Washington — Education and economic empowerment are among the most important tools to prevent the victimization of millions of women around the world who are suffering from violence, experts told members of the U.S. Congress.

“When you look at violence against women, it’s not that there’s one magic program that makes all the difference; but it is critical that education and economic viability are absolutely important tools to address this problem,” said Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues.

Speaking at an October 21 hearing before the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Verveer noted that there is a very close relationship between poverty, lack of opportunity, desperation and the low status of women.

She shared heartbreaking stories of women and girls who have been victimized.

“The current scale, savagery and extent of violence against women and girls is enormous,” she said. “It affects girls and women at every point of their lives, from sex-selective abortion — which has culled as much as 100 million girls — to withholding adequate nutrition, to FGM [female genital mutilation], to child marriage, to rape as a weapon of war, to human trafficking, to so-called ‘honor killings,’ to dowry-related murders and so much more.”

“There is a common thread” among these stories, Verveer said. “Each of them is fundamentally a manifestation of the low status of women and girls around the world. Ending the violence requires elevating their status and freeing their potential to become agents of change for good in their communities.”

One successful tool in giving women economic opportunities — and greater status in their societies — is microcredit programs that allow women to develop their own businesses, Verveer said.

Training and capacity-building programs for women are also vital to ending their low status and helping them contribute to their families and the economic lives of their communities. There are additional benefits as well, she said: “Where there is any contribution to the economic life, women are less put in situations where they are abused.”

Economic interventions are important, too, in protecting women, Verveer said. These include providing incentives to parents to keep their daughters in school, such as ending school fees; providing families with commodities, like a bag of flour, a can of oil or other necessary staples; or feeding children in school.

Representative Janice Schakowsky, co-chair of the House Women’s Caucus, said she will be joining Representative Bill Delahunt, chair of the subcommittee, in reintroducing the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA).

IVAWA authorizes a multiyear, comprehensive strategy to prevent and respond to violence against women in targeted countries, Schakowsky said. The funding would cover a full spectrum of programs, including judicial reform, health care, education, economic empowerment and changing social norms. It includes tools to ensure accountability and oversight to determine the effectiveness of U.S. efforts.

IVAWA recognizes the particular dangers faced by women in conflict and post-conflict situations and authorizes training for military and police forces operating in these dangerous zones to address violence against women and girls. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Schakowsky said, “the systematic use of rape as a low-tech, low-cost weapon of war has become a defining characteristic of the long-standing conflict in the east. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped. Rape is used to destroy communities and to instill a sense of despair within a population.”

According to Schakowsky, IVAWA is “unprecedented legislation” that “firmly establishes the preference of [eliminating] violence against women as a foreign policy priority, and it requires the integration of this goal into every aspect of our diplomatic and developmental policy.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that women’s issues will be at the center of her foreign policy. And President Obama created the position of ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues — now held by Verveer — as well as the White House Council on Women and Girls to study the domestic situation.

Likening violence against women to a “global pandemic,” Verveer urged the development of a “new era of international cooperation” and creating partnerships among governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector, civil society and individuals.

Verveer noted a connection between national security and women’s safety. “Around the world,” she said, “the places that are the most dangerous for women also pose the greatest threat to international peace and security. The correlation is clear: Where women are oppressed, governance is weak and extremism is more likely to take hold.”

The text of Verveer’s prepared remarks can be found on America.gov.

Learn more about this topic in “Women’s Issues to Be Major Focus of U.S. Policy.”