marie fully understands the need for a comprehensive approach. 

Another time when I visited Kosovo, I met and listened to 

women sharing experiences. One of them told me how she was 


52986d-3.eps
43

raped repeatedly and abused by soldiers, leaving her with lasting 

physical and psychological scars, and also leaving her pregnant. 

Yet she did not remain silent. Together with other women’s rights 

advocates, she bravely took her testimony on how mass rape shatters lives and communities to the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia, a legal landmark for prosecuting rape in wartime as a crime 

against humanity. 

Now, these champions need and deserve our support not with a 

box of Band-Aids, but with a comprehensive and well-funded approach that acknowledges that women’s rights are human rights. 

It is time for policies that intentionally involve society’s key communities, from health and education departments to the police and 

judiciary, to deliver on that commitment. The plan must build 

strong alliances with men and collaborate with faith-based and traditional leaders. To succeed, it requires political will at the highest 

levels. 

Violence against women deprives countries of a critical resource 

in the struggle to end poverty and attain sustainability. Economists 

confirm that women’s empowerment is an essential engine for development. If they cannot participate, the targets governments and 

the U.N. set will continue to be unmet. 

So I commend the efforts that have gone into drafting of the 

International Violence Against Women’s Act, and in particular, I 

appreciate the consultation with the real actors and the beneficiaries to incorporate best practices and effective approaches. Everyone I work with at UNIFEM and I believe that IVAWA, when 

passed, will be a beacon lighting the way forward for other countries. 

My stories and the other stories here illustrate the impact of violence against women on individuals, families and communities, but 

IVAWA rightfully links the consequences of violence against 

women to global goals: Economic development, stability and peace, 

improving health and reducing HIV/AIDS. 

If you are shocked, which I was, by the recent reports from Guinea with the searing images captured on cell phones showing gang 

rapes by government forces in broad daylight, do you wonder how 

those women can resume their lives when their perpetrators walk 

the street fearing no punishment for their crimes? 

Violence against women is not prosecuted because it is not a top 

government and urgent social priority. We can change this. We can 

change it by exerting leadership, making wise investments and 

building local partnerships. Based on UNIFEM and the Trust 

Fund’s ‘‘lessons learned,’’ IVAWA represents an effective cross-cutting approach that elevates the issue so it will count and be counted. 

I want to thank the Members of the Congress for listening. I 

commend them for their efforts to make ending violence against 

women the top priority it must become. After all, a life free of violence is our human right. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kidman follows:]

44


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Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Kidman. 

And thank you for lending your voice to this particular issue and 

allowing us to utilize your celebrity. It does make a difference. Believe me, if we did not have a panel such as we have before us now 

and the testimony of Ambassador Verveer, as well as our colleague 

Ms. Jan Schakowsky, and all of the women in the U.S. Congress 

that are involved in these issues, and it was just Rohrabacher and 

Delahunt, this would be a very—and Burton—this would be a very 

empty room right now. So you are making a magnificent contribution to raising the awareness of, and the implications, the far—the 

profound consequences of this issue and how it impacts all of us. 

So let me say thank you to all of you. 

And we are joined by another of our female colleagues who is an 

advocate on this issue. And let me go to Sue Davis from California 

and ask her if she has any questions and wishes to make a statement. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am delighted 

to be here. I really came to listen and to really thank you for being 

here as well. I am sorry I was not able to be here for the earlier 

panels, but perhaps you could talk a little bit about prioritizing, because I think sometimes we get a bit overwhelmed by this problem. 

And we see in many places, and I would cite my opportunity to 

travel to Afghanistan to meet with women there, trying to see that 

we have certainly a generational problem, sometimes a twogenerational problem, but at the same time we want to try and 

really address what exists today. 

I was very surprised in traveling there and meeting with a number of women, and Ambassador Verveer is aware of this, that 

women who feared for their security daily also spoke a language of 

empowerment. That really surprised me. 

I know we need sustained efforts; we need comprehensive programs, as you said. How, if we have, you know, a very ambitious 

agenda of what we want to do, how would you help us to really 

prioritize what is the most significant? Sometimes we really want 

to address the educational piece so we reach people quite young, 

but, on the other hand, we know that people are suffering today, 

women are suffering, we have to reach them today. And whether 

it is microloans—sometimes, you know, it is economic empowerment. What could you tell us about how we could think through 

that priority? 

