Title: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of taking a feminist approach to all aspects of foreign policy, including foreign assistance and humanitarian response, trade, diplomacy, defense, immigration, funding, and accountability mechanisms.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution supports the goals of a feminist foreign policy (i.e., a foreign policy that requires analysis of and challenges to power structures and inequalities that are based on systems of discrimination), and it supports the adoption of policies that promote gender equity and women's participation in public life.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 196 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 196

  Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the 
  importance of taking a feminist approach to all aspects of foreign 
policy, including foreign assistance and humanitarian response, trade, 
     diplomacy, defense, immigration, funding, and accountability 
                              mechanisms.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 8, 2021

Ms. Speier (for herself, Ms. Lee of California, Mrs. Lawrence, Ms. Lois 
Frankel of Florida, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Meng, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of 
 New York, Ms. Jackson Lee, Ms. Norton, Mr. Cicilline, Ms. Velazquez, 
 Ms. Titus, Mr. Jones, Mr. Carson, Mr. Khanna, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, 
Mr. Welch, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Sherman, Ms. Bonamici, Ms. McCollum, Mr. 
   Hastings, Ms. Kuster, Mr. Lowenthal, Ms. Houlahan, Mr. Johnson of 
 Georgia, Ms. Sanchez, Ms. Chu, Ms. Clarke of New York, Ms. Omar, Ms. 
Eshoo, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Tlaib, Mr. Vargas, 
Mr. Keating, and Mr. Casten) submitted the following resolution; which 
            was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
  Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the 
  importance of taking a feminist approach to all aspects of foreign 
policy, including foreign assistance and humanitarian response, trade, 
     diplomacy, defense, immigration, funding, and accountability 
                              mechanisms.

Whereas a feminist approach to public policy requires meaningful analysis of and 
        proactive challenges to power structures and inequalities based on 
        intersecting systems of discrimination, including discrimination on the 
        basis of race, age, language, socioeconomic status, physical or mental 
        ability, sex, including gender identity or expression and sexual 
        orientation, indigenous identity, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, and 
        nationality or migrant status;
Whereas foreign policy reflects how a government defines and prioritizes peace 
        and security, structures international trade, provides humanitarian aid 
        and development assistance, and works with other nations and non-state 
        actors;
Whereas feminist foreign policy is the policy of a state that defines its 
        interactions with other states, as well as movements and other non-state 
        actors, in a manner that--

    (1) prioritizes peace, gender equality, and environmental integrity;

    (2) enshrines, promotes, and protects the human rights of all;

    (3) seeks to disrupt colonial, racist, patriarchal, and male-dominated 
power structures; and

    (4) allocates significant resources, including research, to achieve 
that vision;

Whereas feminist foreign policy is coherent in its approach across its levers of 
        influence, anchored by the exercise of those values at home and 
        cocreated with feminist organizations, movements, and stakeholders, at 
        home and abroad;
Whereas women's rights are human rights and foreign policy in the United States 
        should be representative, inclusive, responsive, and accountable to 
        stakeholders, and should take an intersectional approach, utilizing a 
        power-based analysis that reveals, acknowledges, and seeks to correct 
        for inequalities;
Whereas feminist foreign policy includes a focus on key thematic priorities of 
        bodily autonomy, peace, environmental integrity, and justice, which are 
        often left behind in foreign policy development and discourse;
Whereas although women and girls make up approximately half of the world's 
        population, they face considerable disparities relative to men and boys 
        in their access to rights, resources, and agency around the world, and--

    (1) as of 2020, women had on average three-fourths of the legal rights 
as men worldwide;

    (2) the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap report for 2020 
estimates that at the current rate of change, it will take 99.5 years for 
there to be gender parity across the four dimensions it examines: health 
and survival, economic participation and opportunity, educational 
attainment, and political empowerment;

    (3) in 2020, around the world women held only 25.2 percent of 
parliamentary seats and in 2019 held 21.2 percent of ministerial positions;

