I read this article last week in the NY Times. It is one of the most well-written concrete, fully-formed examinations of the issues facing the world's women today- and i needed to pass it along. From the benefits of microfinance to support poverty alleviation and income generation for women, to the novel idea that providing sanitary napkins and school uniforms to girls will boost their school attendance rates, the ideas examined in this article are as much a call to action as they are an analysis of current realities. Please take a moment to read this, and if you can, get involved in finding a way to help heal and support our sisters across the globe.
Alicia
photo courtesy of Katy Grannan for The New York Times. "Saima Muhammad, shown with her daughter Javaria (seated), lives near Lahore, Pakistan. She was routinely beaten by her husband until she started a successful embroidery business." Copyright, NY Times 2009. All rights reserved.
The Women’s Crusade
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF and SHERYL WuDUNN
IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.
Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.
Read full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html
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