Ms. KIDMAN. I mean, I will answer that. I think the reason I am 

here is to try and get attention for this bill and to get the bill 

passed. I think the bill has been put together by an enormous number of people. It is step by step. I don’t think there is a single priority. I think it covers all bases. I am not fully versed in the whole 

bill, but there are experts who are, but I do believe that it is dealing with women as a whole. So it is dealing with education, it is 

dealing with providing health services and shelters, it is dealing 

with enabling the laws actually being upheld. 

So I actually think it is comprehensive, and therefore, there isn’t 

one particular thing that it is focusing on, but it is brilliantly laid 

out, from how it has been explained to me. And I know that it has 

taken 7 years to put together, so it is not something that has been 

done in a superficial way. That is my answer. 

47

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. If you would choose to comment on that, if you wanted to add anything additionally. 

Ms. DUTT. Well, one of the reasons that there is a key recommendation in IVAWA to focus on 10 to 20 countries for 5 years 

as a learning experience and to ensure that we document best practices is precisely because of the issue that you have just raised. Violence against women takes so many forms that one of the lessons 

that we have learned is that a comprehensive approach is really 

the best approach. And in order to be effective in that, the recommendation is that a large chunk of the money that is being recommended as part of this bill would focus on 10 to 20 countries 

which would be identified across a range of criteria, with a certain 

allocation for women in countries of conflict to deal with emergency 

and humanitarian situations. And sure there is much greater expertise in the room on these questions, but that is exactly why 

there is this recommendation around this focus. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. SMITH. Just briefly. I don’t believe that we take women’s 

rights seriously around the world, because we do not enforce the 

laws that would protect them. And we do turn our back and say 

other values are greater, whether it be economic or cultural. If we 

are serious around the world as Americans, we will be serious 

about our other policy that does have sanctions. If we are not serious about the sanctions, whatever they may be, then let us just remove the law and the policy, because we are not taken seriously. 

Now, I have spent 11 years traveling, rescuing little girls, raising 

them around the world in every country, including the Netherlands, and if we say that men are allowed to do certain things because of culture, whether in Indonesia it is an 8-year-old wife, or 

whether it is in Tokyo because most men are buying sex, it is irrelevant what we do with the rest. We have to culturally say what 

I think I heard earlier from one of the members: We cannot tolerate because of religion, because of culture anything that demeans 

or harms women. 

Trafficking in America—and I am going to say it in closing, and 

I know you are going to want me to close, Chairman—if we continue as Americans to have our middle-school children trafficked 

and sold to common men in the United States while we are crying 

out for human rights for other countries, we will not be seen as 

credible, and we will not have any of our foreign policy serious in 

protecting women. 

We can put money into it all we want, but I don’t think we are 

going to get very far. So I would challenge you again, be serious 

about our policy, put teeth behind the laws and rescue America’s 

children also. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Linda. 

Let me next go to my friend and colleague from Texas, Judge 

Poe. 

Mr. POE. I want to thank all you all for being here. Mr. Chairman, ‘‘all you all’’ is plural to ‘‘you all.’’ Get through the language 

barrier there. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. What did you say? 

Mr. POE. All five of you for being here today. 

48

Probably the most influential person in my life was my grandmother. She lived to almost 100 years of age. She said a lot of wise 

things. But one thing she taught me, and I believed, was that you 

never hurt somebody you claim you love. She was right when she 

said that, and that is a true statement today. 

She also said there is nothing more powerful than a woman that 

has made up her mind. I think we have a lot of women here in this 

audience testified, and, of course, our colleagues in the House, both 

Republicans and Democrats, who are females that have made up 

their mind about this issue. You would be glad to know, Mr. Chairman, that my grandmother was a Yellow Dog Democrat and never 

forgave me for being a Republican until she died, so you would like 

her. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. She was a brilliant woman. 

Mr. POE. That is right. I knew you would say that. 

But anyway, as the chairman indicated, in my other life I was 

a judge. I saw the real world for 22 years, tried criminal cases, and 

saw thousands of young women come to the courthouse as victims 

of crime, and many of them had been brutalized by people they 

knew, men who they knew. 

And I agree with you, Congressman Smith, the United States 

has to get its house in order and take care of what is taking place 

here not just in domestic violence, but the human trafficking that 

takes place in our own country. If a young female is trafficked in 

the United States, she is treated as a criminal. If she is from a foreign country and trafficked in the United States, she is treated as 

a victim. And we treat them differently. Women in the United 

States, young girls who are trafficked, they are arrested for prostitution, they are put in jail. 

We have to reexamine that whole issue before we can really 

move forward with recognizing the importance of women’s rights. 

I certainly believe that women’s rights are a human rights issue, 

but it is also a public health issue. Our country talks about health 

care. We ought to talk about the health of America’s women who 

continue to be assaulted by other people in this country. That is 

a health issue that I think is very important that we deal with. 

