[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 571 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 571
To improve United States consideration of, and strategic support for,
programs to prevent and respond to gender-based violence beginning with
the onset of humanitarian emergencies, to build the capacity of
humanitarian assistance to address the immediate and long-term
challenges resulting from such violence, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 28, 2021
Ms. Meng (for herself, Mr. Diaz-Balart, Ms. Houlahan, Mr. Stewart, Ms.
Lois Frankel of Florida, Mr. Case, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Meeks, Mr.
Cicilline, Ms. Titus, Mr. Deutch, Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. Trone, Ms. Lee of
California, Ms. Pingree, Mr. Connolly, Ms. Spanberger, Mr. Bilirakis,
Mr. Cohen, Mr. Cardenas, Mr. Evans, Ms. Bass, Ms. Wild, Mr. Hastings,
Mr. Carbajal, Mr. Grijalva, Miss Gonzalez-Colon, Mr. Lawson of Florida,
Mr. Pocan, Mrs. Hayes, Mr. McGovern, and Mr. Carson) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To improve United States consideration of, and strategic support for,
programs to prevent and respond to gender-based violence beginning with
the onset of humanitarian emergencies, to build the capacity of
humanitarian assistance to address the immediate and long-term
challenges resulting from such violence, 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.
This Act may be cited as the ``Safe from the Start Act of 2021''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Displaced, refugee, and stateless women and girls in
humanitarian emergencies, conflict settings, and natural
disasters face extreme violence and threats, including--
(A) rape and sexual assault;
(B) domestic or intimate partner violence;
(C) child, early, and forced marriage;
(D) trafficking for the purposes of sexual;
(E) exploitation and forced labor;
(F) harmful traditional practices such as female
genital mutilation or cutting; and
(G) harassment, exploitation, and abuse by
humanitarian personnel.
(2) Gender-based violence is known to increase during
humanitarian emergencies. Violent acts such as intimate partner
violence and child marriage that take place during times of
stability are often exacerbated during times of crisis.
(3) For example, according to the United Nations
Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, there was an increase of 56 percent in reported
cases of conflict-related sexual violence between 2016 and
2017.
(4) Nearly 1 in 5 women report experiencing sexual violence
during a humanitarian emergency.
(5) Intimate partner violence is pervasive and becomes
increasingly common during times of conflict and crisis.
Residence in a conflict-affected district is associated with a
50-percent increase in risk of intimate partner violence, and
women who have experienced 4-5 cumulative years of conflict are
almost 90 percent more likely to experience such violence than
women who are not living in conflict settings.
(6) Child, early, and forced marriages increase during
humanitarian crises and can be used as a tool of last resort to
cope with economic hardship and to protect girls from increased
violence. Conflict can exacerbate cultural norms of child,
early, and forced marriage or create harmful cultural behaviors
where they had not previously existed.
(7) Women and girls are especially vulnerable to
trafficking during humanitarian crises, particularly by non-
state armed groups who abduct and traffic women and girls for
sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and child, early, and
forced marriage, among other forms of exploitation.
(8) The power imbalance between aid workers and displaced
people, combined with the economic hardship caused by crises,
creates markets for sexual exploitation and abuse that are too
frequently abused by aid workers and peacekeepers seeking
sexual services from displaced or vulnerable people.
(9) In 2018, the United Nations received a total of 148
sexual exploitation and abuse allegations directly involving
United Nations aid workers, and 111 involving staff from
partner organizations implementing United Nations programs.
(10) According to United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, while women and girls are most vulnerable to gender-
based violence, marginalized populations are also at particular
risk of gender-based violence in humanitarian crises, including
adolescent girls, older women, women and children with
disabilities, sexual and gender minorities, and female heads of
households.
(11) Gender-based violence is under-reported, both in times
of stability and during crises. While data may not be
immediately available in each crisis or conflict, evidence
shows that gender-based violence is consistently a major and
pressing concern for women and girls facing humanitarian
emergency contexts and should be assumed to be a protection
concern in all humanitarian planning and risk assessment, even
in the absence of data.
(12) Men and boys play a critical role in preventing
gender-based violence, and engaging them in prevention and
accountability activities while empowering women and girls in
the transformation of gender roles and combating harmful norms
that lead to increased rates of gender-based violence at the
onset of emergencies, leads to lasting results.
(13) Survivors of gender-based violence during humanitarian
emergencies and their families require immediate, life-saving
assistance, including post-rape care or access to other
comprehensive medical and psychosocial services, to address the
physical, psychological, and social impacts of gender-based
violence. They also require long-term support such as
opportunities to earn livelihoods, build skills or receive an
education, and access to justice and community-level
reintegration. Early medical interventions after incidents of
rape can help to prevent infections, HIV, and pregnancy.
(14) Empowering women to assume leadership roles in
delivering humanitarian response and meaningfully engaging
local organizations, including women's rights, humanitarian,
advocacy, and service-provider organizations, through training
and directed resources to operate in emergency settings and
provide life-saving assistance is critical to supporting
survivors or those at risk of gender-based violence.
(15) The international community has prioritized addressing
the issue of gender-based violence in humanitarian contexts by
launching a Global Call to Action on Protection from Gender-
Based Violence in Emergencies in 2013, which the United States
implemented through establishing the ``Safe from the Start''
initiative, carried out by the Department of State and the
United States Agency for International Development.
(16) Safe from the Start aimed to prevent and respond to
gender-based violence at the onset of an emergency and to
provide resources to strengthen the core capacity of
humanitarian assistance implementers to address gender-based
violence at the earliest phases of an emergency, including
through supporting the development of training, guidelines,
toolkits, and other resources to guide operations.
(17) The Women's Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment
Act (Public Law 115-428) requires the United States ``to strive
to eliminate gender-based violence and mitigate its harmful
effects on individuals and communities'' in its development
cooperation policy. Recognizing the need to prevent and respond
to gender-based violence globally, Congress has appropriated
$150,000,000 annually in each of fiscal years 2013 through 2019
for this purpose.
(18) The United States has further committed to prevention
and response to gender-based violence globally through the
interagency United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to
Gender-Based Violence Globally, the Women, Peace and Security
Act Strategy and Implementation Plan, the U.S. Global Strategy
to Empower Adolescent Girls, the U.S. Strategy to Support Women
and Girls at Risk from Extremism and Conflict, and the U.S.
Government Strategy on Advancing Protection and Care for
Children in Adversity.
SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
It is the policy of the United States--
(1) to take effective action to prevent, mitigate, and
address gender-based violence occurring during humanitarian
emergencies around the world to promote respect for basic human
rights and gender equality, economic growth, improved public
health, and peace and stability;
(2) to ensure collective commitment to and accountability
for immediate humanitarian action on gender-based violence at
all levels, especially on the part of senior humanitarian
leadership;
(3) to maintain sustained political will and robust systems
and processes in order to establish, monitor, and enforce
accountability for humanitarian action;
(4) to systematically integrate and coordinate efforts to
prevent and respond to gender-based violence in United States
foreign policy and foreign assistance programs, including
conflict prevention, humanitarian relief and recovery, and
peace-building efforts;
(5) to promote accountability and access to justice for
acts of gender-based violence;
(6) to build local capacity in countries responding to
humanitarian crises, including the capacity of governments at
all levels and of nongovernmental organizations, especially
women-focused and women-led organizations, to prevent,
mitigate, and respond to gender-based violence;
(7) to consult, cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate with
a wide variety of nongovernmental partners and international
organizations, including women-focused and women-led
organizations, when designing and implementing humanitarian
response programs;
(8) to support activities that prevent and mitigate the
impacts of gender-based violence in humanitarian settings and
that empower survivors or those at risk of gender-based
violence, including through economic opportunities, access to
education and skills building, and promotion of women's
leadership and participation in humanitarian response;
(9) to ensure that international organizations and
nongovernmental organizations receiving funding from the United
States have the capacity and internal protocols to address
gender-based violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse
committed by humanitarian personnel, integrate gender-based
violence prevention and response initiatives into policies and
programs, and report regularly on efforts to prevent and
respond to gender-based violence;
(10) to employ a multisectoral approach to preventing and
responding to gender-based violence globally, including through
activities in the economic, education, health, protection,
nutrition, and legal sectors;
(11) to ensure protection against sexual exploitation and
abuse by humanitarian actors; and
(12) to include the active leadership and participation of
women and girls in humanitarian program design, implementation,
and evaluation.
SEC. 4. SAFE FROM THE START AUTHORIZATION.
