U.S. ASSUMES LEAD ROLE IN DEALING WITH SYRIAN REFUGEES

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
U.S. Plans To Lead in Resettling Syrian Refugees
Remarks
Anne C. Richard
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
Geneva, Switzerland
December 9, 2014

As prepared

I would like to thank HC Guterres and Renata Dubini. Your leadership on the Syria crisis has made a huge difference, as has all of your work on behalf of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

I also want to recognize Germany and Sweden for their commitment to Syrian refugees and asylum seekers. We are also grateful to Sweden for leading the Syrian Resettlement Core Group over the last year.

We applaud the generosity of Syria’s neighbors. They opened their borders and took in Syrian refugees. Like the High Commissioner I have visited all the host countries represented here today. These countries have helped save millions of lives.

As the flow of refugees has grown to a mass exodus, countries hosting refugees in the region have contended with overcrowded hospitals and schools, shortages of everything from housing to water, economic pressures and recent evidence of mounting public resentment.

But these very real burdens must pale in comparison to the daily struggles of Syrians themselves.

Imagine losing practically everything – your loved ones, your home, your profession, and your dignity. Imagine the frustration of languishing for years, unable to work or send children to school, exhausting your resources and relying on handouts. Imagine fearing that this situation is never going to end.

For Syrians and for other victims of violence and persecution – resettlement offers not just an escape, but a chance to start over.

A family from Homs, a shop owner, his wife, and their six children, experienced this flight and rescue. In August of 2010, the father was standing in a crowd of peaceful protesters when the Syrian military arrived and opened fire. Bodies piled up in front of his shop, shells reduced it to rubble, neighbors disappeared, and soldiers ransacked the family’s apartment and made threats. The family fled to Jordan, and they were eventually resettled in the United States. The parents say one of their dreams has already come true. All of their children are back in school.

Only a small fraction of those who want to be resettled can be – only about one hundred thousand refugees per year, worldwide. There are more than six times that many Syrian refugees in Jordan alone.

But war’s true cost is measured in human suffering. Resettlement can help – one person at a time – to bring that suffering to an end.

We applaud the 25 countries that have agreed to resettle Syrian refugees, including some who will be accepting UNHCR refugee referrals for the first time. The United States accepts the majority of all UNHCR referrals from around the world. Last year, we reached our goal of resettling nearly 70,000 refugees from nearly 70 countries. And we plan to lead in resettling Syrians as well. We are reviewing some 9,000 recent UNHCR referrals from Syria. We are receiving roughly a thousand new ones each month, and we expect admissions from Syria to surge in 2015 and beyond.

Like most other refugees resettled in the United States, they will get help from the International Organization for Migration with medical exams and transportation to the United States. Once they arrive, networks of resettlement agencies, charities, churches, civic organizations and local volunteers will welcome them. These groups work in 180 communities across the country and make sure refugees have homes, furniture, clothes, English classes, job training, health care and help enrolling their children in school. They are now preparing key contacts in American communities to welcome Syrians.

I am inspired both by the resilience of refugees we resettle, and the compassion of those who help them. Resettlement cannot replace what refugees have lost or erase what they have endured. But it can renew hope and help restart lives. That can make all the difference.

Thank you.

U.S. OFFICIAL'S REMARKS AT UNFPA'S REPORT ON WORLD POPULATION

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Remarks at the Launch of UNFPA's State of the World Population Report
Remarks
Anne C. Richard
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
Woodrow Wilson Center
Washington, DC
November 18, 2014

Thank you, Roger-Mark. As you noted, my bureau supports UNFPA’s work to increase access to reproductive health services and prevent and respond to gender-based violence throughout the world.

For this reason, I am very pleased to join you all for today’s launch of the 2014 State of the World Population Report on “The Power of 1.8 Billion: Adolescents, Youth, and the Transformation of the Future.”

As this report points out, our hopes for peace and prosperity depend on what happens to this, the largest generation of young people in human history.

But as it cautions, many of them struggle against almost overwhelming odds. In some countries, a girl is more likely to die in childbirth than to complete her education.

The vast majority of young people, nine in 10, live in less developed countries –where poverty is most prevalent and healthcare and schooling hardest to come by. And scarce resources are just one problem.

This report notes that young people often face additional hurdles, such as laws and social norms that can keep them from receiving reproductive health information and services – services they urgently need – to preserve their options, pursue their future goals, and even save their own lives.

