1937. Girl in Washington, D.C. slum area Photographer: John Vachon. Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash In honour of International Day of the Girl which was celebrated on October 11th, here are several issues I'd like to highlight. KenyaTwo issues dominated International Day of the Girl in Kenya. No. 1, medicalized female genital mutilation (FGM), and no. 2, sex education. Kenyan youths, led by youth activist Sadia Hussein, came together to urge anti-FGM board chief executive officer, Bernadette Loloju, to call on the government to increase disciplinary measures against medical professionals who do 'the cut'. Despite the government's commitment in fighting to end FGM, some medical professionals still practice it. Read more on that here. On the front of sex education, Nairobi women's representative Esther Passaris spoke on the importance of sex education and how lack of/improper sex education enables a culture of sexual abuse. Read Esther Passaris' speech here. KyrgyzstanI'd like to highlight the work of 19-year old Kyrgyz singer Zere Asylbek who made a video advocating for the rights of women in her country and consequently received death threats for it. Zere noticed that although everyone in her country is, by law, granted the freedom of choice; for women, it is much more something that was in writing but not in practice. And so, she decided to do something about it. The message in her video: freedom for all means freedom for all, regardless of gender, so why is one gender being denied that freedom? The irony is not lost on us that people would respond to that by sending her death threats. But Zere, and many others who feel like Zere does, soldier on. Read more on Zere's work here. JapanScandal in Japan! Tokyo Medical University was caught red-handed manipulating entrance exam scores to restrict the number of women who gain entrance to the university, a practice it has done since 2010 and has only now gotten caught. Reason? In the university's eyes, women are 'a bad investment' due to pregnancy, maternity leave and raising children. The university purposefully lowered the scores of the women applicants for years because they did not want to have doctors who were women, and all this even though an equal employment opportunity law was in place, has been in place for 33 years! Read more about this here. United StatesWhere do we start? From the president of the country himself, the present leadership of this country is tainted with sexual misconduct/assault allegations. Very many people in this country don't seem to understand what sexual harassment/misconduct/assault and/or rape means, and that's where the problem begins. We would like to highlight the work of Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement, a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault. We would also like to highlight the work of Mona Eltahawy, the founder of #MosqueMeToo that highlights sexual abuse in Islamic settings. And, in closing, we would like to leave you with Trevor Noah's words of why #HimToo is not a thing and why there's no war on men. Psst... You just read blogtober post #12. Blogtober is a challenge to write 31 posts, one for each day of October. Click the button below to read more Blogtober posts.
2 Comments
2/1/2019 04:18:21 am
This was so well written and very much needed. I love that you highlighted aspects around the world. Thank you ❤️
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