More than dozens were found perished in a refugee attack on a civilian convoy running away from constant fighting in eastern Ukraine, with the Ukraine government and pro-Russian separatists both putting the blame on each other, according to news source Al Jazeera.
The attack, being described as a “bloody crime,” by a spokesman, has had several people killed, including some women and children. The number perished is currently being established; however, it is known that the toll could be put in dozens.
“The barrage had taken place last Monday morning between the cities of Khryashchuvate and Novosvitlivka, close to the rebel city of Luhansk,” said a Ukraine military spokesman.
As reported by news source BBC, the Ukrainian military has claimed that many have perished due to the influx of rockets and mortars demolishing vehicles moving the refugees from the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine.
Another military spokesman proclaimed that several people had been burned alive inside the vehicles; however, a spokesman for the rebels who are named “Donetsk People’s Republic, “refused the idea that rebel forces had deliberated the attack on the convoy.
According to Reuters, the convoy was involved with ferocious fighting mainly between government forces and the separatists when the fire erupted from rebel Grad and mortar launchers, many spokesmen stated.
According to news source BBC News, it is known that more than 2,000 civilians and fighters have perished since the middle of April, a time in which Ukraine’s government had sent troops to overthrow the rebel uprising in the east.
The separatist rebels have been conspicuously sighted as ambushing a row of cars holding refugees attempting to escape the war in eastern Ukraine. This allegation can be confirmed according to news source New York Times. Ukrainian military officials have accused the separatists vehemently throughout, but the separatists, however, have denied that there has been no attack at all and they are not to be held responsible for the incident.
Luhansk, a city of 250,000 people, is a region where currently civilians are suffering heavy amount of shortages of water, food and electricity.
At the moment, Ukrainian forces are edging into the outskirts of Luhansk, where supplies such as food and water are running out for them.
During a briefing in Kiev, Colonel Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, has stated that “terrorists” had ambushed the refugee convoy with Grad rocket systems and several other large weapons for combat supplied by Russia.
This could be considered a deadly episode for civilians, as according to the New York Times, separatists have begun to take control of cities and towns in this region approximately more than four months ago.
With over 2,000 people perished and more than 5,000 wounded in Ukraine, a representative for the United Nations human rights office claimed last week, with approximately more than half of the deaths currently happening in just these last two weeks.
The news of civilian deaths has been a grave situation as efforts for diplomacy to find a solution to the Ukraine crisis have been unsuccessful since last Monday; during conversations in Berlin among the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia.
Recently, the United States State Department has condemned the attack; however, it stated that it could not confirm who was responsible.
According to news source Reuters, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “We strongly condemn the shelling and rocketing of a convoy that was bearing internally displaced persons in Luhansk … Sadly, they were trying to get away from the fighting and instead became victims of it.”
The week of August 25, a solution was implemented for the first time in several months. This solution is meant to attempt to end the confrontation between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart. While both their meetings will hold several issues regarding the Ukraine Convoy Attack, their final solution is intended to mend the situation regarding the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
— Noor Siddiqui
Sources: Reuters, Reuters 2, CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, New York Times Click On Detroit
Photo: Bloomberg
MTV Exit Fights Human Trafficking
MTV, in cooperation with USAID, Australian Aid and ASEAN, has launched an awareness campaign targeted at young people called MTV Exit, which seeks to raise awareness about human trafficking, especially in the Asia Pacific region.
The program seeks to educate young people in the region and around the world about human trafficking through media campaigns such as music videos, informational videos and through other interactive tools. A significant number of these tools are also specifically targeted toward young people in the Asia-Pacific region who are disproportionately affected by human trafficking globally.
Part of the campaign includes what MTV calls an Exit Map, available on the campaign’s home page. The Exit Map is a 6-hour workshop through which anyone can educate a target group about human trafficking, the ways to prevent trafficking and methods for helping survivors.
The first part of the workshop focuses on making participants feel comfortable around each other and with the instructor so that the many difficult topics associated with human trafficking can be more easily and freely discussed. According to the workshop, it is important to make sure people feel they are in a safe environment so that misconceptions and myths about trafficking can be most easily debunked.
Another focus of the workshop is on the danger of taking risks. Trafficking takes place when traffickers take advantage of people in vulnerable situations trying to pursue their dreams. They often lure young people with promises of fantastic jobs and good wages, knowing that they are more likely to take chances in order to achieve their dreams.
