Posted Date: May 20, 2001
Madeleine Albright Says Status of Women and Girls ‘Mainstreamed’ in US foreign policy
Madeleine Albright Says Status of Women and Girls ‘Mainstreamed’ in US foreign policy
At the first Organization of American States (OAS) Ministerial on Women’s Issues held on April 27, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was presented with the Jose Madias Delgado Award by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, Maria Eugenia Brizuela de Avila. The following are excerpts from Albright’s speech.
After 63 male Secretaries of State, I have been determined to make a difference. At President Clinton's request, I am serving as Chair of the White House Interagency Council on Women, which is working to implement the commitments the United States made in 1995 at the UN Women's Conference in Beijing.
And in tandem with Ambassador Hattie Babbitt and others at USAID, I have made efforts to make the status of women and girls part of the mainstream of our foreign policy. Today, our overseas programs include many projects designed to expand the ability of women to succeed economically through legal reforms and access to education, credit and health care.
These initiatives make sense, and they are making a difference. Economists have found that, especially in the developing world, income controlled by the mother is many times more likely to be used to promote the health and education of children than income controlled by the father. When women have the knowledge and power to make our own decisions, whole societies benefit…
Through concerted action before and after Beijing, we have achieved much. But this remains an uphill fight. In too many parts of the world, the habit of treating women as second-class citizens is deeply ingrained.
This habit can show itself through such actions as domestic abuse, sexual assault, honor crimes, dowry murders, and even the killing of baby girls. There are those who suggest these practices are cultural, and there is nothing anyone can do about them. I say they are criminal and we all have a responsibility to stop them.
In 1994, the US Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act, which changed how my government treats crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking of women. We are now working with Congress as it considers a similar piece of legislation to fight the trafficking of women and children. And we enthusiastically support the efforts of other OAS member states to enact legislation to combat these problems.
President Clinton, Attorney General Reno and I have made the fight against trafficking a special priority, both at home and overseas. Our strategy is to educate the public, assist the victims, protect the vulnerable and apprehend the perpetrators.
Unfortunately, the buying and selling of women and children is one of the fastest expanding criminal enterprises in the world. It is now the third largest source of profits for international organized crime, trailing only drugs and guns.
And to one degree or another, this trade afflicts virtually every nation, including the United States. Tens of thousands of people are trafficked into my country annually, including from Latin America. Since coming into office, I have raised this issue at every opportunity with heads of state and my fellow foreign ministers, yielding some hopeful results. And I look forward to working with all of you in the future as we continue this fight.
In recent years, I have had the privilege of meeting women from every part of this hemisphere and every corner of the world who are championing the causes of equal rights, economic opportunity, representative democracy and tolerance among people of different races, cultures and creed.
The women's movement endures, in country after country, not because it is trendy, but because of the underlying power of its central premise, which is that every individual counts. This basic idea of valuing each person fairly is what has united our movement across the boundaries of geography and ethnicity, vocation and generation.
I believe that of all the forces that will shape the world of the 21st Century, the movement to recognize and realize the rights of women will be among the most powerful. To me, that is good news not only as a woman, but also as a citizen of this hemisphere who cares deeply about improving the prospects of our security, prosperity
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