[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4134 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 4134
To support empowerment, economic security, and educational
opportunities for adolescent girls around the world, and for other
purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 24, 2021
Ms. Lois Frankel of Florida (for herself, Mr. Waltz, Ms. Kelly of
Illinois, Mrs. Kim of California, Ms. Houlahan, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Ms.
DeGette, Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania, Ms. Bass, Mr. Moolenaar, Mr.
McGovern, and Mr. Rutherford) introduced the following bill; which was
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To support empowerment, economic security, and educational
opportunities for adolescent girls around the world, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Keeping Girls in
School Act''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as
follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Appropriate congressional committees defined.
Sec. 3. Findings.
Sec. 4. Sense of Congress.
Sec. 5. Secondary education for adolescent girls.
Sec. 6. Global strategy requirement.
Sec. 7. Transparency and reporting to Congress.
SEC. 2. APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES DEFINED.
In this Act, the term ``appropriate congressional committees''
means--
(1) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on
Appropriations of the House of Representatives; and
(2) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on
Appropriations of the Senate.
SEC. 3. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Adolescence is a critical period in a girl's life, when
significant physical, emotional, and social changes shape her
future.
(2) Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV/
AIDS, child, early and forced marriage, and other forms of
violence which are detrimental to their futures, as evidenced
by the following statistics:
(A) Each year, 380,000 adolescent girls and young
women become newly infected with HIV, more than 1,000
every day, and comprise the fastest-growing demographic
for new infections in sub-Saharan Africa.
(B) Each year, 12,000,000 adolescent girls around
the world are married before their 18th birthday, and
more than 650,000,000 women alive today were married as
children.
(C) Child marriages often interrupt schooling,
limit opportunities, and impact the physical,
psychological and social well-being of such girls.
Significant levels of lockdown-related disruption and
economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic could lead
to at least four million more girls married before the
age of 18 in the next two years.
(D) One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing
countries become mothers before the age of 18, and
girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during
childbirth than women in their 20s. As many as one
million girls across sub-Saharan Africa may be blocked
from returning to school due to pregnancy during COVID-
19 school closures.
(3) Before the pandemic, approximately 130,000,000 girls
around the world were not in school, and millions more failing
to acquire basic reading, writing, and numeracy skills. With
COVID-19 school closures affecting nearly 91 percent of the
world's student population, over 743,000,000 girls have had
their education disrupted and will face tremendous barriers to
returning to school when it is safe.
(4) Girls between the ages of 10 and 19 are three times
more likely than boys to be kept out of school, particularly in
countries affected by conflict.
(5) Due to discriminatory gender norms and expectations,
disparities in access to safe and quality education manifest
early in a girl's life and continue to become more pronounced
throughout adolescence.
(6) Girls living with disabilities are less likely to start
school and transition to secondary school than boys living with
disabilities and other children, and just 1 percent of women
with disabilities are literate globally.
(7) While two-thirds of all countries have achieved gender
parity in primary education, only 40 percent have achieved
gender parity in secondary education.
(8) Adolescent girls who remain in school are more likely
to live longer, marry later, and have healthier children.
(9) Investing in holistic programming that ensures all
girls complete secondary education could lift gross domestic
product (GDP) in developing economies by an average of 10
percent and every $1 spent on such programming would generate a
$2.80 return--equivalent to billions of dollars in extra GDP.
(10) Children born to women who completed secondary
schooling or higher have 17.5-percent reduced odds of being off
track for healthy development.
(11) Since July 2015, more than 100 public-private
partnerships have been formed between the United States
Government and external partners to support innovative and
community-led solutions in targeted countries, including Malawi
and Tanzania, to ensure adolescent girls receive a quality
education.
(12) The United States Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls, published in March 2016, has brought together
the Department of State, the United States Agency for
International Development, the Peace Corps, and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, as well as other agencies and programs
such as the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief
(PEPFAR), to address the range of challenges preventing
adolescent girls from attaining an inclusive and equitable
quality education leading to relevant learning outcomes.
(13) Adopted in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development renews the commitment to creating a world where all
girls are healthy and protected, learning and have a fair
chance to succeed. This agenda also states that empowering
girls will require scaling up investments in holistic
programming models to end gender-based violence, child marriage
and female genital mutilation (FGM) and adolescent girls'
education and skills are essential to address gender divides,
particularly in secondary school.
(14) PEPFAR, through its DREAMS (Determined, Resilient,
Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe) Initiative, has
worked to address a number of the specific barriers to
education that adolescent girls face.
SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) every child, regardless of place of birth, deserves an
equal opportunity to access quality education;
(2) the United States has been a global leader in efforts
to expand and improve access to quality basic education for
all, particularly marginalized and vulnerable populations,
including women and girls;
(3) gains with respect to girls' secondary education and
empowerment have been proven to correlate strongly with
progress in gender equality and women's rights, a stated
priority of United States foreign policy and national security;
(4) achieving gender parity in both access to and quality
of educational opportunity contributes significantly to
economic growth and development, thereby lowering the risk for
violence and instability; and
(5) education is a lifesaving humanitarian intervention
that protects the lives, futures, and well-being of girls.
SEC. 5. SECONDARY EDUCATION FOR ADOLESCENT GIRLS.
(a) Authority.--The Administrator of the United States Agency for
International Development shall enter into agreements, including
agreements across sectors, to address the barriers described in
subsection (b) that adolescent girls face in accessing a quality
secondary education in countries where adolescent girls are
significantly more likely to drop out of school than boys. Such
activities shall--
(1) seek to support the needs of adolescent girls
holistically to achieve positive life and learning outcomes;
(2) use existing United States Government strategies and
frameworks relevant to international basic education and gender
equality to--
(A) integrate new technologies, digital learning
enhancements and multi-sectoral approaches to girl's
education such as distance learning and accelerated
education for out-of-school youth;
(B) apply evidence-based approaches;
(C) promote inclusive, equitable and sustainable
educational achievement; and
(D) support a responsible transition to education
systems that are sustainably financed by domestic
governments; and
(3) ensure that schools provide safe and quality
educational opportunities and create empowering environments,
so that girls can enroll in and regularly attend school,
successfully transition from primary to secondary school, and
eventually graduate having achieved learning outcomes and
positioned to make healthy transitions into adulthood.
(b) Specific Barriers.--The barriers described in this subsection
are--
(1) harmful social and cultural norms;
(2) lack of safety at school or traveling to school and
online, including harassment and other forms of physical,
sexual, or psychological violence;
(3) child, early, and forced marriage;
(4) female genital mutilation;
(5) distance from a secondary school;
(6) cost of secondary schooling, including fees, clothing,
and supplies;
(7) inadequate sanitation facilities and products available
at secondary schools;
(8) prioritization of boys' secondary education;
(9) poor nutrition;
(10) early pregnancy and motherhood;
(11) HIV infection;
(12) disability;
(13) discrimination based on religious or ethnic identity;
(14) heavy workload due to household tasks or care burdens;
and
(15) inequitable access to digital resources.
(c) Coordination and Oversight.--
(1) In general.--The United States Agency for International
Development Senior Coordinator for International Basic
Education Assistance, in coordination with the United States
Agency for International Development Senior Coordinator for
Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the Ambassador-at-
Large for Global Women's Issues at the Department of State,
shall be responsible for the oversight and coordination of all
activities of the United States Government carried out under
this section.
(2) Development of agreements.--In the development of
agreements described in subsection (a), the Senior Coordinator
for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the Senior
Coordinator for International Basic Education Assistance at the
United States Agency for International Development shall
consult with representatives across Federal departments and
agencies implementing the Global Strategy described in section
6.
(3) Coordination with other strategies.--Activities carried
out under this section shall also be carried out in
coordination with--
(A) the United States Global Strategy to Empower
Adolescent Girls described in section 6; and
(B) the United States Government Strategy on
International Basic Education, including its objective
to expand access to quality basic education for all,
particularly marginalized and vulnerable populations.
(d) Acceptance of Solicitations for Awards.--The Administrator of
the United States Agency for International Development shall seek to
accept solicitations for awards, pursuant to the authority in
subsection (a), to conduct activities under this section beginning not
later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(e) Monitoring and Evaluation.--The Administrator of the United
States Agency for International Development shall seek to ensure that
activities carried out under this section--
(1) employ rigorous monitoring and evaluation methodologies
to ensure that such activities demonstrably close the gap in
gender parity for secondary education and improve the quality
of education offered to adolescent girls;
(2) disaggregate all data collected and reported by age,
gender, marital and motherhood status, disability, and
urbanity, to the extent practicable and appropriate; and
(3) use, to the extent possible, indicators and
methodologies identified by the Interagency Working Group for
the Strategy on International Basic Education.
SEC. 6. GLOBAL STRATEGY REQUIREMENT.
(a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, and every 5 years thereafter for not less than
10 years, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues at the
Department of State, in consultation with the Senior Coordinator for
Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment and the Senior Coordinator for
International Basic Education Assistance at the United States Agency
for International Development, shall--
(1) review and update a United States global strategy to
empower adolescent girls, which includes a focus on girl's
access to quality, inclusive secondary education and subsequent
agency implementation plans;
(2) provide a meaningful opportunity for review and civil
society consultation on the strategy and agency implementation
plans; and
(3) submit the updated strategy to the appropriate
congressional committees.
(b) Consultation Required.--In reviewing and updating the strategy
and implementation plans under subsection (a), the Ambassador-at-Large
for Global Women's Issues, the Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality
and Women's Empowerment, and the Senior Coordinator for International
Basic Education Assistance shall consult with--
(1) the heads of relevant Federal departments and agencies
(or their designees);
(2) the appropriate congressional committees; and
(3) representatives of United States civil society and
multilateral organizations with demonstrated experience and
expertise in empowering adolescent girls and promoting gender
equality, including local civil society organizations, faith-
based organizations, and program participants where possible.
SEC. 7. TRANSPARENCY AND REPORTING TO CONGRESS.
(a) In General.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the
enactment of this Act, and biennially thereafter for 10 years until
each activity initiated pursuant to the authorities under this Act has
concluded, the Administrator of the United States Agency for
International Development, in coordination with the Secretary of State,
shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report
describing--
(1) the activities initiated under the authorities provided
in this Act; and
(2) the manner and extent to which such activities are
monitored and evaluated, in accordance with section 5(e).
(b) Availability.--The report required by subsection (a) shall be
made available on a text-based, searchable, and publicly available
website of the United States Agency for International Development.
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