The Exit Map workshop tries to educate people about how to spot traffickers. It teaches people to ask the right questions of potential employers and to use a hotline in order to identify whether an advertised job is run by a legitimate company or if it is merely a hoax used by traffickers to capture people.
MTV’s definition of human trafficking is “when someone is recruited, moved, held, or received in order to be exploited.” According to the campaign, human trafficking is a process that includes more than just exploiting the person; it involves recruiting, holding and moving the person in order to exploit them. Therefore the issue must be addressed at all levels of the process in order to most effectively combat it. Educating people about how to spot illegitimate job offers, for example, attempts to combat the recruiting phase of trafficking.
The campaign also emphasizes that traffickers can be anyone and that trafficking is a business facilitated by the demand for cheap products in other countries like the United States. As long as people keep demanding cheap products, people in other countries will continue to be trafficked into forced labor in order to make these cheap products. Therefore MTV emphasizes that consumers should be educated on where and how goods are made and whether slavery took place in any part of the supply chain, which means holding companies accountable for inspecting their supply chains and addressing slavery where it exists.
MTV also seeks to educate young people about the many different types of trafficking. When most people think of trafficking, their first thought sex trafficking, but it also includes forced labor, debt bondage, trafficking into domestic work, child adoption and trafficking of women for surrogacy, trafficking for the removal of organs and trafficking for marriage.
The last point that MTV hopes to emphasize through its Exit Map education plan is that vulnerability is not the cause of human trafficking. Circumstances such as poverty, hunger, lack of education and gender inequalities do not cause trafficking. These things make it easier for traffickers to exploit and take advantage of people, but traffickers are the cause of trafficking.
As long as there are people willing to exploit other people in vulnerable situations, trafficking will exist. Therefore, tackling the problem is two-fold. Improve people’s situations so that traffickers are no longer able to take advantage of vulnerability and educate vulnerable people about how to spot traffickers effectively cutting off trafficker’s supply of easily exploitable vulnerable human beings; this is how to combat human trafficking.
— Erin Sullivan
Sources: Mumbrella, MTV Exit 1, MTV Exit 2, MTV Exit 3, MTV Exit 4, MTV Exit 5, MTV Exit 6
Photo: Tumblr
Mountain2Mountain: Bikes for Change
It is illegal for women to ride bikes in Afghanistan. However, bikes have long been a “symbol of freedom of mobility.” In the United States, they were used as such during the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1990s.
M2M was founded in 2006 by Shannon Galpin. In 2009, she became the fist woman to bike across Afghanistan. The goal of this mission was to “challenge perceptions of gender.” One of her biggest inspirations was the four years she worked in Kandahar prison. In this all women’s Afghan prison, Galpin found that women there lacked a voice. These women had passionate stories of struggle and injustice and Galpin wanted to help them be heard.
This inspired the creation of two M2M projects, Combat Apathy and Strength in Numbers. Combat Apathy is the activist wing of M2M and is an online platform where women and men can share their stories of hardship and triumph. Strength in Numbers, or SIN, is a campaign to create awareness and support for women on bikes.
There will be a summit this fall in Rome for SIN in which expansion to other countries will be attempted, as well as a solidarity ride. The project is also organizing U.S. based summer bike camps, which are aimed at young girls who are at risk or have experienced gender violence.
In Afghanistan, though, the biggest accomplishment for the SIN campaign is their support of the women’s cycling team. The project gives support to the team in the form of buying equipment, recruiting coaches, securing sponsorships, arraigning safe travel to and from training and financing regional traveling. SIN has even petitioned for the cycling team’s access as observers to the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, with further efforts to gain access to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
An attempt at expanding the movement outside Kabul has also begun by starting the first women’s mountain biking team in the province of Bamiyan. The team is financed by SIN and given gear and clothing.
The press coverage and international media attention have helped raise the popularity of the cycling team and there has been evidence of growing national pride. This changing perception will help advance women’s rights in Afghanistan.
The goal of the Afghan women’s cycling team is to give women a chance to achieve freedom in an otherwise oppressive country. Cycling on the team is not just about exercise or confidence building for these women. Its about all Afghan women who can gain greater access to education and healthcare by riding bikes. Access to both leads to higher literacy rates and lower maternal mortality.
These women cyclist are extremely brave as they endure a lot of criticism and even violence for their actions: rocks are often thrown at them as they ride and they are insulted by passing cars.
