Following on from the occasions of International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day we continue to take time to celebrate women’s outstanding global achievements.
Equally, we must recognise the many challenges and dangers affecting their safety, health, livelihoods and dignity that women and girls throughout the world continue to face daily.
As many as 150,000 refugees have found refuge in Jordan since the start of the Syrian conflict 17 months ago, 75% of them women and children. International Rescue Committee (IRC) vice president Michael Kocher recently testified before the US Congress about the unmet humanitarian needs of Syrians who have fled the escalating violence in their country. The following is an excerpt of his remarks:
IRC calls partner abuse a public health crisis that must be placed on humanitarian agendas
Women in post-conflict West Africa continue to suffer violence at alarming levels and with shocking frequency, but the primary threat to their safety is not strangers or men with guns; it’s their husbands, according to the International Rescue Committee.
After a long and brutal civil war, South Sudan voted in early 2011 to secede from Sudan.
The International Rescue Committee has been in the region for over 20 years and will continue providing the South Sudanese with urgent supplies and services and ongoing development initiatives to build the foundations for a safe, healthy and successful nation.
The IRC empowers survivors of sexual violence to express their concerns and provides medical, psychological, social and legal support.
Sir John Holmes, co-chairman of the International Rescue Committee UK’s Board, and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, was last week interviewed by the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 on the subject of a potential impending humanitarian crisis in the fledgling nation of South Sudan.
Brisons le Silence (Break the Silence) is an innovative campaign, run by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Côte d'Ivoire, with the aim of tackling violence against women and girls by working to change widespread attitudes and social norms that allow violence to happen and make it more difficult for 'survivors' to come forward.
Article: Susan Dentzer
Journalist and International Rescue Committee (IRC) Overseer Susan Dentzer visited Liberia and Sierra Leone this past week as a member of the IRC Commission on Domestic Violence. Dentzer is the editor-in-chief of Health Affairs and an on-air health policy analyst for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS in the United States.
The International Rescue Committee celebrates International Women's Day on March 8th and works every day to protect and empower women across the globe.