(a) Establishment.--The Secretary of State, in coordination with
the Administrator of the United States Agency for International
Development, is authorized to establish an interagency effort, to be
known as the ``Safe from the Start'' program, to--
(1) coordinate efforts to prevent, mitigate, and address
gender-based violence in humanitarian crises; and
(2) provide assistance to international and local non-
governmental organizations to carry out Safe from the Start
programming.
(b) Programming Efforts.--The Secretary shall support efforts to
prevent, mitigate, and address gender-based violence through Safe from
the Start, including the following efforts:
(1) Building capacity to recognize, prevent, and address
gender-based violence in humanitarian settings and to support
survivors and those at risk.
(2) Promoting women's leadership and participation in
humanitarian response activities, including the design,
implementation, and evaluation of humanitarian responses.
(3) Ensuring quality protection for survivors of such
crises beginning with the onset of the emergency, by developing
technical capability for advocacy, monitoring, data collection,
evaluation, and communications, including timely gender
analyses, throughout the United States Government, recipient
country's government, local nongovernmental organizations, and
international non-governmental organizations.
(4) Increasing and improving empowerment activities for
survivors of gender-based violence, including women's and
girls' access to economic opportunities and livelihoods,
education and skills, and leadership roles.
(5) Building and improving international standards and
evidence-based best practices with respect to gender-based
violence prevention, monitoring, and response, through support
to programs, evaluations, research, and the development of
innovative new practices.
(6) Developing safe spaces for the safe disclosure of
incidents of gender-based violence, meaningful dialogue,
psycho-social interventions, and culturally-specific support.
(7) Safeguarding against sexual exploitation or abuse by
humanitarian personnel by prioritizing activities that ensure
that Federal employees and contractors delivering United States
humanitarian assistance are equipped to address sexual
exploitation and abuse in settings of humanitarian aid
delivery, including by strengthening guidelines, training,
reporting mechanisms, and remedies that both recognize and
address the risks within the humanitarian aid context that can
create vulnerabilities for sexual exploitation and abuse.
(c) Programming Improvement of Protection Mechanisms.--The
Secretary shall improve the delivery and quality of United States
assistance to protect survivors of gender-based violence, through the
Safe from the Start programming described in subsection (b), by
improving assistance activities, including activities carried out under
the Safe from the Start program, in the following areas:
(1) Access to and quality of comprehensive medical services
for survivors and at-risk populations in line with the
international standards described in subsection (b)(5),
including--
(A) post-rape and post-sexual assault medical care;
(B) psycho-social and mental health services; and
(C) hygiene and dignity kits.
(2) Service delivery to hard-to-reach populations,
prioritizing services that reach--
(A) survivors of natural disasters;
(B) refugee and internally displaced person camps
and settlements;
(C) active conflict zones; and
(D) refugees and IDPs living in urban areas.
(d) Improving Standards and Guidelines.--The Secretary shall
support global efforts to develop guidelines, toolkits, reporting
mechanisms, and other institutional response and accountability
measures in order to incorporate effective gender-based violence
prevention and response activities across all humanitarian assistance
programs and projects, including through--
(1) the promotion of minimum standards, indicators, and
metrics to assess the adequacy of interventions relating to
gender-based violence, taking into consideration the
``Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence
Interventions in Humanitarian Action'' published by the Inter
Agency Standing Committee in 2015, the findings of the
evaluation of the Real-Time Accountability Partnership on
Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies in 2016, and the ``Minimum
Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action''
published by the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian
Action in 2019;
(2) support to international organizations and
nongovernmental organizations, with the establishment and
implementation of standards, protocols, and accountability
mechanisms for preventing and addressing sexual exploitation or
abuse perpetrated by personnel delivering humanitarian
assistance; and
(3) assistance for the development of monitoring tools
across all humanitarian assistance programming to standardize
monitoring and accountability relating to gender-based violence
prevention and response.
