One of the greatest challenges to empowering women as agents of change is the gender-based violence women face worldwide. In some countries, gender-based violence impacts as many as 70 percent of women. According to the United Nations, “one out of three women throughout the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.”

Gender-based violence occurs in many forms and can be physical, sexual, or cultural. It is in the home in the form of domestic violence. It is rampant in conflict situations where women are violated and exploited as weapons of war. In the sex trade, women are bought, sold, and abused as cheap, expendable goods. And in some cultures, women are mutilated, forced into child marriages, and denied access to basic rights such as healthcare and education.

On Thursday, August 5 The WIP community had the unique opportunity to participate in a live internet chat with CARE, a leading humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) that is working to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) - a landmark piece of bi-partisan U.S. legislation.

John Kerry (D-MA), a lead sponsor of the Senate bill, recently commented, “[I-VAWA] builds on the [Obama] Administration’s focus on women as peace-makers, change-agents, and a crucial investment in the future.”

By Linda Tarr-Whelan and Jacki Zehner
-USA-

In 1971 the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as “Women's Equality Day” to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment and to call attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality. The following opinion, co-authored by WIP Contributor Linda Tarr-Whelan and Jacki Zehner, was originally published August 25 by Bloomberg. – Ed.

Today marks Women’s Equality Day, the commemoration of women’s suffrage achieved in 1920. What better time to take stock of what’s left to do?

We need a national conversation led by the White House to explore how women decision-makers can help achieve better economic performance and a more prosperous future for all.

The administration of Barack Obama has already taken the first step by appointing talented women -- including Mary Schapiro, who holds the top job at the Securities and Exchange Commission; Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel; and Sheila Bair, who heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- to help dig us out of the financial mess.

Having a few females at the top is wonderful, but until we have at least 30 percent of senior women in leadership, we will be ignoring a strong dynamic that is working well elsewhere.

by Sarah Irving
-UK-

The monsoon floods in Pakistan have killed thousands and affected an estimated twenty million people across several provinces. According to development organizations working in the country, the humanitarian crisis is yet another blow for Pakistan's rural women. With increasing effects of climate change, the longer-term situation can only get worse.

According to the Pakistani government, a fifth of the country has been affected by the flooding due to monsoon rains. The initial death toll of around 1,600 was comparatively low for an international disaster. But on August 3, a week after the monsoon flooding began in earnest, the World Health Organization called the situation “the worst floods on record.” On August 19, the WHO reported that 200 clinics and hospitals had been destroyed and warned that forty years' worth of health developments in Pakistan had been lost. By August 20, twenty million people had felt the impacts of the floods, and millions had lost homes, crops, livestock, and other property.

by Michelle Chen
-USA-

It's been weeks since I left Haiti, but the fractured images of the ruined city replay themselves like a battered flipbook.

• Mango sellers in Haiti. Photograph by Hands On volunteer Nathan Gray. •

by Katie Palmer
-Canada-

In 2009, the Toronto Star published a series of investigative reports on the widespread abuse and exploitation of Filipina live-in caregivers. The newspaper repeatedly pegged migrant women as victims: victims of ungodly employers; victims of provincial labor law inequalities; and, perhaps most importantly, victims of oppressive Canadian immigration policy, specifically the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP).

The Live-In Caregiver Program is a visa-entry program that recruits women to enter Canada as live-in caregivers, maids, and nannies for affluent Canadian families. Canadian families hire foreign-born women to care for their children, do their laundry, and prepare their meals. At the same time, foreign-born women from economically impoverished countries, such as the Philippines, have a chance—after living in the employers’ houses for a minimum of 24 months within a 36-month period— to acquire highly coveted Canadian citizenship.

The Live-In Caregiver Program is a far cry from a win-win situation. Activists, journalists and scholars have shown time and time again how the Live-In Caregiver Program reproduces inequalities along the intersecting axes of gender, race, and class.

by Anna Clark
-USA-

I was the only woman who worked on a ropes course during the summer I spent employed at a girls’ camp in Pennsylvania. Officially, my job was to strap kids into climbing harnesses and belay them as they ventured to the top of walls, fake boulders, and the a 60-foot “adventure pyramid.” Unofficially, my job was to encourage and coax the many girls who were scared to climb high.

During Parents’ Weekend, one eight-year-old, who made it to the peak of the adventure pyramid, was scared to slide off the top—a necessary move for me to belay her back down to the ground. While I could have had someone simply climb up after her, I spent half an hour encouraging the girl to let go. A crowd of parents and girls formed, their necks craned backwards to look up at the little girl stranded at the top. She trembled. She whined. And, finally, when she did slide off – to enormous cheering – she hit the ground with both feet and held her hands in the air in triumph.

“Nice coaching,” said one of the fathers.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Israeli director Yael Hersonski examines the lost footage in her 89 minute directorial debut, A Film Unfinished. Interweaving footage with diary entries by Ghetto inhabitants, an account of filming by a German cameraman, and reflections by Warsaw Ghetto survivors now viewing the footage, Hersonski brings a new perspective to the authenticity of Nazi propaganda films. Scenes were staged to create a life of happiness and abundance that concealed the suffering of the Ghetto’s 440,000 residents. Imagined encounters include a staged dinner party with guests who were, in reality, on the verge of starvation. The perversity of the Third Reich’s obsessive documentation of human suffering, intensified by the revelation of cinematic manipulation, stays with you long after leaving the theater.

by Susan Enuogbope Majekodunmi
-USA-

Being Nigerian and having many relatives still living there, I keep abreast of political and economic events. Nigeria is blessed with many natural resources and brilliant, hardworking citizens, but corruption over decades is draining her resources.

This oil rich, corruption challenged country lacks both basic amenities and economic opportunities for the masses. Most businesses are laced with bribery and greed, sending citizens seeking greener pastures into self imposed exile in the West. So a Nigerian attempting to eradicate corruption is notable.

I learned of Nuhu Ribadu because his anti-corruption activities - not sparing rich and politically powerful people - make him a Nigerian media fixture. Trained as a lawyer he spent 18 years as a police officer fighting corruption. From 2003-2007, as Executive Chairman of the Economics and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), he investigated financial crimes and led anti-corruption public sector reforms. In 2007, at the height of his success, he left Nigeria for safety reasons.