On July 20, the House approved, 351-78, the foreign relations authorization bill (H.R. 2601) for FY2006 and FY2007. The House International Relations Committee approved the measure on June 9 (see The Source, 6/10/05). The Senate debated its version of the FY2006 State Department authorization bill (S. 600) in April, but postponed final consideration until later this year (see The Source, 4/7/05).
H.R. 2601 would authorize $9.93 billion for the State Department in FY2006, a 12.4 percent increase over FY2005 as requested by the administration. Such sums as may be necessary would be authorized for FY2007.
During consideration of the bill, the House approved, 223-205, an amendment offered by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) that would increase from $5 million to $7.5 million the FY2007 authorization for health centers to treat obstetric fistula. The amendment also would include report language stating that funds may be used for “activities to expand abstinence education [and promote] postponement of marriage and childbearing.” In addition, the amendment would strike report language that would have increased access to contraceptives for women at high risk of prolonged or obstructed childbirth.
Rep. Smith explained that obstetric fistula “occurs during obstetric labor, which sometimes damages soft tissue. The destroyed tissues leave a hole or fistula in the pelvic floor, which causes incontinence. Tragically, the constant leaking of urine and feces leads to sickness, desertion by husbands and family, extreme social isolation, and poverty.” He said that according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the women most vulnerable to developing obstetric fistula are “very young mothers, women experiencing their first birth, women whose growth has been stunted due to malnutrition or illness, and poor women who lack access to the most basic of obstetric services.” Rep. Smith also noted that “for $150 to a couple hundred dollars, a woman victimized by fistula can obtain a surgical repair that gives her back her life,” adding, “No woman should be denied this minimal, life-saving surgical repair.”
Arguing that the amendment is “a direct assault on birth control and comprehensive family planning,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) stated, “We are all fighting to prevent and treat obstetric fistula, a condition that tears apart the lives of young women whose bodies are not fully developed when obstructed prolonged labor occurs. But I am very disappointed that the bipartisan compromise that was brokered in committee in preventing obstetric fistula and providing medical treatment for its survivors is now being dismantled. We have to be realistic, and we must put our politics aside and put women and their babies first. Making birth control more available and accessible is one of the most effective ways to give women the ability to prevent high-risk pregnancies and to reduce the incidence of fistula.”
The House also approved, by voice vote, an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) that would authorize $500,000 in FY2006 for the State Department to provide assistance to identify unknown victims who were murdered in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez through forensic analysis, including DNA testing, conducted by independent, impartial experts who are sensitive to the special needs and concerns of the victims’ families.
Rep. Lantos explained that “since 1993, over 400 women have been murdered in the border region around El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. In the last year alone, over 30 women have been killed. According to Amnesty International…at least 137 of the victims, more than half of whom were between the ages of 13 and 22, were sexually assaulted prior to being murdered.” He added, “Realizing the deliberate ineptitude of local law enforcement under whose jurisdiction these cases would normally fall, the Mexican Federal Government has begun to implement measures to prevent these abductions and murders in Ciudad Juarez, including by establishing a commission to coordinate Federal and State efforts, crafting a 40-point plan of action and appointing a special federal prosecutor. Unfortunately, these efforts have not been enough to close the killing fields around this border town. Our own ambassador to Mexico has declared the area to be a public security concern and advised United States citizens against traveling there.”
Calling the amendment “commonsense,” Rep. Smith said that it “simply seeks to provide congressional authority and funding to the Secretary of State to make independent technical and forensic expertise available to the families of these young women and girls.”
The House also approved the following amendments:
|
H.R. 2601 would authorize $955 million in FY2006 and $987.3 million in FY2007 for migration and refugee assistance, which includes funding for programs to combat human trafficking. Of that amount, $2.5 million would be authorized for a pilot program to address the needs of long-term refugee populations. The House International Relations Committee report accompanying the bill states, “The world’s refugee crisis persists with more than 13 million refugees, 80 percent of whom are women and children, in desperate need of durable solutions. Many have been traumatized by the loss of their homes and the murder of their loved ones, compounded by the uncertainty of their precarious existence in refugee camps. Due to funding shortfalls to meet pressing needs, refugees often lack adequate food rations, medical care, and protection. The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration has faced funding shortfalls over the last several fiscal years, and for FY2001, overall spending levels are significantly above the $774 million appropriated in FY2005 for refugee and migration assistance. It is expected [that] the Department will spend the $120.4 million in FY2005 supplemental funds appropriated for refugees earlier this year, and that the needs identified for the supplemental funding will continue into FY2006.”