    (4) approximately one-third of women globally have experienced gender-
based violence, which increases in crisis settings such as during current 
COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, resulting in some settings having over 70 
percent of women experiencing gender-based violence;

    (5) in 2020, only 4.8 percent of military contingents and 10.9 percent 
of uniformed police units in United Nations peacekeeping missions were 
women;

    (6) in low- and middle-income countries, 218,000,000 women have an 
unmet need for family planning services and supplies;

    (7) women face more constraints than men do in accessing foreign 
markets;

    (8) immigration law itself tends to marginalize women, relying on 
outmoded models of family, migration patterns, and economic mobility that 
often fail to account for the reality of women's lives when migrating;

    (9) women and girls face increased risks in crisis; and

    (10) in the past decade, women provided over 43 percent of the 
agricultural labor in low- and middle-income countries, yet comprised more 
than 60 percent of the world's chronically hungry people;

Whereas in a world in which there is gender equality and women can fully 
        participate in all spheres of life--

    (1) global gross domestic product could increase by $28,000,000,000,000 
over 10 years;

    (2) the percentage of hungry people could be reduced by 12 to 17 
percent if women had equal access to agricultural resources; and

    (3) peace agreements are 35 percent more likely to last over 15 years 
when women are at the negotiating table;

Whereas as foreign assistance by the United States helps tens of millions of 
        people each year, often providing lifesaving aid while accounting for 
        approximately 1 percent of the United States Federal budget, a smaller 
        amount supports gender equality, and--

    (1) about 2 percent of assistance in 2018 was reported as specifically 
for gender equality programs;

    (2) only about 16 percent of assistance in 2018 was reported as 
including key components to address gender equality issues within projects 
that have a primary focus other than gender equality across all sectors; 
and

    (3) an even smaller amount of aid funding finds its way to local, 
women-led and feminist organizations and grassroots gender equality 
movements, and in 2018, the United States only disbursed $4,400,000 to 
women's rights organizations and institutions, and in the past 10 years has 
not disbursed more than $10,000,000 in a year;

Whereas a feminist foreign assistance policy in the United States would promote 
        gender equality and focus on the experience of women and people who 
        experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, such as 
        gender-based violence, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health, 
        lack of access to education, and the burden of unpaid care 
        responsibilities;
Whereas the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need to take a 
        feminist approach to foreign policy with many impacts likely to 
        disproportionately affect women and girls, including--

    (1) the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 
Organization (UNESCO) finds that over 90 percent of students have been 
affected by pandemic-related school closures, that approximately 
1,000,000,000 students have had their learning disrupted during the 2020-
2021 academic year, and that approximately 11,000,000 girls will likely not 
return to school due to the disruption;

    (2) the economic impact of the pandemic has had a disproportionate 
effect on women, and the 780,000,000 women who rely on informal employment 
lost on average 60 percent of their prepandemic income in the first month 
of the pandemic;

    (3) on average, women's employment is 19 percent more at risk than 
men's employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic;

    (4) the United Nations estimates that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 
women between the ages of 25 and 34 are 18 percent more likely to fall into 
extreme poverty in 2021, worsening the already existing gender-poverty gap;

    (5) worldwide, women have shouldered the bulk of unpaid care and 
domestic work resulting from the pandemic, and even prior to the pandemic, 
women on average performed more than three times the amount of unpaid work 
relative to men;

    (6) the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts to end child marriage, 
and could result in an additional 13,000,000 child marriages taking place 
between 2020 and 2030 that would otherwise have been averted;

    (7) over 49,000,000 additional women will have an unmet need for modern 
contraceptives, and over 15,000,000 additional unintended pregnancies in 
low- and middle-income countries are expected to occur as a result of the 
COVID-19 pandemic;

    (8) an estimated 243,000,000 women worldwide were subjected to sexual 
or physical violence by an intimate partner between April 2019 and April 
2020, and an additional 15,000,000 cases of gender-based violence are 
expected to occur for every 3 months the lockdown continues; and

