Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

jobs in his second administration. He has selected Dr.
Rice to succeed Secretary of State Colin Powell,
Margaret Spellings to succeed Secretary of Education
Rod Paige, and Harriet Miers as his incoming White
House counsel.
Protecting Women and Families
Domestic violence betrays the most basic duties of
life. It is a serious crime that must be confronted by
individuals, by communities, and by government.
The Bush administration is committed to fighting
domestic violence. Violence Against Women programs
administered by the Departments of Justice and
of Health and Human Services receive strong federal
and congressional support. They provide shelter and
counseling for victims of domestic violence, as well as
vigorous prosecution of individuals charged with
assault, abuse, trafficking, and stalking. In early 2004,
the Justice Department provided $20 million to help
15 communities create Family Justice Centers, an initiative
unveiled by President Bush to provide comprehensive
services under one roof for victims of domestic
violence. The U.S. government also has sought to educate
men on the tragic effects of domestic violence. It
has launched initiatives such as the “Take the Pledge”
campaign, which calls upon men to pledge neither to
commit nor to condone domestic violence.
As then U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
observed: “Our children absorb the values we pass on
to them; and they in turn pass these values on to their
children. But when families are wracked by violence
and abuse, values are corrupted. The messages transmitted
by parents are messages of violence, cruelty, and
powerlessness. We must work together to ensure that
victims have the opportunity to escape violence and to
transform their lives and the lives of their children.”
Under the Bush administration, welfare reform is
about empowering families, including single-parent
families, to become self-supporting. In October 2004,
the Department of Health and Human Services
announced that the welfare caseload in the United
States had dropped to fewer than two million families
for the first time since February 1970.
The U.S. government is assisting low-income
families make the transition from welfare to work.
Single mothers overwhelmingly head low-income
families covered under the 1996 Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families program. Its provisions for helping
these women and other family members move toward
gainful employment and self-sufficiency are proving
remarkably successful. Since 1996,
* Welfare rolls nationwide have fallen more than 60
percent for individuals and almost 55 percent for
families;
* Child poverty has dropped from 20.5 percent to
17.6 percent;
* The poverty rate for African-American children
has declined from 39.9 percent to 33.6 percent;
and
* The poverty rate for Hispanic children has
dropped from 40.3 percent to 29.7 percent.
Childcare remains a critical need for many families,
particularly single, working mothers. The rapidly
declining welfare caseloads have allowed states to more
than triple childcare funding between 1996 and 2004.
To help women who have been abandoned by the
fathers of their children, the U.S. government also has
made it a priority to find those fathers and enforce
child support.
The Bush administration has launched a Healthy
Marriage Initiative to help couples acquire the skills
and knowledge they need to sustain an enriching,
mutually respectful, and beneficial marriage and to
sustain a healthy environment in which to raise their
children.
One reason for this initiative is that data show
that families with married parents are healthier, have
lower incidence of domestic violence and abuse, and
earn higher levels of income and education. According
to Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary
for Children and Families Wade Horn, the U.S.
emphasis is “on healthy marriages—not marriage for
the sake of marriage, not marriage at any cost—but
healthy marriages that provide a strong and stable
environment for raising children. It is about helping
couples who choose marriage for themselves gain
access to the skills and knowledge necessary to form
and sustain healthy marriages.”
Both domestically and internationally, the Bush
administration and the U.S. government as a whole
will remain committed to achieving equality of opportunity
for women and men, empowering women both
in the marketplace and in decision-making positions,
expanding educational opportunities for girls and
women, improving women’s health, protecting women
and children from violence and exploitation, and
strengthening marriage and family life. The U.S.
experience clearly shows that, as the status of women
advances, so will that of their families, their communities,
their workplaces, and their nation.
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