People who have assaulted each other or assaulted people that 

they claim they care about brings to mind a lady not far from here 

by the name of Yvette Cade. Ms. Cade, a wonderful person, she 

was divorcing her husband. She went to court to represent herself 

to get a restraining order to make sure he left her alone while the 

divorce is pending. The judge denied her request. He got out of jail, 

he found her at her business, and he doused gasoline on her and 

set her on fire. Thank goodness Yvette Cade survived that assault 

again. 

So our system has to adjust itself as well and fix some of the 

things that have taken place in our own criminal justice system 

and our own social awareness, and we need to make sure that it 

is never socially acceptable in this country to commit crimes 

against women because they are women. 

I am fortunate to serve as the chairman of the Victims Rights 

Caucus, and this is one of the issues, along with other caucuses, 

the Women’s Caucus here, that we need to bring awareness of. So 

I would like each of you to pick one thing you see that Congress 

49

needs to do and can do to help this issue to prevent this violence 

against women on whatever scale you would like to talk about it. 

Pick one thing, just one, Congressman Smith. And I would like to 

go down the row here while each of you think what you would like 

us to do as a Congress. 

Ms. SMITH. I want you to take it seriously and put it at the top 

of your own priorities on this committee—I know you can’t commit 

the rest to Congress—but make the defense of the American 

women and girls as important as the defense of women around the 

world, while not decreasing your attention to foreign-born women. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Ms. Dutt. 

Ms. DUTT. You know, the United States passed a brilliant piece 

of legislation not too long ago, which was the Violence Against 

Women Act, and today it is time to pass the International Violence 

Against Women Act. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Ms. Kidman. 

Ms. KIDMAN. I would agree. If you could help us to pass this act, 

that is what we need to do. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, thank you all. 

And thank you, Judge Poe, for your remarks. They were insightful. Oftentimes Congressman Poe and I tend to disagree, but in 

this particular case we are on the same page. 

And now I would like to go to my dear friend from Indiana Congressman Burton. 

Mr. BURTON. You know, Mr. Chairman, no matter what you say, 

and I think the ladies that have spoken here today have covered 

the ground almost completely, but the one thing that probably has 

not been covered is what it is like to actually live this kind of a 

thing. The effect it has on the women and the children when they 

live through the horrors of wife and child abuse is unbelievable. I 

am not going to go into any details, but I just want you to know 

that I believe that men who abuse women and kids deserve the 

most severe penalties that can be applied by law, and in some 

cases I would even go further than that. 

My father tried to kill my mother. He went to prison, and he 

mistreated me and my brothers and sisters and my mother for a 

long, long time. And the only reason I bring that up is because it 

is so horrible to wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning, hearing your 

mother screaming and throwing a lamp through the window, and 

going downstairs and seeing her clothes being tore off her, and 

your father beating her half to death, and not even knowing if she 

is alive. It is not even funny. And that sort of thing needs to be 

punished to the fullest extent of the law. I even believe, even 

though murder isn’t involved many times, when they go so far, it 

should be a capital crime. They should be killed for what they do 

to their wives and children. I feel that very strongly. 

So I just want to lend my support for the effort that these ladies 

are supporting today, and just to take it one step further and say 

that we ought to think not only about the women who are abused, 

but the people who are hurt that surround those women, in particular the children. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. And I think your 

point is very well taken because it has been my experience that 

those males that are incarcerated in our prisons throughout the 

50

country, all too often learned violence at home. They saw the kind 

of violence that Congressman Burton just described, they saw it as 

the norm, they saw it as acceptable. They just didn’t parachute in 

and become violent criminals themselves. 

That is why if we are going to address the issue of crime in this 

country, we have to address the issue of violence against women 

and domestic violence. And as I indicated in my opening remarks, 

we have made progress, we have. 

I think it is important to remember in this country that it wasn’t 

too long ago that there was the so-called rule of thumb where a 

male in this country could beat his wife as long as the stick with 

which he used did not exceed the circumference of his thumb. And 

it wasn’t all that long ago in a historical sense that women finally 

earned the right to vote. There had been restrictions on women 

owning property until relatively recently in an historical sense. 

So it does take time, and it takes the courage of those women 

whose stories you related to us, all of them. And it is time that 

men woke up. And I feel confident that you have given us a wakeup call today. 

Let me go to the vice chair of this committee, my friend from 

Missouri Mr. Carnahan. Russ. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you 

for sharing inspiring stories and inspiring work. We have seen so 

many examples where peace and prosperity come around this world 

where women have been empowered, empowered with education, 

with economic programs, with enforcement rule of law. 

