Zafar began her presentation with an explanation of the origins of patriarchy and moved on to share astounding figures that illustrate why focusing on economic empowerment of women can change the world. 70% of people living below the poverty line are women. The economic loss to a society that has a lack of women participating in the market is 0.7% of GDP. In both South Asia and the Middle East, female participation in the economy is only half that of male participation. Thus, there is a clear correlation between a society that does not utilize all of its human resources and poverty.

However, this is not only a problem of economics. The most difficult part about empowering women economically is changing a society’s attitudes and perspectives towards women. During her presentation Zafar stated, “Microfinance is simple, but changing mindsets is not.” Therefore, the real challenge to empowering women economically is making both men and women realize the worth of a woman in both social and economic terms. The underlying devaluation of women in some societies continues to be an uphill battle for organizations like the KASHF Foundation, and for our global community as a whole. Hopefully, one day we will reach a global society where equity between women and men is the norm. Thankfully, organizations like Kashf are doing some of the most important work in the world, and leading us in that direction.

Please click the link below to check out the Kashf foundation and all the wonderful work they do!

http://www.kashf.org/site_files/display_content.asp?id=5

The answer? With an overwhelming 46+ percentage of the vote, the answer is that women and girls are the solution to development. Being a woman, especially one interested in development and international politics, one would think I would jump for joy at such a realization by the international community. But I remain straight faced, neither elated or impressed.

As inspiring as it may seem to be the singled-out gender by leaders in development, should we accept that women are the only answer to development in the Global South? Evidence has shown tremendous changes in societies and regions which have embraced the Grameen Bank micro-finance model, which asserts the intellectual and business capacity of women to the front line. Money in the hands of women: proven to be a positive endowment for the rest of the community, as funds trickle to feed the children and the ill within each local society. This is incredibly true.

It is essential that women and young girls are inherently integrated into development models throughout all countries and systems- including the West! But, do polls such as these or verbose statements made by our heads of state, put too much pressure on women in the developing world? Consider me a feminist, but I can not help but be frustrated by the pressure placed on women to single-handedly carry development in their local communities. I would like for a more egalitarian perspective that reviews ideas of men attributing positively to development as well. If there are problems in men contributing positively, then let’s also work on the social dictations that convince us men and boys only perpetuate war. Let us work towards not only burdening women with such a task but also recognizing they are the gems of war torn societies. Therefore respecting their bodies, their ideas and their contributions. After all for a more sustainable process, shouldn’t the role of sexes and gender at some point coincide?

And if this egalitarian look is too irksome, progressive or idealistic for you, then let’s consider more rewards, incentives and support programs for women in developing nations– as they seem to be carrying much of the weight of the third world on their shoulders. With such a large task at hand, I would think they deserve the largest support system available.

More perspectives on this issue:

Empowering the Voices of Women to Appease the MDGs

Africa: Women and Children the Focus of Achieving MDGs

All of that being said, there has been rising discomfort that the new government doesn’t appear to be much better in the treatment of women. Women have complained about being consistently being left out of the decision-making process and feel their voices are being shouted over. Even though women are no longer subject to many of the harsh (some say Draconian) Taliban laws, they are still not being given the same opportunities to help shape the country.

Television, which the Taliban banned, has now been restored. Now the Afghani public is facing a problem in which women are being sexualized, in a true reversal. The Kabul government is having problems limiting the rising female flesh being seen in programming.

It is quite interesting that women have gone from being invisible to much more sexualized in less than a decade. What makes it more difficult is that the government is still very weak and unable to stop this trend. Limited access in public discourse is very much a problem while a new civil society is being created.

Hopefully, Afghani women will be able to find voices in their society and finally become full member and participants. As an old saying goes, “Women hold up half the sky.”

During the panel, Nicholas Kristof was asked why he chooses to focus so much on issues of sex trafficking in his columns. Kristof replied that it all began with a trip that he took to Cambodia where he witnessed and interviewed two young girls who were sold to brothels.  Even after Kristof paid a sum of money to the brothel to ‘purchase’ the girls in return for their freedom, one of the girls actually returned to the brothel because of her drug addiction – a sad testament to the fact that the girl was in effect trapped within her predicament, and even money could not help her.  (Spoiler alert: Kristof later revealed in the book that the girl had a happy ending). Hopefully with the launch of this book, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn will be able to raise awareness and generate a healthy dialogue on these issues in the global arena.

For more information on the book, visit http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

Consider Kyrgyzstan.  There a method is practiced that to our thinking might seem anachronistic, a vestige of days less democratic: bride-napping.  And it is, cultural relativism in this instance aside.  And, surprisingly, despite being illegal and contentious, it is on the rise.  With Russia’s sphere of influence retracting and cultural restrictions easing, former republics feel freer to assert their nationalist identities, at times overzealously.  At the community level residents have brought into the cultural fold old traditions, some that were at the time of Russian expansion found only in folklore.

Case in point: bride-napping.  A typical event might happen as follows: A young man sees a young women, perhaps his classmate, perhaps a stranger, and decides she will be his wife.  He finds a car, tells his family, organizes his friends, and chooses a day.  Come that day, with his friends in his car he stalks his potential wife until that critical moment when he executes an ambush.  Without qualm, the group of young men grab and hoist the unsuspecting young woman to their shoulders and dash for the car.  At breakneck speed the group then race to the groom’s hometown, making appropriate phone calls en route to alert family and relay progress, while in the backseat the young woman is beside herself with dismay.  Any stop along the way is discreet, and the young woman is never left alone or allowed to talk with anyone outside the car who might come to her aid.