One of the team members, Marjan Sidiqqi, said that, “They tell us that it is not our right to ride our bikes in the streets and such. We tell them that this is our right and that they are taking our right away. Then we speed off.” This is a bold thing to say in a country where many still believe that women who ride bikes dishonor their families and that women’s cycling is a moral crime slightly worse than adultery.
Mountain2Mountain is still in its infancy, so data on the nonprofit is hard to find. It has not yet been reviewed on charity network and not been completely evaluated by GuideStar. This does not mean it is illegitimate, only that attention should be paid to its development and individual and government donors should keep an eye out for possible support now or in future.
— Eleni Marino
Sources: Mountain2Mountain, Combat Apathy, CityLab, GuideStar
Photo: Mountain2Mountain
China’s Interest in South Sudan
For more than half a century, China has had interest in Africa- not just for the natural resources, but in aid to alleviate the continent’s poverty and living conditions.
China has helped with agriculture, health and education projects and solar energy. The country has also had a high interest in the continent’s natural resources, in particular, oil.
One of the countries that China purchases oil from is South Sudan, which outputs about 160,000 barrels a day- which before civil war in the country that began in December 2013, was producing one-third more than it is now.
War broke out in South Sudan when the political battle between the South Sudanese president Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and his vice president, Riek Machar, a Nuer, turned an ember into a flame. Once again, the once-liberated Sudanese were in an ethnic war.
China is not only a major aspect of the economy in South Sudan, it is also part of the United Nations Security Council and has voiced concern over the civil conflict between the ethnic groups. But if China has voiced a desire for ended conflict, why has the country’s largest arms manufacturer, China North Industries Group Corporation (Norinco,) sold weapons of war to the country?
Bloomberg reported that South Sudan has bought at least $1 billion in weapons and delivery systems since December 2013. Documents from a shipment that left China to South Sudan included “9,574 automatic rifles, 2,394 grenade launchers, four million bullets for automatic rifles, two million rounds of pistol ammunition, 319 machine guns, 660 pistols, 20,000 rounds of 40-millimeter anti-personnel grenades and 4,000 rounds of 40-millimeter “heat rockets.”
If China is part of the U.N. Security Council, which is responsible for international peace and security, and the “Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said he was ‘ready to directly engage’ the warring parties to end fighting” the question becomes why is China allowing Norinco to sell weapons to South Sudan which in turn fuels war? And is China’s involvement in the country actually helping its economy or hurting it socially?
– Kori Withers
Sources: Bloomberg, United Nations Security Council, The Guardian
Photo: BET
Hunger in Comoros with Hope on the Rise
The Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy Paper produced by the officials of Comoros stated that, “information on the economic environment supports the assumption that the socio-economic situation is deteriorating and that poverty is on the rise.”
Much of this social upheaval has been attributed to what can only be described as an unstable government. Comoros has been the site of 20 coups and attempted coups since its independence in 1975. The newest elected leader, Ikililou Dhoinine, a native born to the islands, took office in May 2011. He looks to spearhead the reduction of poverty by pledging “to stop at nothing in the fight against corruption.” Despite this hopeful claim, the people of Comoros are among the poorest in Africa and heavily dependent on foreign aid.
But others have joined the goals of Dhoinine. Dominic MacSorley, Chief Executive of Concern stated that, “firefighting with emergency aid is not enough.” Comoros conducted its own comprehensive household survey and found that many locals agreed that the way to bolster the economy was to show “importance of recovery in the private sector, particularly in the agro-foods area, to ensure a robust economic growth and achieve a significant reduction in poverty.”
Engagement Communautaire pour le Développement Durable, or the ECDD, has been working toward just that by creating a model of community landscape management integrating improved livelihoods with natural resource management.
Agroecology and Market Gardening were two of the techniques implemented. Agroecology refers to the process of conserving the land while simultaneously respecting ecological principles and learning from nature. For example, learning how the rainforest continually recycles nutrients back into the soil. Market Gardening is the process of growing vegetables to take to market for a profit.
ECDD’s project slogan, ‘Komori ya lao na meso,’ means ‘The Comoros of today and tomorrow.’ It is plain to see that this slogan was embodied at the very hearts of the ECDD efforts. These practices have set a new precedence in the hopeful fight against hunger in Comoros and the world.