For example, while millions of women have an unmet need for contraception, it is married adolescent girls, ages 15 to 19, whose unmet need is the greatest of all. They are only about a third as likely to use contraceptives as married women over 30. Many of these girls have no say in the matter. Unmarried adolescents also struggle to get information that could help them avoid early pregnancy or HIV. Health care workers or families may be hostile or judgmental, and laws may require young people to get parental consent to obtain family planning information or services.

The consequences of this unmet need can be grave. Among 15 to 19 year-old girls in low and middle-income countries, complications from pregnancy and unsafe abortions are a leading cause of death. And while HIV fatalities for other age groups are falling, among adolescents, they are rising.

What is encouraging – and the report makes this clear – is that we can solve this. The report recommends a number of promising interventions – steps the Obama Administration fully supports. They are:

Stopping early and forced marriage and preventing adolescent pregnancies
Strengthening sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights among young people, including adolescents
Preventing and addressing sexual and gender-based violence
Discouraging harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation
Promoting equal education for girls
Improving young people’s prospects for finding good jobs.
There are no painful tradeoffs here. These interventions are mutually reinforcing – and create a virtuous cycle.

More education, less child marriage and gender-based violence, delayed childbearing, healthier kids, stronger economic growth, gender equality, and expanded opportunity all go together.

That is one reason why the U.S. government supports young people’s reproductive rights, youth-friendly, integrated sexual and reproductive health services, and age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education. For example, USAID has been working in countries across the globe to meet adolescent health needs through its “Youth in Development” policy.

And why the Obama Administration has devoted more than $20 million to Secretary Kerry’s signature “Safe from the Start” initiative. Its aim is to stop gender based violence in emergencies. And, as a part of our PEPFAR HIV programs, we have reached over 114,000 survivors with post-rape care over the past four years.

And we are not alone. The vast majority of governments have lined up to support these types of policies – and the goals set forth in international consensus documents starting with the Program of Action that emerged from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. Many have also passed laws to protect the health and rights of young people. But as this report demonstrates, that may not be enough.

For example, there is ample evidence that early and forced marriage is hazardous for girls, exposing them to dangerous pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, and often trapping them and their children in poverty. And almost all countries have established some legal minimum age at marriage. Yet one in nine girls in developing countries gets married before she turns 15. Some child brides are as young as eight or nine.

This report points to one important reason for this. Often, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab States and South Asia, laws against early marriage are not enforced. For example, India has criminalized marriage for girls under 18, but in 2010 only 11 people were actually convicted of violating this law.

This report can help close the gap between the principles enshrined in our international pledges, and what young people experience in their daily lives. It can help laws, enforcement, and programs catch up with intentions. It shows how important it is to understand what holds young people back, not only in theory but in practice, and to give them a voice in shaping solutions.

We all know that young people are the future. Thanks to UNFPA, we now know just how much is at stake. Not only the risks of failure, but the enormous benefits within reach with the right mix of enlightened policies and effective programs. Young people deserve the chance to pursue their dreams and to thrive. As this report shows very clearly, by helping youth secure their future, we can also secure ours.

REMARKS BY ANNE C. RICHARD AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Democracy, Human Rights, Refugees: The International Conference on Population and Development: A 20 Year Review

09/10/2014 12:55 PM EDT

The International Conference on Population and Development: A 20 Year Review

Remarks

Anne C. Richard

Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration

Plenary Session on the ICPD +20, Dean Acheson Auditorium

Washington, DC

September 9, 2014

It is an honor to be here on this the 20th anniversary of one of the great milestones in the history of global development. The International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo changed the whole conversation. Instead of just counting people we recognized how each person counts, has rights, and should be empowered to make his or her own choices.

This had profound consequences. 179 governments pledged to make access to reproductive healthcare and family planning services a basic right, to fight infant, child, and maternal mortality and to do a better job of educating women and girls.

Civil society deserves a lot of credit for this. Non-governmental organizations were there in force. Not just outside, or as adversaries, but as full participants. This was unprecedented. You had a master plan, common messaging, and even a daily bulletin that delegates themselves used to stay on top of the conference and to find out what was going on.

