Democrat Lois Frankel and Republican Susan Brooks, two chairwomen of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, have introduced the “Keeping Girls in School Act,” which aims to “support the economic and educational empowerment of girls globally.”
Speaking on the bill, Representative Frankel’s office released a statement, explaining that “Today, over 130 million girls worldwide are not in school. While the U.S. has been the global leader in efforts to expand and improve educational opportunities, particularly for girls, there is still more work to be done because every child deserves an equal opportunity to access quality education. This legislation brings attention to the systemic barriers preventing girls from accessing secondary education; barriers such as child marriage, religious or ethnic discrimination, female genital mutilation and poor safety traveling to schools.”
Frankel commented that “When girls are educated and given the skills to support their families, we uplift communities, reduce poverty, and create a more peaceful and prosperous world. This bill puts empowering adolescent girls front and center by addressing obstacles keeping them out of school, like gender-based violence and child marriage.”
The legislation ensures that girls globally stay in secondary schools, noting 14 barriers they currently face. It “authorizes a budget neutral funding mechanism where USAID is directed to enter into results-based financing and/or traditional grant project proposals to reduce these barriers adolescent girls face,” and it relies on public-private partnership and development impact funds that will “leverage real results with measurable outcomes.”
