Will the clock run out on efforts to end violence against women globally?

In this moment, as you read this, there isn’t a single woman or girl in the world who is entirely free from the threat or the fear of violence.

Before you move onto another article because you’ve heard all this before, try to imagine for a moment what this global crisis really means in the day-to-day lives of countless women and girls throughout the world.

{mosads}It means not going to school, it means not being able to have a job or own property, it means being unable to participate politically, it means unthinkable health complications, it means fear when going out in public or travelling, it means terror when your partner or spouse returns home.

Can you imagine what it is like to live with this threat or fear of violence every single day, impacting every facet of your life?

You don’t have to look far to see the faces behind the fear. The stories aren’t new but that doesn’t make them any less horrific or any less deserving of a response.  

Consider the women and girls abducted by the group calling itself the “Islamic State” who are experiencing horrific acts of sexual violence; or the women murdered with impunity in Guatemala, a country with one of the highest rates of femicide in the world; or 99 percent of women surveyed in Egypt who have undergone some form of sexual harassment; or women in Cambodia who experience physical violence with little recourse owing to a domestic violence law loophole.

And these are just the stories making headlines. It is unfathomable to think of all the others that go untold.

Violence against women isn’t just an international problem; we know it is rampant throughout the United States too. The U.S. must not only work to stop violence against women within its borders, it must also do more around the world to end one of the biggest obstacles to global stability, development, prosperity, and human rights for all, not to mention an impediment to U.S. national security and successful foreign assistance programming.

I wish more than anything that violence against women and girls wasn’t a global epidemic affecting one out of every three women worldwide, crossing all borders and cultures, impacting the ability of women and girls to access the full spectrum of their human rights. I wish violence didn’t devastate the lives of millions of women and girls every year in times of both conflict and peace.

And Amnesty International, along with our hundreds of partner organizations in the Coalition to End Violence Against Women and Girls Globally, really wishes Congress would do something about it. Thankfully, a bipartisan group of determined lawmakers are taking action.

Under the leadership of Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.), alongside an impressive lineup of members on both sides of the aisle, the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) was just reintroduced in both the House and the Senate.

IVAWA will improve the efficiency of existing U.S. efforts to address gender-based violence by ensuring a coordinated, comprehensive diplomatic and foreign assistance strategy is in place to help secure the safety and rights of women and girls across the world. Importantly, the bill would give congressional oversight to such initiatives.

IVAWA recognizes that a whole-of-government approach is needed to end gender-based violence. The bill therefore supports health programs and survivor services, judicial reform and legal protections, law enforcement training, education, and economic opportunities, and encourages critical social norm change about the unacceptability of violence.

While the U.S. government currently has a strategy in place to prevent and respond to gender-based violence globally, it is set to expire this summer. Does this mean that the sun is going to set on critical U.S. efforts to end this global scourge? Unless Congress acts, it very well may.

The urgency of this crisis cannot be overstated. And it will continue until Congress takes steps to end it. I urge all senators and representatives to cosponsor IVAWA, I ask constituents to press their Members of Congress to do so, and I call on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees to commit to the bill’s speedy consideration.

While IVAWA isn’t a cure-all and won’t address violence here in the U.S., it has an important global role to play in helping to eliminate this affront to the basic human right to live free from violence.

I ask again, can you imagine what it is like to live with the threat or fear of violence every single day? And can you imagine what it would be like to finally be free of it? Now ask yourself whether you can really turn a blind eye and do nothing to make that a possibility.  

Drost is Women’s Human Rights adviser for Amnesty International USA.