Lois Frankel: “I thank my friend from Minnesota for yielding. Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking my very good friend, Susan…”

“I thank my friend from Minnesota for yielding. Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking my very good friend, Susan Brooks. Over the past 7 years together we have been involved in many efforts to advance women and girls. It is an honor to work with the gentlewoman. I thank my other colleagues for the support to bring this bill to the floor. It is a bipartisan, bicameral bill. It is sponsored by Senators Murkowski and Shaheen in the Senate. It is called the Keeping Girls in School Act. Madam Speaker, I am going to start with a question: Why should Americans even care that there are 130 million girls around the world who are kept out of school? That a young girl in a Malawi village is too frightened to walk miles to a secondary school for fear of sexual assault? Or that a 12-year-old girl in Mozambique is forced to marry and denied schooling? Or that hundreds of girls are kidnapped from school by Boko Haram terrorists who believe women should be cooks or sex slaves? Or care about the 14-year-old in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Taliban because she wanted girls to be educated? So why should Americans care that there are 130 million girls around the world who are kept out of school? Madam Speaker, there are 130 million reasons to care. According to the Malala Fund, the international nonprofit organization that fights for girl's education, cofounded by Malala, girls' education strengthens economies and creates jobs.…”