Rice Says U.S. Committed to Women's Global Success

Secretary accepts Woman of Valor Award, applauds efforts on women's rights

Recalling the moment recently when she met young players of a girls' soccer team in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Washington audience on May 10 that she could not help noticing the striking contrast to the scene four years ago when the Taliban turned soccer stadiums given to them by the international community into killing fields and condemned women to death for learning to read.

"When they want to suppress people, they always go after the right to read," Rice said. Women in Afghanistan are now being taught to read openly, Rice said, a sign that Afghanistan is progressing.

In her remarks accepting the third annual Barbara K. Olson Woman of Valor Award, given by the Independent Women's Forum, Rice applauded efforts on behalf of women's rights and opportunities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Morocco, which recently passed a landmark family law reform that grants women basic legal rights to divorce and inherit property.

"When I see these kinds of events, I believe we are witnessing something very extraordinary indeed: the unfolding of moral progress," Rice said. Moral progress requires the work of people who are committed to helping men and women to secure the basic human rights that define human nature, she said.

Moral progress also requires optimism and a sense of historical perspective, Rice said.

"When we read the reports of the trafficking in women or of the camps in Darfur, that it must seem that this world is making no progress at all," Rice said. "But when I have those moments, I think back on other historical times when it must have seemed quite impossible to imagine human progress."

Rice said the United States is doing more than any other nation to help women in Sudan's Darfur region. (See related article.)

"We provide nearly all the food that now sustains the people of Darfur and we are offering care and counseling to many women who have survived violence and rape," Rice said.

"Whether it is assistance to women in Darfur or the fight against human trafficking, the United States champions respect for women because it is morally right," Rice said, adding it took the United States "130 years before we interpreted the phrase 'All men are created equal' flexibly enough to let ladies vote."

Americans are an imperfect people, Rice said, but the United States is guided by "ideals that summon us to become even nobler and indeed to pursue our perfect union."

"Those same ideals lead America into the world to combat the dehumanization of women in all its forums, especially the international evil of human trafficking, a modern form of slavery for millions of women," she said.

The Barbara K. Olson Woman of Valor Award is given to honor the memory of Olson, a founder of the Independent Women's Forum, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon after it was hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists on September 11, 2001. All passengers and flight crew aboard Flight 77 were killed. Previous recipients of the award have been Lynne V. Cheney, wife of Vice President Cheney, and U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.

Source: U.S. Department of State

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