NewsFlash

On March 5, Amnesty International launched a two-year global campaign to stop violence against women, with the first year focusing on violence and the military and the second year emphasizing domestic violence. The U.S. section of Amnesty International (AIUSA) announced this campaign in conjunction with the Miles Foundation, a private, non-profit organization providing comprehensive services to victims of violence associated with the military.

"This is a landmark campaign for Amnesty International which, through its recently expanded mandate, has more tools than ever to hold governments accountable for government-sanctioned and private citizen violence against women," said Sheila Dauer, Director of AIUSA's Women's Human Rights Program. "We join the global human rights movement in demanding that violence no longer be justified in the name of culture, religion or state security."

Amnesty International's new report, It's in Our Hands: Stop Violence Against Women, finds that more than 135 million girls and women have undergone brutal female circumcision, with the numbers rising at a rate of two million girls annually. In sub-Saharan Africa, the report says, 60 percent of HIV/AIDS infections are among women, and the disease is exacerbated by a belief that raping a virgin cures the rapist of AIDS. The report also includes information about rape as a weapon of war, and prostitution and trafficking in women, which Amnesty International estimates is a $7 billion business.

"The effects of economic globalization are leaving more and more women trapped in poverty on the margins of society," said Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan. "Armed conflict is having a devastating and desperate impact on women that goes far beyond the inherent violence of war."

To spotlight sexual crimes associated with the U.S. military, AIUSA partnered with the Miles Foundation, which has confirmed 83 sexual assaults against women in uniform in the past 18 months in Iraq and surrounding areas. The Miles Foundation also recorded 1,973 domestic violence cases perpetrated by U.S. servicemen around the world in the same time period. The two groups are urging the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to develop a protocol for responding to violence against women that would protect victims and hold perpetrators accountable, and urging a $10 million appropriation to create a DoD Office of the Victim Advocate to ensure compliance with the protocol.

For more information and actions to take, go to www.amnestyusa.org

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