Office of Global Women’s Issues

I just realized today, from reading an article in the Christian Science Monitor, that there is an Office of Global Women’s Issues in the State Department — and that Melanne Verveer is the Ambassador at Large of this office.  She was appointed on June 12, 2009.

Here is the link: http://www.state.gov/s/gwi/ to their website.

From the swearing in ceremony, Hilary Clinton:

“Melanne is most famous for the unwavering passion she brings to her causes. And for the last 15 years, that cause has been women and girls; their rights, their opportunities, their central important to the future of our world’s progress and prosperity.   The absolute commitment she has always shown to giving voice to the voiceless, and making sure that the stories of everyday heroes and heroines would be known to a broader audience. She helped to launch the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative more than a decade ago, and she nurtured it and helped it to grow into what it is today. In the past eight years, she turned a government program into a global NGO, and the results of that work are ones that I encounter everywhere I travel on behalf of the United States. And she particularly helped to lead our commitment to end the intolerable scourge, the global crime of human trafficking.”

Vital Voices Global Partnership

~ by mentalimaging on September 12, 2009.