We heard from Ms. Kidman about the importance of building 

strong alliances with men, and Ms. Dutt about the program you described that calls on men and boys to take a stand against violence. 

And I want to ask each of you how men and boys are reacting to 

these kind of programs and messages, and also in terms of really 

gaining in terms of social and legal accountability. And we will 

start with Ms. Smith and go to your left. 

Ms. SMITH. I don’t know that we had very many programs in the 

United States or around the world until we started talking about 

DEMAND less than, I am going to say, 2 years ago. It has not been 

an issue discussed a lot. In the United States there is a new group 

started about 2 years ago called The Defenders. They have somewhere around 3,000 members now quietly building coalitions 

around themselves, first taking a stand to not use commercial sex, 

pornography, stripping or pornography—or excuse me or prostitution. It seems to be something they do proudly. It seems to be 

something they do, but cautiously, because they are afraid of being 

labeled one of those men. 

So I think with men like you standing and men like you making 

commitments, it will give courage to other men around the world. 

But I have been very encouraged by this group, and if you are not 

a Defender yet, you might want to go on line and become a Defender. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. All right. 

Ms. Dutt. 

Ms. DUTT. You know this is our third multimedia campaign in 

India, and the prior ones focused on women and HIV/AIDS and 

men infecting their wives in marriage. And on the second one we 

51

talked about the stigma and discrimination faced by HIV-positive 

women. And so Bell Bajao, Ring the Bell, was the first time that 

we created a campaign that was an inclusive call to action, where 

we just didn’t lay out the perpetrators, that male perpetrators did 

these things to women, but we said, do you know what, you can 

be part of the solution. And it has just been extraordinary. I mean, 

it has been like a wildfire of young men just really answering the 

call to action. 

We have this very extensive human rights training program 

where we work with both boys and girls, young men and women, 

to make them into human rights advocates in their communities. 

And I listen to these guys, and I listen to the ways in which they 

are not just dealing with the external community, but what they 

are doing at home, the conversations that they are generating with 

their mothers, with their sisters, how they are reexamining their 

relationships, how they talk about and treat women. 

There is this group of guys who used to be—you know, in India 

we call sexual harassment ‘‘Eve teasing.’’ So these guys, this group 

of guys who were Eve teasers, who, after having gone through 

human rights training and with Bell Bajao, have just become these 

really staunch advocates of women’s human rights. 

So I think that it is really important to have accountability, to 

have the law and have the law work, but it is also really important 

to look at prevention and how we change attitudes and change 

norms to stop the violence from happening in the first place. And 

we have been very encouraged by the work that we have seen in 

the last year or so. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And Ms. Kidman. 

Ms. KIDMAN. I mean, education. Educating boys and men is probably first and foremost, as we have all been saying. I know just recently we did a campaign in Australia for UNIFEM Australia 

where we had prominent men make pledges in the media to never 

commit violence against women and to protect women, and it was 

very impactful, just making—just saying the words. And there 

were certain words that we wrote out, and then they were printed 

in magazines with these pledges. And it was very powerful and 

very moving. 

And I think those things seem small, but that is where the education starts. Also UNIFEM supplies men’s networks. And I am 

traveling to Kenya in November where I will see some of those 

men’s networks firsthand. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you. 

And before I go to the ranking member, we are joined by our colleague from Texas Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee. And I know that we 

have time constraints, so, Sheila, if you have a statement or a comment, could you do it now? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to indicate to the witnesses how important this matter is 

to me. I was on the floor being Speaker pro tem, so I ask your indulgence of my presence here today. I have questions. 

One, I would just accept the underpinnings of Ambassador 

Verveer’s comments, and that is that women’s issues and the violence against women cannot be put to the margins of our foreign 

52

policy. I think an excellent statement. And I would add to that and 

say that we must be vigorous, we must be consummate, we must 

have vigilance, and I believe we must be aggressive. 

Last evening I looked at a movie called ‘‘Tapestries,’’ I believe, 

that talked about the myth, the horrible myth, that one could rid 

yourself of HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa, and it may be 

prevalent elsewhere, by having sex with young girls; and watched 

a woman who had managed to gather—this happened to focus on 

Zimbabwe—but managed to gather girls who had been so abused. 

And some horrific statement came across the screen, I think I am 

remembering it well, that the youngest victim was 3 days old, an 

infant child. 

So my question, and if I could ask it—well, let me start with Ms. 