– Frederick Wood II
Sources: International Food Policy Research Institute, ECDD Comoros 1, ECDD Comoros 2, BBC, trust.org, International Monetary Fund
Photo: Flickr
Lingering Malnutrition in Iran
Today, though, Iran has the lowest rate of childhood malnutrition in the region that includes the Middle East and North Africa. Roughly four percent of Iranian children are malnourished, a dramatic decrease from the percentages in the 1960s. Adequate vitamin A consumption is the norm, and 99 percent of households consume iodized salt, which provides the iodine necessary for proper brain development in children.
Thus, Iran was remarkably successful in dealing with the malnutrition problem. However, there is still much room for improvement. Iran still demonstrates what one might term “provincial malnutrition.”
For example, the province of Hormuzgan has a rate of underweight children triple that of the country’s average rate. In Sistan-Baluchestan, 21 percent of children will not grow to their full height potential because of malnutrition.
It is a common phenomenon: malnutrition reduction in urban areas and the lack of reduction (or the opposite) in rural areas.
Certain population groups, such as the large Afghan refugee population in Iran, are struggling with food insecurity and higher levels of malnutrition as well. Wasting among Afghan refugee children was found to be 12.7 percent, higher than the urban average. The diet diversity of refugee families is poor, too; around 15 percent of households go without fruits and vegetables for spans longer than a month.
Another population group, the elderly, was also found to have higher levels of malnutrition than the national average.
The reduction of malnutrition in Iran has not been universal, then. And even in urban areas, where people are more food secure, another problem related to malnutrition has appeared—namely, obesity. The obesity rate among children in the cities doubled during the past decade, and obesity is compatible and even correlated with malnutrition.
Fortunately, one expert, Dr. Zahra Abdollahi, the Health Ministry’s deputy for improving nutrition, is working to make the reduction of malnutrition in certain provinces a priority.
Ensuring such a reduction would improve children’s school performance and overall quality of life, according to Abdollahi. It would also improve the health of mothers and newborns, an area for needed improvement across the globe.
One major obstacle these efforts will face is Iran’s increasing population. Iran’s population of over 80 million strains the government’s ability to feed everyone in part because of its heavy reliance on grain imports. Reducing malnutrition requires increasing food security, a requirement that unsustainable population growth makes difficult to achieve.
– Ryan Yanke
Sources: World Bank, UNICEF, Iranian Journal of Epidemiology, IRNA, World Food Programme, Breitbart, Green Party of Iran
Photo: Flickr
Without Limits: United Cerebral Palsy
On the home page of the United Cerebral Palsy website, UCP.org, a picture of a young girl is posted. Her facial bis carefree and hopeful. Immediately above her, UCP’s logo is accompanies by the text: “Life without limits for people with disabilities.”
United Cerebral Palsy aims to remove barriers to success for people with disabilities. UCP started in 1949 in response to needs of parents of children with Cerebral Palsy by creating a network for information and resources.
Beyond Cerebral Palsy, UCP serves people with Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder and physical and mental disabilities. The organization works with over 100 other affiliates to provide services such as housing, help finding a job, technology training and family support.
United Cerebral Palsy is a civil rights movement for those with disabilities. UCP does this by ensuring the basic human right of opportunity and equal living standards through expansive networks and lobbying Congress. UCP is uniting people and organizations to give a greater voice to the disabled.
This year, UCP released “The Case for Inclusion,” which tracks progress in providing care and opportunities for the disabled. Only 15 states make support services for families with a disabled member available for at least 200 families of 100,000.
Case for Inclusion also provides rankings of states based on providing support for people with disabilities and their families. In 2014, Arizona, Michigan and Hawaii ranked in the top three. Virginia, Texas and Mississippi ranked last.
Poverty and disability are closely related. Worldwide, one billion people, over 10 percent of the world’s population, live with a disability. Around 80 percent of disabled people live in developing countries, with around 20 percent of disabled people in these countries living in poverty.
Oftentimes, lack of services provided to people with disabilities results in limited access to basic necessities, healthcare, education, employment and political participation.
The World Health Organization states that disability is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Lack of healthcare and limited nutrition contribute to disabilities created by poverty.
According to the WHO,” Poverty may lead to the onset of health conditions associated with disability including through: low birth weight, malnutrition, lack of clean water or adequate sanitation, unsafe work and living conditions, and injury.” For instance, 20 million women become disabled because of pregnancy and childbirth complications.