Under the bill, $5 million in FY2006 and $7.5 million in FY2007 would be authorized for health centers to treat and prevent obstetric fistula in developing countries. According to the report, “rape, other physical abuse or untreated, obstructed labor can lead to a fistula, or hole, between a woman’s birth passage and one or more of her internal organs. An estimated two million women globally suffer from this condition, which is responsible for about 8 percent of the half million worldwide maternal deaths annually. Approximately 50,000 to 100,000 new cases of fistula are added each year.
“USAID has concentrated on prevention of fistula through a variety of initiatives that include increased availability to emergency care for fistula victims and increased attendance of skilled medical personnel at delivery.”
The report further explains that the provision “authorizes the President to establish not less than twelve centers for the treatment of obstetric fistula in developing countries. Each center shall provide, to the maximum extent possible, surgery to repair obstetric fistula in women who do not have the resources to pay for such surgery and aftercare, transportation to and from the center for women in need, provide food and shelter as needed to those women, [and] engage in activities to reduce the incidence of obstetric fistula, including seminars and dissemination of brochures, pamphlets, posters, and other educational material.”
H.R. 2601 would require the State Department to submit a report to Congress concerning the incidence of child marriages throughout the world. In addition, information on child marriages would be included in the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The United Nations Children’s Fund “reports that in some countries half of all girls are married by the age of 18 because of poverty, tradition and family pressure. Child marriages are most common in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where poverty, traditional taboos about premarital sex, and fears of AIDS are widespread.”
The bill would authorize funding to improve maternal and prenatal care for women in Belarus and Ukraine who were involved in the cleanup of the region affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. According to the report, “Nearly 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster, there is a large increase in chromosome damage and birth defects now affecting the new generation in Belarus and Ukraine. A number of health studies have indicated spikes in chromosome damage as high as seven-fold. This is particularly the case among the more than 600,000 emergency workers, firefighters, miners and construction workers who were exposed to exceedingly high levels of radiation during the 1986 cleanup effort. Parents in the affected region are still being exposed to radioactive fallout as well.
“With respect to certain types of birth defects (e.g. respiratory disease, anemia, severe cleft palates and facial deformities, missing digits or limbs, damaged, missing or malformed critical organs and certain types of telltale cardiac defects linked to radiation exposure), pregnant mothers can be monitored, and prenatal care can bolster the mother’s ability to carry the child to term and the child’s ability to increase in weight. Training of medical personnel helps improve prenatal care, and for congenital heart defects, the condition can be detected in utero, monitored and preparations made for surgical intervention after birth.”
H.R. 2601 states that Congress “strongly condemns the disenfranchisement of women, including restrictions that prevent women from holding office,” and “calls on the Government of Saudi Arabia to, at the earliest possible time, promulgate a law that grants women the right to vote and to run for office in all future Saudi elections, whether local, provincial or national.” The bill also states that President Bush “is encouraged to take such actions as [he] considers appropriate, including a downgrading of diplomatic relations, to encourage countries that disenfranchise only women to grant women the right to vote and hold office.”
Under the bill, the State Department would be required to translate the Trafficking in Persons Report, the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, and the Annual Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom into the official language of the applicable country. The State Department also would be required to post the reports on the appropriate State Department and embassy websites within 30 days of the report’s release.
The measure would authorize approximately $1.04 billion for a U.S. contribution to United Nations international peacekeeping missions. The report notes that the authorization “reflects the Committee’s continued commitment to United Nations peacekeeping operations and the search for peace and stability around the world. However, the Committee is deeply troubled by reports of sexual exploitation, abuse, and other forms of misconduct by United Nations peacekeepers serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and elsewhere. Such heinous crimes have done irreparable damage to the image of the United Nations to undertake serious and far-reaching peacekeeping reforms including the adoption and enforcement of a uniform Code of Conduct and fully anticipates that these reforms will be put in place without further delay.”
The bill “commends the Governments of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana for taking tangible steps to address child labor in the cocoa industry, encourages them to consider as a top priority child labor and forced labor issues, recognizes the voluntary protocol and ILO [International Labor Organization] convention 182, encourages governments, NGOs, and the chocolate industry to continue developing a child labor monitoring system, and calls on the State Department to assist the two governments in preventing trafficking in persons into the cocoa fields and other industries in West Africa.”
The measure would authorize that no less than 50 percent of the funds provided for the Middle East Partnership Initiative should be used to expand female and minority participation in the political, economic, and educational sectors of countries participating in the initiative.
Finally, H.R. 2601 includes the text of the Advance Democratic Values, Address Nondemocratic Countries, and Enhance (ADVANCE) Democracy Act (H.R. 1133). Sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), the measure would authorize governmental reforms to ensure that promoting democracy is a fundamental component of U.S. foreign policy. Under the bill, the State Department would coordinate United States policy on a number of global issues, including women’s rights, population issues, refugees, and human trafficking.