Kidman, and thank you all very much for this impact that you are 

doing. Tell me how effective you believe the United Nations is 

being in this effort. We are, in essence, collaborative jurisdictions, 

that is the United Nations and United States Congress, but we 

have oversight, we pay our U.S. dues, and so I would be interested 

in hearing how effective you think they are and how we could, as 

women Members of Congress, as men, be engaged in their effort, 

and when I say that, in helping to reaffirm how important that effort is. 

I will ask the last two questions for our last witness. Good to see 

you, Congresswoman Smith. 

I am going to you, Ms. Kidman. I am just going to throw my 

other questions on the table very quickly. If you would, with the 

other two panelists, just tell me whether or not we are in a surge 

of violence, or whether or not we have found a method to help cure 

it; or are we in a surge, and now we are seeking new ways? I was 

in Darfur as well sitting down with those women. So I am going 

to ask Ms. Kidman how she believes the United Nations is doing 

and what we can do to be helpful. 

Ms. KIDMAN. Well, as ambassador for UNIFEM, I believe that 

the reason I got behind them is that I heard of—I heard a program 

on the BBC about the work that they were doing, and this was in 

2005. And the thing that appealed to me was that it was solutionbased, that it wasn’t about going in and also trying to change the 

culture of different countries; it was going in and trying to work 

with the culture, with the people, and come up with solutions. And 

I then met with different women that are working for UNIFEM 

and actually sort of begged to be involved. I believe that they are 

incredibly—they are aggressive in a good way, they are compassionate, and they are all willing to work tirelessly, as I have seen, 

grassroots. And I think that is what is so appealing, and that is 

what is so effective. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You think they need more resources, more 

personnel? 

Ms. KIDMAN. Do we need more? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. More resources, more personnel, more 

people? 

Ms. KIDMAN. Yes, absolutely. We need a lot more, which is why 

I am here begging. But truly, I mean it is about we need the 

money, we need—because there are certainly the people who are 

willing to give their time. And I have heard that time is one of the 

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most important things that people have to be willing to give. I am 

willing to give my time. And I see these women willing to give their 

lives to dedicate to this. And it is incredibly inspiring, and I hope 

to continue to do it for the rest of my life. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You are saving lives. 

My last—is it Ms. Dutt and Ms. Smith, I didn’t see the last 

name—question is about are we surging, are we plateauing? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Congresswoman, we are really running out of 

time here. And we want to be able to invite you and other members 

to a press availability. And I know there are severe time constraints. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. May I just close, Mr. Chairman, by thanking 

them and also thanking Secretary Clinton, who long years ago said 

women’s rights are human rights, and President Obama for his 

focus and interest in this very important area. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank you. And I ask my friend if he wishes 

to make any closing remarks. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for 

bringing us all together. 

Let me just suggest that we might think about how to set certain 

standards so we can actually do something real here, rather than 

just talk about how much we care about everybody. If we don’t care 

enough to set real standards and enforce them, it doesn’t mean a 

darn thing. Let’s maybe perhaps, for example, people who are identified or countries that are identified as not respecting the rights 

of women, are guilty of crimes against women, maybe if some of the 

people in those countries, like their governmental leaders, 

shouldn’t be granted visas to come into the United States, things 

such as that. 

And finally, let me just end, Nicole, thank you for what you are 

doing today. First of all I am going to ask you a question. It is 

going to be a very pointed question, but I want you to know that 

I respect you for being active. Here you are, trying to help in the 

situation. But you mentioned earlier that education plays a role in 

this. Doesn’t Hollywood play a role in this? Hasn’t Hollywood 

played a bad role? Haven’t women been portrayed in Hollywood as 

weak and as sex objects, and hasn’t that contributed to the problem? 

Ms. KIDMAN. Probably. But I also think they have contributed, 

or are trying to contribute to the solution. I mean you can always 

cite films, but I think as an individual I certainly don’t undertake 

or don’t want to participate in that. I mean I get offered films often 

that depict violence against women. And if I feel that it is 

exploitive or that it would actually demean women, then I am not 

interested and I pass. I can’t be responsible for the whole of Hollywood, but I can certainly be responsible for my own career. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Good answer. Thank you very much. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I would note that if we are going—I think 

Congresswoman Smith’s testimony—if we are going to have standards, we better apply them to ourselves as well. So this is not just 

simply a foreign global problem, it is an American problem. You 

are absolutely correct. The data that you revealed would, I suggest, 

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could very well put us in an unfavorable light. But we are making 

progress. 

Again, thank you all. Now, I understand we are going to invite 

all the press to an availability in room 2200, and I am told that 

there is a reception. So, please, all come. 

[Whereupon, at 4:22 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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