On August 10, AFJN Executive Director, Rev. Aniedi Okure, was invited to the White House for the official launch of the first ever “United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally”. The strategy calls for a concerted effort from several government agencies to prevent and respond to gender-based violence from a multifaceted approach: legal, security, health, education, economic, social, humanitarian and development.
Leading up to this interagency strategy, the White House and the State Department hosted a joint civil society consultation which Bahati Jacques, AFJN Policy Analyst attended. As a result, AFJN submitted some suggestions for consideration.
We suggested that a “special emphasis be put on education and peaceful conflict resolution” in the US strategy to fight Gender Based Violence (GBV) worldwide and in Africa in particular. We also asked that the strategy include “policy denying safe heaven to anyone suspected/accused of committing GBV in his or her home Country, and policy on human trafficking and modern slavery”
(Read the full letter here).
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said: “It is time for all of us to assume our responsibility to go beyond condemning this behavior, to taking concrete steps to end it, to make it sociably unacceptable, to recognize it is not cultural; it is criminal” (United Nation, NY, 2009). (Read UN Resolution 1820 on violence agaisnst women here)
President Obama issued an executive order officially declaring that “it is the policy and practice of the United States government to have a multi-year strategy that will more effectively prevent and respond to gender-based violence globally.” Download the strategy here.
