A new book on this subject by Pulitzer Prize winning husband and wife team Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn speaks out passionately against the oppression (including the sexual slavery) of women and girls worldwide.
The authors in a September interview with WNYC Radio:
HALF THE SKY: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf, 2009) is already in its 9th printing.
As reviewer Bill Williams of The Boston Globe writes about it:
"They [the authors] estimate that 3 million women and girls are held as sex slaves. Human traffickers kidnap peasant girls as young as 7 and sell them to brothels. After girls are raped, they frequently remain prostitutes until they die, often from AIDS. During his research, Kristof purchased two teenage sex slaves in India for $150 and $203 and set them free. Within a week, one returned to her captors because she had become addicted to methamphetamines supplied by the brothel.Continuing:
The authors cite another case in India in which pimps forced prostitutes to watch while they stripped a rebellious sex slave and then beat and stabbed her, leaving her to bleed to death. I often had to stop reading because the atrocities were too much to absorb."
"Just as America confronted slavery, the world today must face up to the issue of “women locked in brothels and teenage girls with fistulas curled up on the floor of isolated huts.’’
The authors are careful not to blame men alone. Oppression of women often is deeply embedded in local cultures, and is accepted by men and women alike.
Some nations, including China, are finally empowering women after centuries of oppression. Last year Rwanda became the first nation with a majority of female legislators."
Read Bill William's full review here.
"HALF THE SKY" has developed or is becoming (it is hoped) a global movement as well.
Get involved here or even here (America has a "sexual slavery" problem, too).
“Women hold up half the sky." ~Chinese Proverb
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