(Washington, DC) Today the House passed a bill introduced jointly by Representatives Brad Miller (NC-13), Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) calling on the President of the United States and the international community to take immediate steps to respond to and prevent acts of rape and sexual violence against the most innocent of Darfur's victims - young girls and women.

The bill specifically calls on the President and the international community to do the following:

  Develop within the State Department and USAID a Women and Girls of Darfur Initiative that will provide victims and potential victims of rape in Darfur, eastern Chad and the Central African Republic with essential health care services.

  Ensure that a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force is deployed that can properly protect women and girls from and respond to acts of rape and sexual violence.

  Find Sudan in non-compliance with its obligations to protect women and girls, through the U.N. Security Council, and call on Khartoum to bring perpetrators of rape and sexual violence to justice .

"Humanity cannot ignore the atrocities of sexual violence in the Darfur region any longer. This legislation condemns the sexual violence that is now being used against thousands of women and girls, and lets the monstrous regime in Khartoum know that the world is watching," said Miller.

"I was asked to cosponsor this important resolution by my friend and colleague Brad Miller, who traveled with me to Darfur in April. It is very important that the U.S. House of Representatives put itself on record with this resolution – as an institution that will not stand idly by while the world's worst humanitarian disaster continues to unfold," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer