AS DELIVERED
Thank you. We thank the Special Rapporteur for efforts to review and report on violence against women and girls, particularly in dangerous settings. Your work is instrumental to raising awareness of the scale of these acts and the toll they exact on societies. Your reporting is critical to aiding member states in holding perpetrators to account and in delivering justice and effective support services to survivors.
The United States issued our first-ever National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality in which we outline our tireless pursuit of the ideals that embody this concept. Key among them is the goal of life without the threat of gender-based violence, or GBV. President Biden signed into the law the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, improving prevention and response and increasing resources for survivors.
At its core, GBV is a deprivation of an individual’s human rights. It represents a fundamental imbalance in the power structure of our societies and has deleterious effects on development, economic growth, health, safety, and security.
We are particularly mindful of the disproportionate targeting of members of traditionally marginalized and vulnerable populations who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination. We must work together to put an end to all forms of GBV for all who experience it.
Let me close with a question: What do you see as systemic enablers of gender-based violence and obstacles to enforcement, and how can we work collectively to eliminate these?
Original source can be found here.