Many disabled people rely on a full-time caretaker. Most often, this caretaker is an immediate family member, so along with the disabled person, two members of the household do not receive a regular income. Disability also comes with extra healthcare costs and limited access to education and employment.
With the missing income and additional cost, poverty persists.
Beyond the U.S., disabled people lack the same network that United Cerebral Palsy provides for them and their families in the U.S. Giving a voice to the disabled and improving their quality of life plays a significant role in reducing global poverty, as a significant number of impoverished are disabled.
– Tara Wilson
Sources: Case for Inclusion, World Health Organization, United Cerebral Palsy, Huffington Post, Handicap International
Photo: Mandurah Mail
Refugee Convoy Attack in Ukraine
More than dozens were found perished in a refugee attack on a civilian convoy running away from constant fighting in eastern Ukraine, with the Ukraine government and pro-Russian separatists both putting the blame on each other, according to news source Al Jazeera.
The attack, being described as a “bloody crime,” by a spokesman, has had several people killed, including some women and children. The number perished is currently being established; however, it is known that the toll could be put in dozens.
“The barrage had taken place last Monday morning between the cities of Khryashchuvate and Novosvitlivka, close to the rebel city of Luhansk,” said a Ukraine military spokesman.
As reported by news source BBC, the Ukrainian military has claimed that many have perished due to the influx of rockets and mortars demolishing vehicles moving the refugees from the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine.
Another military spokesman proclaimed that several people had been burned alive inside the vehicles; however, a spokesman for the rebels who are named “Donetsk People’s Republic, “refused the idea that rebel forces had deliberated the attack on the convoy.
According to Reuters, the convoy was involved with ferocious fighting mainly between government forces and the separatists when the fire erupted from rebel Grad and mortar launchers, many spokesmen stated.
According to news source BBC News, it is known that more than 2,000 civilians and fighters have perished since the middle of April, a time in which Ukraine’s government had sent troops to overthrow the rebel uprising in the east.
The separatist rebels have been conspicuously sighted as ambushing a row of cars holding refugees attempting to escape the war in eastern Ukraine. This allegation can be confirmed according to news source New York Times. Ukrainian military officials have accused the separatists vehemently throughout, but the separatists, however, have denied that there has been no attack at all and they are not to be held responsible for the incident.
Luhansk, a city of 250,000 people, is a region where currently civilians are suffering heavy amount of shortages of water, food and electricity.
At the moment, Ukrainian forces are edging into the outskirts of Luhansk, where supplies such as food and water are running out for them.
During a briefing in Kiev, Colonel Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, has stated that “terrorists” had ambushed the refugee convoy with Grad rocket systems and several other large weapons for combat supplied by Russia.
This could be considered a deadly episode for civilians, as according to the New York Times, separatists have begun to take control of cities and towns in this region approximately more than four months ago.
With over 2,000 people perished and more than 5,000 wounded in Ukraine, a representative for the United Nations human rights office claimed last week, with approximately more than half of the deaths currently happening in just these last two weeks.
The news of civilian deaths has been a grave situation as efforts for diplomacy to find a solution to the Ukraine crisis have been unsuccessful since last Monday; during conversations in Berlin among the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia.
Recently, the United States State Department has condemned the attack; however, it stated that it could not confirm who was responsible.
According to news source Reuters, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “We strongly condemn the shelling and rocketing of a convoy that was bearing internally displaced persons in Luhansk … Sadly, they were trying to get away from the fighting and instead became victims of it.”
The week of August 25, a solution was implemented for the first time in several months. This solution is meant to attempt to end the confrontation between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart. While both their meetings will hold several issues regarding the Ukraine Convoy Attack, their final solution is intended to mend the situation regarding the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
— Noor Siddiqui
Sources: Reuters, Reuters 2, CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, New York Times Click On Detroit
Photo: Bloomberg
International Aid for Small Island States
The International Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC estimates a one meter sea level rise if global temperatures increase by four degrees Celsius. This could happen by the year 2100 and would render the small island nations of Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu uninhabitable.
The dire situation of low-lying island states has prompted the World Bank Group to announce a Small Island States Resilience Initiative. The Initiative was prompted by the outspoken leaders of the island states who have asked the world for assistance.
“As some of the most threatened people and places on the planet, small island nations are stepping up their efforts to deal with climate change. This Initiative is designed to address the specific needs of small islands and make it easier, faster and simpler to access funding to deal with resilience and climate change,” explains Rachel Kyte, WBG vice president and Special Envoy for Climate Change.