(e) Capacity Building Support.--The Secretary shall provide support
for capacity-building of organizations seeking to prevent, mitigate,
and address gender-based violence, including by--
(1) building capacity of on-the-ground organizations to
recognize, prevent, and address gender-based violence in
humanitarian settings and to support survivors and those at
risk, including through training and deploying female
humanitarian aid workers;
(2) performing on-the-ground gender-based and gender-based
violence analyses and otherwise rapidly assessing and
communicating the needs of women, girls, and other populations
that are vulnerable to gender-based violence in crises;
(3) improving technical expertise and the availability of
dedicated gender advisors in international organizations to
prevent and respond to gender-based violence in humanitarian
settings through the Gender Based Violence Area of
Responsibility of the United Nations Populations Fund and
across sectors of humanitarian action, including through
training and sensitization of humanitarian aid workers on
support for survivors of gender-based violence;
(4) promoting supportive partnerships between local
humanitarian actors and nongovernmental organizations,
including for women's leadership and participation in
humanitarian response; and
(5) training for nongovernmental providers of international
development assistance during the onset and subsequent phases
of a humanitarian crisis, so that such providers are equipped
to continue relief, recovery, and reconstruction work that is
sensitive to the prevention and mitigation of gender-based
violence after the immediate humanitarian engagement has
finished.
SEC. 5. REPORTS REQUIRED.
(a) Progress Report.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State, in
coordination with the Administrator of the United States Agency
for International Development, shall submit to the appropriate
congressional committees a report on the progress made by the
United States and by partners, including international
organizations, in the implementation or delivery of
humanitarian assistance to prevent, mitigate, and address
gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies.
(2) Elements.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall
include each of the following:
(A) An aggregation and examination of data and
research regarding the key drivers of gender-based
violence during humanitarian emergencies, the critical
needs of and services required by survivors or those at
risk of such violence, and successful program models to
address, prevent, and mitigate such violence.
(B) A detailed description of the programs,
diplomatic efforts, and other activities undertaken by
the United States to implement the Safe from the Start
programming focus described in section 4, including
specific descriptions of--
(i) the steps taken to integrate
prevention, mitigation, and response to gender-
based violence into the delivery of
humanitarian assistance, the development of
humanitarian standards, and responses to
specific humanitarian crises;
(ii) the progress made, as of the date of
the submission of the report, toward achieving
specific objectives, metrics, and indicators
for implementation of Safe from the Start
programming, disaggregated where appropriate by
gender, age, and type of violence;
(iii) a list of the projects funded or
supported through the Safe from the Start
programming focus, with specific details on
levels of funding or assistance and impacts of
such projects, disaggregated where appropriate
by gender, age, and type of violence;
(iv) an assessment of the extent to which
consultations with nongovernmental
organizations, including local actors, and
intergovernmental actors, have led to the
development of programs, standards, and
interventions to combat gender-based violence;
(v) a list of the policies or programs
implemented by international or multilateral
organizations receiving funding from the United
States Government to improve capacity and
internal protocols to identify signs of gender-
based violence, including sexual exploitation
and abuse, and integrate initiatives to prevent
and respond to gender-based violence into all
programs of the organization; and
(vi) a description of any diplomatic action
taken bilaterally, multilaterally, or with
international organizations to encourage
international organizations and the governments
of other countries to adopt policies to prevent
and respond to gender-based violence in
emergency situations, including any diplomatic
efforts to strengthen the Global Call to Action
on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in
Emergencies by increasing the number of
governments participating in and contributing
to its gender-based violence prevention and
response activities.
(3) Consultation required.--In developing the report
required by paragraph (1), the Secretary of State and
Administrator of the United States Agency for International
Development shall consult with the Assistant Secretary for
Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State
and the Associate Administrator for Humanitarian Assistance of
the Agency for International Development.
(4) Form.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall be
submitted in unclassified form but may include a classified
annex. The unclassified portion of such report shall
concurrently be published on a publicly available website of
the Department of State.
(b) Budget Report.--Not later than 120 days after the submission of
each budget submitted to Congress by the President under section
1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a
budget crosscut report that--
(1) displays the budget proposed, including any planned
interagency or intra-agency transfer, for each of the principal
Federal agencies that will be carrying out activities through
the Safe from the Start programming focus described in section
4(a) in the fiscal year for which such budget is submitted;
(2) separately reports the amount of funding to be provided
pertaining to Safe from the Start activities authorized
pursuant to section 4(a), to the extent such plans are
available; and
(3) to the extent practicable, identifies all assistance
and research expenditures at the account level in each of the
five previous fiscal years by the Federal Government using
Federal funds for Safe from the Start activities.
(c) Appropriate Congressional Committees Defined.--In this section,
the term ``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
(1) the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on
Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives; and
(2) the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on
Foreign Relations of the Senate.
SEC. 6. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There is authorized to be appropriated $140,000,000 for each fiscal
year to carry out this Act.
<all>