Take the Pledge

[T]he more I traveled and met with girls and learned from experts about this issue, the more I realized that the barrier to girls’ education isn’t just resources. It’s also about attitudes and beliefs – the belief that girls simply aren’t worthy of an education; that women should have no role outside the home; that their bodies aren’t their own, their minds don’t really matter, and their voices simply shouldn’t be heard – First Lady Michelle Obama

Last night, I watched the CNN Documentary: We Will Rise with First Lady Michelle Obama and was inspired and moved when I heard the stories of the girls in Liberia and Morocco who were to meet her.  It made me think of how some of our children take education for granted.  These girls long to be in a classroom, learning but sadly, they are denied this because of child marriage, pregnancy and poverty.  If a family has a boy and a girl, the boy will go to school while the girl stays at home.  And there’s belief that girls belong at home not in schools.  Those who are fortunate to get an education have to walk a long way to school in areas that are not safe.

One girl lived with her uncle and aunt because her mother wanted her to have an education.  She worked hard, keeping the home, taking care of her cousins before going to school.  At night, from 9-11pm she studied her books using a flashlight to see in the dark room while everyone else was asleep.  Her education helped to save her uncle’s life.

When the Ebola broke out in Liberia, she recognized that her uncle had the symptoms of the disease.  At first he dismissed what she was saying because she was a girl but she insisted and he was quarantined and then nursed back to health.  She had learned the symptoms in her Biology class.  Her favorite subject is Science.  Perhaps, one day she will become a scientist.  Another girl dreamed of being a journalist while another wanted to be an engineer, a discipline that was predominantly male.  You can watch her story here.

In Morocco, girls were missing school for five days.  Meryl Streep discovered why.  Here’s the clip.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/10/09/we-will-rise-film-meryl-streep-morocco.cnn/video/playlists/cnn-films-we-will-rise/

Girls need to know that they are valued and that they deserve to have an education. Educating a girl will change not only her life but the lives of many.  Take action today and sign the petition for more girls to receive education.  Help their dreams to become reality. Education is key to success, quality life and opens the door to so many opportunities.  No one should be denied a basic right such as education.  Take the pledge and give a girl the opportunity to have an education.  TOGETHER, WE CAN LET GIRLS LEARN!

 

We’re in this together.  Because these girls are our girls.  They are us.  They each have the spark of something extraordinary inside of them just like our daughters – and our sons – and their fate is very much our responsibility – First Lady Michelle Obama

Source:  CNN.com; Girl Up

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Corrie ten Boom

I just finished watching this documentary on a remarkable woman of faith, Corrie ten Boom.  What a heartbreaking, inspirational and encouraging story.  We are taken on a journey of courage, the courage to do what is right, betrayal, loss, deliverance and forgiveness.

As you watch this film, try to imagine how you would feel if you were in Corrie’s shoes. Would you be able to forgive the man who betrayed you and your family or the Nazi guard who was extremely cruel to your sister?  We see how the power of God’s love can change hearts–including Corrie’s.

Notes to Women celebrate a woman whose faith has inspired so many and whose story continues to resonate.

Oscar Winning Documentary

Director of the documentary Saving Face, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has won another Oscar. This time it is A Girl in the River:  The Price of Forgiveness, a documentary about a 19-year old girl who fell in love and survived being shot and drowned by her father in an honor killing crime.   The Academy Award documentary premieres on March 7 on HBO Canada.  Here are the scheduled airings:

Monday Mar. 7	9:00PM ET / MT
Tuesday Mar. 8	12:15AM ET / MT
Tuesday Mar. 8	5:05AM ET / MT
Wednesday Mar. 9	7:50PM ET / MT
Thursday Mar. 10	2:00AM ET / MT

 

 

Equality Now sent out this petition to stop Honor Killings.  Click here if you are interested in signing it.

 

Gender-Selective Infanticide

Over 50,000 baby girls are aborted every month in South Asia – just because they were girls – Gospel for Asia

According to writer and gender-activist Rita Banerji,  “Females are being killed in India at every stage of life, before and after birth, only because they are female”  It has been said that the three deadliest words in the world are “It’s a girl”.  The birth of a girl is not celebrated.  It leads to infanticide or trafficking.

UNICEF states that the killing of baby girls has reached genocidal proportions. It is a practice that has gone on “in central India for a long time, where mothers were made to feed the child with salt to kill the girl.” Various other gruesome methods of murder are employed, many dating back to the 18th Century: stuffing the baby girl’s mouth with a few grains of coarse paddy causing the child to choke to death is one, poisoning, using organic or inorganic chemicals, drowning, suffocation, starvation and breaking the spinal cord, as well as burying the child alive.

