Dear Editor:
Everyone has the human right to live free from violence. Yet violence against women and girls is one of the world’s most pervasive human rights violations, with one in three women worldwide experiencing it in her lifetime. That is millions of women every year. This is a human rights crisis of epidemic proportions. Violence knows no national or cultural barriers and comes in many forms, occurring everywhere from Egypt to India to California in the form of rape, acid attacks and murder.
Part of the solution to this epidemic is the bipartisan International Violence Against Woman Act (IVAWA), a bill that would make ending gender-based violence a top US diplomatic and foreign assistance priority by improving and better coordinating the efforts and programs that already exist across the US agencies that do work overseas.
Representatives Chris Gibson has demonstrated that he cares just as much as I do about ending this global epidemic by co-sponsoring IVAWA in the House of Representatives. I urge all of Rep. Gibson’s constituents to thank him for his support and urge him to push for passage of this bill.
Nicholas Crocitto
Legislative Coordinator, Amnesty International, Mid-Hudson Valley Chapter
New Paltz
