Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Book Description:

Two Pulitzer Prize winners expose the most pervasive human rights violation of our erathe oppression of women in the developing worldand tell us what we can do about it. An old Chinese proverb says Women hold up half the sky. Then why do the women of Africa and Asia persistently suffer human rights abuses? Continuing their focus on humanitarian issues, journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn take us to Africa and Asia, where many women live in profoundly dire circumstancesand some succeed against all odds. A Cambodian teenager is sold into sex slavery; a formerly illiterate woman becomes a surgeon in Addis Ababa. An Ethiopian woman is left for dead after a difficult birth; a gang rape victim galvanizes the international community and creates schools in Pakistan. An Afghan wife is beaten by her husband and mother-in-law; a former Peace Corps volunteer founds an organization that educates and campaigns for womens rights in Senegal. Through their powerful true stories, the authors show that the key to progress lies in unleashing womens potential, that change is possible, and that each of us can play a role in making it happen.