The WBG will also increase its aid to the island states to $190 million from $145 million per year.
Small island developing states have realized that they do not have it within their capacity to prepare themselves for the impending rise in sea level. The increased aid from the World Bank will help preserve the diverse culture, ecosystems and indigenous knowledge that the SIDS hold.
The World Bank Group is not the only organization that recognizes the importance and need of the Small island developing states: many various organizations have donated to projects focused on climate and disaster resilience. However, instead of helping, this has served to overburden the government. Samoa has to manage 14 different projects, while the Solomon Islands is struggling under the load of 22.
“Our hope is that this Initiative will help pool donor resources available now, reduce transaction costs, allow for economies of scale across countries, and above all, lay the ground work for direct country access to global climate fund,” said Kyte.
— Julianne O’Connor
Sources: World Bank, The Guardian
Photo: WordPress
How Healthcare and Income Inequality Intersect
While Ebola continues to spread in West Africa, one of the main dialogues focuses on the disconnect between the rural poor and accessible healthcare. Though this is not uniquely an Ebola problem nor a West African one, the rural poor populations have exacerbated this epidemic.
Many rural Africans, particularly in regions of East Africa, are still treated by local healers, many of whom are not certified and perpetuate myths about illnesses. With these healers, who are affordable for many lower income families, improper health care treatments are provided. Thus healthcare and income inequality spur one another on in turn.
Without access to the more costly but effective doctors, illnesses like Ebola and HIV/AIDS run rampant due to misdiagnoses and improper courses of treatment. Even with hospital care, the cost of travel to medical centers (usually over long distances), compounded with the cost of treatment and prescriptions, is often too great for people to pay.
Instead of getting proper treatment, poor populations are forced to settle for secondary, substandard care. In the cases that they are able to get free assistance, the demand is often too great to be supported by rural clinics, which are often sporadic in nature.
Part of the problem of such pandemics is the inaccessibility of rural patients. Because of the lack of money these people have for travel to the cities, doctors are instead forced to go out into the rural regions and try and find the people affected with the disease. But because newcomers are unfamiliar, villagers meet the doctor at times with hesitancy and confusion.
With the increase in medical technology and quality healthcare, poverty still remains a barrier to access – for both sides. The inability to access and properly treat a large proportion of the infected public has caused epidemics to be much worse. In order to help prevent future outbreaks, global health officials are reevaluating how to prepare and eliminate the poverty barrier in future cases.
– Kristin Ronzi
Sources: Reuters, Southern Times Africa
Photo: knowledge.allianz
The Power of Educating Girls
But while 60% of the education population should be women, it is a goal that is missed. Getting girls into these schools is difficult for a couple reasons. The first part of the problem is a shaky economy. The second is that the African continent has only recently been taking the needs of girls seriously.
Social customs illustrate how men are considered more valuable all across the continent. Women are expected to feed men first and give them the best food, and women are also expected to work menial jobs.
A glimpse into the life of girls in school can also demonstrate why women think hesitate to send their daughters to school. Girls who are barely teenagers often voice their fears of being sexually abused when they use the latrine. At a primary school in Enjolo Village, a “cleansing” initiation involves the teacher having sex with young girls. The man could be in his 40s and 50s while the girl could be as young as 10.
The practice caused an influx of young pregnancies and also spread AIDS at an alarming rate. A group of mothers were able to halt the tradition in Enjolo and now girls drink a glass of herbs but elsewhere, the sexual cleansing continues.
While it is not as horrifying as a sexual cleansing tradition, there is another problem that symbolizes the battle women wage in schools. In many areas of the continent, schools are not equipped with latrines or other sanitation that only girls need. They lack the basic facilities that would allow the girls to not miss days of school.
With all the problems barring girls from school, research suggests that the old African saying is true when it insists that it is worthwhile to be educating women.
Educating girls reduces the chances of teenage pregnancy, making them more likely to wait to get married. Education increases earning potential by astronomic figures and by extension improves the economy of the community. Areas with high percentages of educated women are consistently ranked as less dangerous.
There are health benefits as well. Educated women are three times less likely to contract HIV, and they are better informed about nutritional and sanitation habits to keep children healthy.
—Andrew Rywak
Sources: USAID Blog, New York Times USAID Blog 2, CNN
Photo: Flickr