WiLD: Women in Livestock Development. (Heifer International)

[pinto]

From Heifer International

( http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/ )

Dear friend,

Did you know that today nearly three out of every four of the world's poor are women and girls? Throughout much of the world, women:

>Do not have authority to make decisions for their families

>Are excluded from property ownership and inheritance

>Have no access to capital assets

>Are dramatically under-represented in governments

>Face widespread discrimination in employment and wages

Help us address this devastating situation. Heifer is working to end unequal treatment for women and girls with our "Women in Livestock Development" (WiLD) program. We help women reach their full potential by providing them opportunities to develop entrepreneurial skills that can grow family farms into community businesses.

http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M7246692611222778142225765

Right now, women are responsible for producing about 80% of the food in developing countries. Yet women own less than 1% of the land. Our already difficult work to end poverty and hunger is made even harder when women stand at such a disadvantage.

We need your help to immediately raise one million dollars to go exclusively to our WiLD projects that have proven to be so effective in helping women overcome injustice.

Become a donor to the WiLD program today and help Heifer help women and girls in the poorest places on Earth. Your gift will change lives and help families lift themselves out of poverty.

Please give today.

http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M7246692911222778142225765

Heifer International

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/

[happyslug]

1. Some problems with these statements

First, while women own less than 1% of all land, their husbands/sons/fathers/ Etc rarely own much more. In most of the third world most people are tenant farmers. they grow food on land owned by others. These landlords provide NO value for their ownership, the landlords used their political power to maintain their ownership of land and demand most of the value produced from that land. Thus it is not a male-Female problem, but a class problem. Tenant vs Landlords.

In the US our real estate taxes keeps this problem as bay, much of the "Rental" value of land is taken up in the form of real state taxes (and why the big push to end real estate taxes for it hit business establishments hard for business tend to want to be in the best location which tend to be the most expensive thus businesses tend to pay the highest eal estate taxes).

The pivotal reporter on this problem was Henry George who lived from 1837 till 1897

More on Third world and Landlordism:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/JosephStiglitz.html
http://www.zmag.org/noblestiglitz.htm

Some radical aspects on Landlordism:
http://www.mutualist.org/id66.html
http://www.marxist.com/TUT/TUT4-4.html

Henry George:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George
http://www.henrygeorgeschool.org/whowashg.htm
http://www.henrygeorge.org/
http://www.henrygeorge.org/denigris.htm
http://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/

As to Civil Rights, we must be careful NOT to misunderstand how other societies are organized. One fact is that outside the Christian West most people marry their cousins (Please note I am using the term "Christian West" as a cultural definition NOT a religious Definition, this includes Europe, North America, Russia and Latin America all of which have had strong influence of Christianity over the last 1500 years). During the Middle ages the Catholic Church opposed marriages between cousins for such marriages kept money and wealth within certain families when the Church wanted it more spread out. Thus the West's various laws against marrying cousins. Without this influence from the Middles ages, we in the West would be marrying Cousins to this day (and some families in the West were always know for marrying their cousins).

This is further complicated by the fact that outside the Modern Welfare states of the West (By the term "West" I must exclude Russia and Latin America), people main "Support Group" is their extended family. Thus a lot of women, outside of the West, main source of emotional, financial and moral support group is also their husband's main support group. Given that situation having "Civil Rights" not recognized by the extended family is meaningless. i.e. without family support the woman just can NOT exercise what right the law say they may have. This is the sad fact most women in the third world face, and their societies reflect these problems.

The social and financial restrictions most women suffer under is reinforced by the concept of Landlord ism. Women and Children can NOT get out of poverty for they can NEVER own their land. More from a lack of resources AND the rent they have to pay their landlords just to use the land their are farming on. Thus the first step in making women freer than they are now is to increase their rights to the land. Landlordism MUST be eliminated as much as possible and the best way to do so is a tax on LAND with a homestead exemption for people who live and work on the land. Thus the main way to help women and Children are programs that help their families (Including their husbands, Fathers and Sons) increase rights to the land they are working and living on. Concentrating on just Women's rights will do little or ho help to these poor women and children.