Additional Information on the International Violence Against Women Act

The International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) is an unprecedented effort by the United States to address violence against women globally. It directs the U.S. government to create a comprehensive, 5-year strategy to reduce violence in 10-20 diverse countries identified as having severe levels of violence against women.

To achieve this goal, the act authorizes more than $1 billion over five years in U.S. aid to support international programs that prevent violence. Specifically, the money will support health programs and survivor services, encourage legal accountability and a change of public attitudes, promote access to economic opportunity projects and education, and better address violence against women in humanitarian situations. The act provides for U.S. training of foreign security forces on violence against woman and girls. It also encourages U.S. collaboration and funding of institutions like the United Nations working to end violence against women and girls. It emphasizes support and capacity-building for overseas women's organizations working to prevent violence.

The I-VAWA also makes the crisis of violence against women a top diplomatic priority. It creates an Office of Global Women's Initiatives in the State Department to coordinate all efforts, including aid, to combat violence. It also creates the Office of Global Women's Development at the Agency for International Development to integrate violence prevention into current foreign assistance activities.

More specifically, the I-VAWA would do the following:

Increase Legal and Judicial Protection to Address Violence Against Women and Girls. The I-VAWA focuses on establishing and supporting existing laws and legal structures that help to prevent and respond to the range of violence against women and girls, including rape, physical abuse, "honor killings," domestic violence, child or forced marriage, among other forms of violence. Emphasis will be placed on promoting political, legal, and institutional reforms that recognize violence against women and girls as a crime, training police and the judiciary to respond to the needs of victims, including their safety, and on enhancing their ability to bring violators to justice.

Increase Health Sector Capacity to Address Violence Against Women and Girls. The I-VAWA will integrate programs to address violence into existing health programs focused on women's health, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and child survival. A holistic approach is taken with emphasis on training health workers to assess the impact of violence on individual women seeking treatment. Violence against women in refugee and displaced person settings will also be included.

Change Social Norms to End Violence Against Women and Girls. The I-VAWA focuses on preventing violence by changing community norms and attitudes. It will support public awareness programs to change attitudes that condone or even encourage violence and will emphasize community solutions. For example, women who have survived violence will be empowered to change social norms and boys and men will be sought as public spokesmen for programs to teach mutual respect and nonviolent relationships.

Increase Women's Economic Opportunity and Education. The I-VAWA focuses on reducing women's vulnerability to violence by improving their economic status and educational opportunity. Emphasis is placed on ensuring access to job and skills training and employment opportunities, and increasing their right to own land and property. The issue of sexual coercion and assault in the workplace and at school will be addressed.

Address Violence Against Women and Girls in Overseas Natural Disaster and Conflict-Related Humanitarian Situations. The I-VAWA focuses on expanding and coordinating overseas disaster assistance and funding for humanitarian programs to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. Private military contracting firms must demonstrate a commitment to recruiting female candidates for security force training and humanitarian relief roles. Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration programs must identify and provide services for women and girls associated with the fighting forces. It would also decrease potential sexual exploitation and abuse by U.S. military, military contractors, police and humanitarian workers involved in peacekeeping or humanitarian operations by creating training to prevent abuse and a complaints mechanism for reporting problems.

I-VAWA requires the Secretary of State to develop emergency measures to respond to the critical outbreaks of violence against women and girls in armed conflict. These measures include efforts by the US to protect women and girls, to urge all parties of armed conflict to protect women and girls, and to facilitate prosecution of perpetrators.

Increase U.S. Training of Overseas Foreign Security Forces on Violence Against Women and Girls. The I-VAWA requires that U.S. training programs for foreign militaries and police address how to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. Violence prevention will be added to existing training on human rights and humanitarian issues.