Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am very pleased to be on the floor today with my colleague Senator Hirono to express our strong support for the nomination of Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta to be Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues at the Department of State. The position that Dr. Gupta has been nominated for leads the Office of Global Women's Issues, which is charged with advancing the rights and empowerment of women and girls around the world through U.S. foreign policy, so looking at our foreign policy through a gender lens that recognizes that women are half of the world's population. Not only does the Office of Global Women's Issues prioritize policies and programs to advance the status of women around the world, it ensures that U.S. policies incorporate a gender lens at all levels of policy and decision making. The last 2\1/2\ years of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated why this office is more important than ever before. Around the world over those last 2\1/2\ years, the gender gap has grown as a result of the pandemic. Girls are dropping out and staying out of school at a higher rate than boys. The female labor force participation rate has declined, with women not only holding less secure jobs but also taking on more unpaid work at home with childcare and housing. Gender-based violence has increased to such an extent that UN Women, the U.N. body charged with advancing the rights of women globally, now warns of what they call a ``shadow pandemic'' of violence.…”