What possible reasons could families have for murdering their baby girls?

• Extreme poverty.  The inability to afford raising a child.
• The dowry system.  This practice was supposed to have been abolished but it still exists.  Poorer families in rural regions fear being unable to raise a suitable dowry and being socially ostracised.
• Children conceived from rape
• Deformed children born to impoverished families
• Unmarried mothers not having reliable, safe and affordable birth control
• Relationship difficulties
• Low income
• Lack of support coupled with postpartum depression

A girl is seen as an economic burden to her family–an unwanted expense while the boy is seen as their source of income.  What about the women who have generated income for their families through the use of a sewing machine?  Girls can be and are sources of income for their families. All they need is to be given the opportunities.

The girls are murdered for two reasons–the dowry, as mentioned earlier and the unwillingness of their families to marry them to men from a rival caste/tribe.  Parents would rather murder their daughter than to allow her to marry someone from a lower caste.  And the girls who survive are mistreated and neglected.  They are unloved, uneducated and kept at home where they are forced to do household chores.  For them the future is bleak and hopeless.

From the time they are born, South Asian women face pain, rejection, cruelty, suffering and discrimination.  The Veil of Tears:  Hope is on the Way is a documentary film which gives us a glimpse into the lives and hearts of these women for whom adversity is the norm.  Take a look at the behind scenes video of “Veil of Tears:  Hope is on the Way”.

I was deeply affected when Natalie Grant shared what she saw when she went to the Red Light District in Mumbai.  Little girls as young as 5 were for sale.  She and her husband had an opportunity to tour a brothel where they saw tiny rooms with beds lined up and one of them had a rope tied at the end of it.  At first she was hesitant to ask about this but when she did, she was told that there was no daycare . These were working women but there was no where for them to drop off their children.  “This woman has her 18 month old daughter that she tetters to the end of the bed while she’s forced to work so that she knows where she is.  These are the things my husband and I say wrecked us for life”  As a mother, can you imagine working in a brothel and having your child right there in the room with you?  Yet, women are forced to turn to prostitution i order to take care of their children.  And there is no one who will take care of their children while they work.

On CBN, Natalie shared another heartbreaking story, “I was walking down the street in Mumbai, in broad daylight, when my eyes locked on a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old, peering out of a cage, looking at us on the street below. It was beyond my imagination.  I’ll never forget that moment. That was her life. Every day people walked by, and they didn’t even notice her.”

Can you imagine you or your daughter being kept in a cage like an animal and people are just walking by as this is nothing out of the ordinary?

When we see how these girls and women are treated by society, we realize that the problems we face are nothing compared to what they have had to endure.  This why God has brought their stories to our awareness so that we can tell others.  We can be the voice of the voiceless.

“Veil of Tears” tells the stories of women who are just like every other woman in the world, except that these women are brutalized, they’re despised, they’re persecuted culturally, simply because they are women and this has been going on for generations – Kenny Saylors

Thankfully, there is hope.

…God is restoring dignity to the women who have been utterly just downtrodden – Kyle Saylors

And God is not just changing their hearts, He’s changing their lives.  He’s changing their everyday lives – Kenny Saylors

We can bring hope to the girls and women of South Asia–the hope they can find only in Jesus by supporting the Veil of Tears film.  Here are ways you can make a difference.  Take action today. Get the word out about the plight of women in Asia.

The most overwhelming part of the whole trip was visiting a village and seeing women who had been restored and seeing what true hope actually does in the life of someone that it actually can make them new, that no matter how broken, no matter how desolate, there is still hope – Natalie Grant

Sources:  Gospel for Asia; World and Media; Wikipedia; Counterpunch

Watch This Film

As a mother who lost five children, would you be able to forgive the man who killed them?  What about the bomber who killed your father–could you see yourself being friends with him?  People who have suffered unimaginable tragedies share their stories in the documentary Beyond Right & Wrong:  Stories of Justice and Forgiveness.  Watch the trailer.

If you are interested in watching the film, you can do so for free.  The great thing about this offer is that you can donate to the charity of your choice without spending a dime.  To find out more about how this works visit:  http://filmraise.com/how-it-works/#instructions

International Women’s Day

Sunday, March 8, 2015 is International Women’s Day.  Gospel of Asia Canada is celebrating this day in South Asia by:

• Giving new saris to widows
• Encouraging women by sharing stories of women found in the Bible
• Distributing food and blankets to poor children and families in the slums
• Visiting women in prison and encouraging prostitutes with Christ’s love
• Meeting the basic needs of some of the poorest women in society

I encourage you to watch a clip of the movie, “Veil of Tears” about a woman named Suhkwinder who almost committed suicide because her children were born girls. As you watch the clip and celebrate International Women’s Day, find out how you can help to change the life of a woman just like Suhkwinder’s. In a society where boy babies are preferred, the worst words a parent could hear are, “It’s a girl”.

