Talk:International Violence Against Women Act

Discussion of content of Act

This initial draft of the article is not helpful in terms of outlining what is actually in the bill itself. I agree that the background below should not be included in the article, as it doesn't seem to add much. However, people searching for the I-VAWA are going to want to want to see what the bill actually does, not just the procedural stance of the bill in question. Waddles587 (talk) 00:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)waddles587

Initial draft of the article

The initial draft of the article contained a lot of background information, but not necessarily meeting Wikipedia guidelines for article content and resulted in the template to wikify the article, update it to meet standards, etc. I've copied it here to see if anyone sees information that is deemed important to the article.

The forming of The International Violence Against Women Act began in 2003 to develop policy and possibly legislation to address gender-based violence internationally. Futures Without Violence, Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF), and the International Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai’s co-chaired the international working group to develop the U.S. Violence Against Women Act of 2004.

Women Thrive Worldwide (then the Women’s EDGE Coalition) and Amnesty International USA were also working together to develop a robust policy response to promote gender equality within foreign assistance and U.S. diplomacy and had also been working to address violence against women as they developed the GAINS for Women and Girls Bill.

Key research was also being conducted at that time around the health and economic impacts of violence against women and girls, and advocacy around HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence and women in conflict was also being spearheaded by groups like the International Center for Research on Women, World Health Organization, Women’s Refugee Commission/International Rescue Committee and the Center for Health and Gender Equity.

In June 2003, Futures Without Violence hosted a meeting at the Open Society Institute in Washington, D.C. that brought together many of the individuals and organizations working on these issues to try to develop a unified agenda around International gender-based violence. Coming out of that meeting, organizations chose to focus initially on funding for the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. At that point, the United States was not contributing to the Trust Fund and it appeared to be the best vehicle to accomplish the goals established by the group. A small working group continued to meet and the co-chairs of the two already existing working groups agreed to join and form a single coalition.

Within two years, the coalition had secured funding for the UNIFEM Trust Fund, thanks to the leadership of Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), who also encouraged NGOs working on these issues to suggest something more substantive, specifically around sexual violence. The NGOs working on this then began an exhaustive research process to develop such legislation, including translating outlines of the legislation into Spanish, French and Russian, and distributing to local women’s groups and networks throughout the developing world. More than 100 individuals and organizations offered feedback on the proposed legislation.

At that same time Senator Joe Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act, was working on the reauthorization of his landmark bill and also co-chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Senator Richard Lugar. During 2005-2006, groups working on these issues approached them about introducing a companion bill to VAWA that focused more on the needs of women and girls in the developing world. They eagerly took on that work and in 2007 the International Violence Against Women Act was first introduced, S. 2279. A companion version of the bill was later introduced in the House of Representatives and championed by Chairman Howard Berman, after its previous champion, Congressman Tom Lantos passed away.

The bill was set to be marked up in the Senate in September 2008, however shortly before that hearing Senator Biden was tapped to be the Vice Presidential running mate of Barack Obama, and the hearing and legislation were put on hold.

During the next Congress, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry(D-MA) reintroduced the bill with Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) in the Senate, and Congressmen Bill Delahunt(D-MA) and Ted Poe (R-TX) championed it in the House. Hearings were held in both the House and Senate that included testimony from UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, former Ambassador Don Steinberg and Ambassador Melanne Verveer, and the bill was passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in December 2010. Congress adjourned before further action could be taken.

Currently, the I-VAWA Coalition is working with Congressmen Ted Poe (R-TX) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) to reintroduce the bill in the House.

In the meantime, I'll work on the article, and see if it gets the salient points. People that want to weigh in on opposing or supporting the deletion of some or all of the text, please do so.--CaroleHenson (talk) 03:27, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Petitions

I've removed them all. Not much support, one was by one person, the only notable organisation was Women Thrive Worldwide which should have an article probably. Dougweller (talk) 16:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)