    (9) due to the disruption of programs to prevent female genital 
mutilation in response to COVID-19, 2,000,000 female genital mutilation 
cases may occur over the next decade that could have been averted;

Whereas, in 2020, nearly 80,000,000 people were displaced from their homes due 
        to violence, disaster, conflict, and persecution, more than 165,000,000 
        people are in need of humanitarian assistance, and tools to center 
        women, girls, and people of all gender identities in humanitarian 
        responses, such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Gender Handbook 
        for Humanitarian Action, should be used to respond;
Whereas trade is a necessary and vital component of a nation's economic success 
        and growth, and a key part of its engagement with other nations;
Whereas, in 2019, United States exports and imports totaled approximately 
        $2,377,156,000,000 and $3,214,184,000,000, respectively;
Whereas a feminist trade policy would promote women's rights and equitable and 
        dignified labor practices throughout the value chain, as well as reduce 
        and mitigate the harmful impacts of climate change associated with 
        trade;
Whereas feminist diplomacy fosters increased collaboration and cooperation among 
        state and non-state actors, including championing equality and 
        supporting the institutions and mechanisms that facilitate cooperation, 
        nonmilitary conflict resolution, and peaceful competition, and that 
        mitigate the effects of climate change;
Whereas defense efforts support the goal of a more peaceful, equitable, and 
        healthy planet, with peace as the ultimate aim of defense, and a 
        military policy that prevents and responds to gender-based violence in 
        conflict and meaningfully includes women and those who face 
        discrimination in security forces, peace negotiations, and postconflict 
        rebuilding;
Whereas migration remains a global and growing phenomenon, and--

    (1) the number of international migrants reached an estimated 
272,000,000 persons in 2019;

    (2) women constitute nearly half of global migrant flows;

    (3) the United States is the leading country of destination, hosting 
44,800,000 foreign-born people, including 22,600,000 naturalized citizens; 
and

    (4) a feminist approach to immigration would integrate an analysis of 
the impact of immigration policy on women, children, people of all gender 
identities, and indigenous people; and

Whereas strong transparency and accountability are critical to ensuring that 
        promises to advance a feminist approach are honored through full funding 
        and include the development of participatory approaches to policy 
        formulation and implementation, the setting and reaching of specific, 
        time-bound and measurable goals that do no harm and are desired by and 
        beneficial to those impacted, and transparent reporting on the progress 
        toward goals: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) supports the goals of a feminist foreign policy;
            (2) supports the adoption of policies that promote gender 
        equity and women's participation in public life, including 
        women's education, access to health care, representation in 
        public office, economic security and opportunity, access to 
        rights and resources, inclusion in foreign markets, and 
        participation in peacekeeping, military, and diplomatic 
        missions;
            (3) recognizes that a whole-of-government effort that 
        ensures coherence of a feminist approach across all streams of 
        foreign policy is necessary to achieve those goals, and must 
        include--
                    (A) high-level leadership with a mandate to design 
                and implement a feminist foreign policy with clearly 
                articulated objectives;
                    (B) commitment to gender parity, diversity, equity, 
                and inclusion, both internally among leadership and 
                staff and externally, cocreated with civil society 
                groups and other stakeholders outside of government;
                    (C) the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy on 
                gender-based violence and workplace harassment, 
                immediately eliminating policies that allow abusers to 
                move from one post to another once accused without 
                facing consequences related to their employment or 
                promotion;
                    (D) training and capacity-building to ensure robust 
                implementation;
                    (E) gender analysis underlying all aspects of 
                foreign policy;
                    (F) adequate resourcing to ensure all of the above; 
                and
                    (G) regular and public reporting on efforts and 
                outcomes; and
            (4) commits to work with civil society groups and other 
        stakeholders inside and outside of government to advance a more 
        feminist foreign policy in the United States.
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