In India girls are unwanted.  I read in an article that came out a couple of years ago that a three month old girl died from cardiac arrest at a state-run hospital in Bangalore after battling for life for three days.  Her father had battered her because he wanted a son.  Little Neha Afreen sustained head injuries, abrasions and bite marks all over her body.  This caused public outrage which led to her father’s arrest.  Her mother said, “My husband was enraged with me for delivering a girl,  He hated her. He wanted me to get rid of the child or abandon her as he wanted a son.”

Sadly, there are several horror stories of baby girls who have been abandoned, tortured or killed because they were unwanted.  We live in a world where there is gender bias.  As a Christian this is very hard for me to accept.  God created both man and woman in His image.  Little girls are as precious in His sight as little boys.  And if society keeps killing the baby girls, how will they have the boys they want so much?  And what about the boys when they grow up and want to get married and there is a shortage of women?  Many of them will have to go elsewhere to find wives. In Asia, baby girls are tossed aside as if they are garbage and women are raped.

There is the documentary, India’s Daughter, the story of the gang rape and murder of a young woman which shocked the world and sparked riots and protests all over India. Grieving parents and one of the rapists tell the story of the night six men brutally assaulted 23 year old medical student, Jyoti Singh while driving around Delhi, India’s Capital, in a bus.  Women should have the right to feel safe in their own communities. In Canada, you can watch India’s Daughter on March 8 on CBC or online for 30 days after broadcast.

I know of some fathers who have daughters and adore them.  In fact, they want daughters.  God bless these men.  Jyoti’s parents were happy to have her.  She had dreams like everyone else.  One night, her dreams and life were brutally taken away from her.

On March 8, let us celebrate our mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, friends, teachers, etc.  Let us celebrate women and reflect on the marvelous contributions they have made and will make to our society.  Each life matters.  Girls matter.  I pray that one day, the words, “It’s a girl” will be met with joy and acceptance.  Until then, let each of us who has a little girl of our own, encourage her to stand up and say, “I am a girl and I matter.”

Sources: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/baby-girls-killing-reveals-indias-crisis-of-gender-bias; http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/episodes/indias-daughter

The World Before Her

I saw that TVO aired a documentary entitled The World Before Her but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch it. It’s a Canadian documentary film written and directed by Nisha Pahuja and released in 2012.   The film explores the complex and conflicting environment for young girls in India by profiling two young women participating in two very different types of training camp — Ruhi Singh, who aspires to become Miss India, and Prachi Trivedi, a militant Hindu nationalist with the Durga Vahini.

The film won the awards for Best Canadian Feature at the 2012 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and Best Documentary Feature at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, and was a nominee for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards.

Here’s the trailer:

You can watch the entire video as it aired on TVO at this link: http://ww3.tvo.org/video/191988/world-her

You can visit The World Before Her website at http://www.worldbeforeher.com

Notes to Women encourages you to watch this film which captures  the choices and contradictions that young women in India are facing today.  Imagine being chased down and beaten because you are seen with a man in public or are caught in a bar.  Imagine while you are in grade 7, to teach you a lesson for lying about completing your homework, your father burned your foot with a hot iron rod and as a result you suffer for a month from the painful blister that formed.  How would you feel if your father referred to you as “our product”?  This is the reality for the women in India.

As you watch this film, be mindful that these women are not enjoying the same rights as you are.  If you have a career, be thankful.  If you have a father who is supportive of you and whatever career path or degree you want to pursue, be grateful.  We all want to live in a society where girls and women are valued, respected and treated equally.  India is a male dominated society and that needs to change. Until that happens, let us continue to stand with our sisters in India and raise our voices against inequality, violence against women, oppression and gendercide.

It’s hard to see people use religion to perpetuate violence against others who don’t share their beliefs.  It’s especially hard to see young Hindu girls carrying guns and knives as they marched down the streets of India and chanted, “Mark your foreheads with blood and welcome your enemies with bullets.”  Who are their enemies?  Muslims and Christians whom they believed have ruined the Hindu religion.  One girl was clear about their mission–“we will use our guns and kill people.  We will never let them take our India.” These girls are graduates of the Durga Vahini, a militant training camp for girls.

The Indian government believes that that these camps are promoting terrorism and is trying to ban them. Personally, I find the idea of children carrying weapons and talking about killing people very, very disturbing.  This world is already a very violent place, we don’t need any more blood shed in the name of religion.

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Before_Her