Addressing the global gender gap

[LaStrega]

Addressing the global gender gap

Qurban-Bibi and Nahil Abu-Rada are two women, one Afghan and the other Palestinian, who made news with similar tragedies.

But their losses also helped further delineate the plight of millions of women in war zones and poor countries.

The United Nations news service reported on the troubles of Qurban-Bibi, a pregnant woman who simply needed to reach a hospital. Doctors had instructed that she must deliver in an equipped medical facility, considering her previous Caesarean delivery. The desperately poor husband and her brothers opted for a delivery at home, citing the unaffordable taxi ride. The woman almost bled to death. When the delivery turned for the worst, the family rushed her to Faizabad hospital in a nearby province. Her life was saved, but, evidently not that of her baby.

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Many Afghan women are caught between the lethal occupation of foreigners and the extremism and vengeance of the Taliban. Early marriages are often the only available opportunity for women in some parts of the country, once they reach a certain age, sometimes as young as 9-years-old.

The same can be said about Iraq, where women, who comparatively achieved high status in pre-war years; have since endured untold humiliation. Thanks to the US ‘liberation’ of their country, they now constitute a large percentage of regional prostitution, a phenomenon alien to Iraqi society of yesteryear.

This hardly means that the suffering of women is always the outcome of foreign military interventions – masked as ‘humanitarian’ in some instances – nor does it render blameless local cultures, outdated customs and interpretation of religion. But what is missing from the reports, and subsequent analyses is how conflict, war and military intervention often jeopardize, more than anything else, the rights and welfare of women.

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[Triana]

1. This is something rarely, if ever, mentioned. I think about it often but...

...it is pretty much ignored around the world. As if women - don't even exist or what happens to them doesn't even matter. What does it say about the world we live in if that's true?

[SharonAnn]

2. In every tragedy that puts society in chaos, "young men" with guns have what they need/want.

In this context, "young men" means males from 15 to 35 and a few up to age 55. After that, they're pretty much out of power (or dying).

Others are at their mercy (and the "young" men have little mercy).

Women don't usually have weapons. Women usually have children and the elderly to take care of. Women in these situations usually have no income. Women and children are usually subject to neglect and even cruelty.

Think of next time there'ws a "crisis" somewhere and society is in chaos. Who bears the most suffering?

Just as an example, you may have heard of the "Lost Boys of Africa" who excaped from violence and walked to refugee camps and some were brought to the United States and everyone's happy about saving their lives and giving them opportunity.

Didn't you ever think "What about the 'Lost Girls'?" What happened to them? The answer is they were either forcibly "married" which meant enslavement to the husband and family or they were simply enslaved without "marriage". Many are still alive, still trapped in a society that affords them no rights, still unable to get out.

Often the women (and the children) are invisible to us. They suffer and die in far greater numbers than their proportion in the population.

[LaStrega]

3. Very well put. It's tragic. And it's a travesty. n/t

[Triana]

4. This is one of the biggest IGNORED human rights issues in the world, IMO. n/t