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Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Half the Sky, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
narrated by Cassandra Campbell
In Half the Sky Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn share a heartbreaking study of oppression of women around the world. It begins with a long section on the sex trafficking of women, sharing personal stories of many victims. Girls may be told that they are about to go to earn money selling fruit in a city, and then they are kidnapped, beaten and raped until they submit to prostitution. Some are born into brothels. Many who escape or are rescued from their situation return "willingly" because they know no other way to make a living and they are stigmatized in their community for their past occupation. And many return because they crave the drugs that their pimps have forced upon them to keep them complacent and needy. The book also explores lack of freedom to get educated, honor killings, genital mutilation, and maternal mortality.