Eric Schwartz’s Wake Up Call

Eric Schwartz - I am Eric Schwartz, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, and this is my Wake Up call:

 

When I was in a refugee camp in Chad and had an opportunity to meet with a women’s leadership committee, that was a powerful indication of our efforts to ensure that women play a key role in the decision-making process. When I was in the same camp and went to a program for secondary education and I saw that the class had just about as many women as men, that was a powerful indication to me that programs that we’re supporting--that the U.S. government and the U.S. taxpayers are supporting--are playing a role in ensuring better equality of access to education. Time and again, when I travel around the world, I see evidence of this. Beyond the moral imperative of treating people with the respect that is their due, there is no set of interventions that will be more effective in enhancing the quality of life for a greater percentage of the world’s population than interventions designed to enhance the status and power and protection of women and girls.