Once in the groom’s hometown and within sight of his house, the horn blares and rubber burns, until into his family’s fenced-in compound his car screeches, to a halt, dust everywhere, plume trailing, and family ready and waiting.  Immediately all are to arms and abuzz.  Out of the car goes the young woman, terrified and hysterical, into a tangle of arms made by the boy’s mother and female relations.  Holding her tightly they carry her sobbing to the porch and past the door’s threshold–that impassive, possible point of no return, the point that in this context defines group morality and immorality, shame and pride, pure and impure.  But all is not lost for her.  She has until the dawn of the next day to escape or be freed.  Few, however, are working on her behalf, often not even her parents.  Most, the women primarily, are encouraging her to stay.  They each have their reasons.  Having passed beyond the threshold of a suitor’s door, the matter is now one of honor, and in the cultures of Central Asia, next to nothing trumps honor.

Honor now falls to the young man’s father, who is bound to make contact with the young woman’s parents.  If contact is not made, should he have made effort his community does not hold him accountable.  Should contact be made, the two sides conduct a suitability test, but rarely with the young woman’s interest in mind.  More important is how the histories of these two families compare, one against the other, as far back as seven generations, and how much in kalym, or dowry, the young woman’s family must pay.  If in this process no conflicts arise, the young woman’s fate is sealed: she will marry the following day, despite any personal misgivings.  Should a conflict arise, the door is flung wide, possibly upon an unknown village, and, pushed and prodded, heckled and browbeaten, she will again cross that damning threshold, perhaps now with greater understanding, to make her way to a home she might be unsure of how to find and to a family that might now not receive her.  Should she escape on her own before sunrise, despite having gained her freedom, her purity will be questioned and marriage possibly never realized.

In those final hours, with others but alone, she looks around, listens to the blathering women sitting next to her and asks herself which is her best choice: to stay where uncommitted unmentionables fade with matrimony and maternity, or to try to return home, where, though blameless, she will be blamed, where once hopeful about her future, she will feel less hope?  In bleak despair, her situation–like her inscrutable culture–must seem a mocking, half-told riddle.

For further reading, consider:

www.unfpa.org/16days/documents/pl_bridenapping_factsheet.doc

Central Asian Survey (June 2007) 26(2), 217–233, “Kyz ala kachuu and adat: non-consensual bride kidnapping and tradition in Kyrgyzstan,” by Russ Kleinback and Lilly Salimjanova

Formerly, the global gag rule refused funding for overseas non-governmental organizations if they engaged in abortion or abortion related services, such as counseling. Although federal law has long prevented the use of U.S. taxpayer money for organizations providing abortions overseas, the gag rule refused funds for such organizations even if they used their own money to pay for such services.

The policy had affected many organizations abroad that provided health services outside of abortion. Time magazine reports that Planned Parenthood of Zambia lost nearly 25% of its funding due to the global gag rule, which led to a decline in services such as child immunizations and prenatal care. The gag rule has also been blamed for playing a significant role in restricting the distribution of condoms and other contraceptives abroad.

The global gag rule, also known as the “Mexico City Policy,” has served as somewhat of a symbolic representation of party shifts in the U.S. government. First passed by Ronald Reagan in 1984 (and named after the city in which it was introduced), it was overturned by Bill Clinton days after taking office, and reinstated when George W. Bush became president in 2001. Abortion remains one of the most hotly debated issues in American society and one of the clearer divisions between Democratic and Republican parties.

Although President Obama has made far bigger headlines since his historic inauguration with his initial steps towards closing the prison at Guantanamo and tackling the gargantuan task of reviving the staggering U.S. economy, his overturn of the global gag rule is an significant move for overseas NGOs and the promotion of international health standards.

Those who survived often told no one of their experience for fear of the stigma attached to losing ones virginity prior to marriage. The women suffered in silence for nearly fifty years, until one elderly former comfort woman from South Korea bravely stepped forward to tell her story in 1991. Today, the elderly women who still survive fight in domestic, foreign and international courts for justice.  They seek an apology from the Japanese government, recognition of their plight in Japanese schoolbooks and compensation for the hardship endured.  The Japanese government steadfastly refuses, citing post-WWII bilateral treaties between it and the nations from which the women come, and the San Francisco Peace Treaty as a defense.

The former comfort women are old, dying daily.  It appears as if the Japanese government is waiting until the last of the women die so that it can sweep this issue under the rug. As long as the comfort women are alive, however, they strive for justice, seeking to make their plight known around the world. The future looks bleak, but one can but hope that these women receive solace in their lifetime.

For more on the comfort women please see Dottie Horns’s article written for the University of Northa Carolina’s journal, Endeavor, or my article written for Chronogram.

Further sources on Comfort Women:

Links:

A list of links put together by Jerry D. Boucher and Chunghee Sarah Soh

Books:
Comfort Women by Yoshiaki Yoshimi

Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slaver & Prostitution during World War II & the US Occupation by Yuki Tanaka

Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War by George Hicks