RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, International Women's Day, celebrated throughout the world on March 8^th, is a time to:

WHEREAS, 228,000,000 women are in need of effective contraceptive methods; and

WHEREAS, a woman dies every minute as a result of pregnancy and childbirth-related causes (approximately 500,000 women a year) and for every woman who dies, 30 other women are injured or disabled; and

WHEREAS, between 700,000 and 4,000,000 people, mainly women and children, are trafficked annually across international borders for sexual exploitation and forced labor; and

WHEREAS, 50,000 to 100,000 women and girls are trafficked annually for sexual exploitation into the United States; and

WHEREAS, HIV/AIDS is a women's epidemic worldwide with over 19,000,000 women worldwide currently living with HIV/AIDS and over 1,000,000 women dying of AIDS in 2002; and

WHEREAS, for the last several years, HIV/AIDS has been the fifth leading cause of death for women ages 25 to 44 years in the United States, and the third leading cause of death for African American women in this same age group; and

WHEREAS, gender-based violence against women, including prenatal sex selection, female infanticide, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation, school and workplace sexual harassment, sexual trafficking and exploitation, prostitution, dowry-killings, domestic violence, battering, and marital rape, causes more death and disability among women in the 15 to 44-year age group than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and even war; and

WHEREAS, approximately 4,800,000 rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated annually against women in the United States; and

WHEREAS, women in many countries lack the right to own land and inherit property, obtain credit, attend and stay in school, earn income, and be free from job discrimination, and also lack access to services that meet their sexual and reproductive health needs; and

WHEREAS, over 2,000,000,000 women around the globe live on less than $2 a day, and women in the United States earn 73 cents on average for every $1 earned by men; and

WHEREAS, two-thirds of the 960,000,000 illiterate adults in the world are women and two-thirds of the 130,000,000 children not enrolled in primary school are girls; and

WHEREAS, in 1972, Hawaii became the first state to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment, which would have amended the United States Constitution by adding a guarantee of equal rights for women; and

WHEREAS, in 2003, the Hawaii State House of Representatives adopted House Resolution No. 59, which supported International Women's Day, urged the United States Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and urged the United States Congress to fund high quality, voluntary family planning and reproductive health services; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2005, the Senate concurring, that the Legislature urges the United States Senate to demonstrate our nation's commitment to human rights by ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and joining 170 other nations in endorsing the most comprehensive treaty ensuring the fundamental human rights and equality of women; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the United States Congress is urged to affirm every woman's fundamental right to reproductive health, including the ability to choose the number of children they will have and the timing of their births, by funding high quality, voluntary family planning and reproductive health services that enable women to exercise this right; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

Report Title:

International Women's Day