Two decades later you continue to drive progress. When political will ebbs, and back sliding is a real possibility, civil society holds the line. Universal access to reproductive health became a target under the Millennium Development Goals, only after you pushed hard and long for this. During the recent UN Open Working Group meetings on post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, sexual and reproductive health was a low priority for some. You leapt in, alerted friendly governments and helped us get sexual and reproductive health into the health goal and reproductive rights into the gender goal, linked to women’s empowerment and equality. We believe these could be some of the most transformative goals in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

We also count on you at the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Population and Development, as it carries out its responsibility to review our progress in implementing the ICPD Program of Action. There, you and non-governmental organizations from the global south remind us, again and again that enlightened policies and effective programs are a matter of life and death. Your work has been instrumental in coaxing governments to make the additional commitments needed to keep the promises made in Cairo.

You were right to argue, as you have for years, that clinics treating pregnant women for HIV/AIDS should also offer contraceptive services, and that family planning services tailored only for married couples may put young, single people at risk. The CPD resolutions reflect these realities.

Civil society helps us inside the U.S. government as well. One reason the State Department’s annual Human Rights Report now covers reproductive rights is because advocates and service providers convinced top officials that this was needed.

Your research is as essential as your advocacy. The Guttmacher Institute demonstrated that access to modern contraception does not just save lives, empower women, and reduce poverty. It also saves money! Guttmacher’s research found that the $4 billion spent annually on contraceptive care in developing countries actually saves $5.6 billion on the cost of medical care for mothers and newborns. This makes not just health ministries, but influential finance ministries sit up and take notice. Another widely accepted figure that came from Guttmacher is that an estimated 222 million women in the developing world want to avoid or delay pregnancy but still lack the means to do this.

The barriers are geographic, economic, practical and cultural. And we need civil society’s help to overcome them. You are in the field, figuring out what women need and how they can get it.

Take the case of injectable contraceptives. These once had to be administered by doctors and nurses. With USAID’s support, FHI360 conducted research in Uganda and Madagascar showing that community health workers with minimal education could provide them safely. As a result, thirteen African countries now permit this practice.

Civil society groups figure out how to help at-risk, underserved populations including youth. In Liberia, Population Services International developed tools and provided training for family planning and reproductive clinics. Participating clinics were able to serve 15 times more young people and distribute 36 times more contraceptives to youth than they had before.

You also reach the hardest-to-reach places. Marie Stopes International brings family planning services to women and men in 30,000 isolated urban shanty towns and remote rural locations in 26 countries. It has even transported supplies by mule and camel train. MSI offers temporary “Saturday” family planning clinics advertised in local markets and by word of mouth. Women stream in, voluntarily seeking everything from short term methods, to sterilization.

Marie Stopes also helps poor communities set up their own high quality clinics and pharmacies, by explaining what’s needed, training local staff, and offering discounted contraceptives and medical supplies. Last year, while I was in Ethiopia for the International Family Planning Conference, I learned more about this when I visited the Alemu Blue Star Clinic.

On an earlier trip to Burkina Faso, I visited a Rama Foundation recovery center for women and girls ravaged by obstetric fistula. I heard their heartbreaking stories, and met women who had suffered for decades, abandoned by their husbands and families. The Rama Foundation arranges surgery, and gives women a place to stay, learn a trade and rebuild their lives.

As you know, many girls develop obstetric fistula because they give birth before their bodies are ready. Every year, two million girls under age 14 become mothers and most of these girls are married.

NGOs and civil society groups do more than offer medical treatment and contraceptive services. You work to change the attitudes that imperil girls’ bodies, their dreams, and their rights.

Civil society groups know that you cannot end centuries old traditions like child, early and forced marriage by just showing up and saying “don’t do that.” In eight countries across West Africa, an award winning NGO called Tostan sends locally based facilitators who stay in communities for three years. They help people speak openly about what happens when very young girls are forced to marry. Communities discuss the reasons for this practice, like the fear that unmarried girls will be raped or bring dishonor to their families. And together they think of other solutions.

Tostan and other NGOs figure out how to educate and communicate in ways that respect local cultures and make sense to people who cannot read and know little of the wider world. They work with community gatekeepers – traditional and religious leaders – who can empower communities to use family planning, just by signaling their approval.

We need your extraordinary reach, your patience, your passion, your grass-roots connections and experience to make the vision of Cairo real. We promised empowerment and that is not so simple. Enabling people to decide if and when to have children is just part of it. Empowerment happens not in conference rooms but out in the real world in the communities where you work.

On behalf of our government, I want to thank you for being such formidable allies and valued partners now and in the years ahead.