Issues facing woman and girls worldwide

[Earlywalker]

Thought it could be useful to raise awareness of issues facing woman and girls worldwide and discuss what we can do to help them.

Please do feel free to add to the list also as there will be loads that I’ve missed.

It made me very angry writing and researching this:

FGM - ‘the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within communities from countries in which FGM is common’

FGM is still practiced within the UK and is of course illegal here, we have only had one successful prosecution since it was made illegal and it was February this year - www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-47094707

Girls are encouraged to not tell anyone about it, awareness for the communities and those around them is the only way we can end FGM here. With wider efforts needed accords the globe.

Safe access to abortion - this is not just something that happens in third world countries, this is happening on our very doorstep in the UK! Northern Ireland has still not updated its abortion laws. Woman are being forced to continue pregnancies, even if they are raped, even if it was through incest and this needs to change.

Child brides - 140 million girls will become child brides between 2011 and 2020 . Girls who marry before age 18 are typically denied an education, at risk of complications related to premature childbearing, and more vulnerable to intimate partner violence.

Maternal health - The World Health Organization estimates that 800 women die every day from preventable, pregnancy related causes. That’s nearly 300,000 lives per year needlessly lost during what is fundamentally a life-creating event.

Sex based violence 1 in 3 woman Experience physical or sexual abuse in their lifetime. I’m not sure what more I can say on this than attitudes need to change.

Access to education A 2013 report by UNESCO found that 31 million girls of primary school age were not in school, and about one out of every four young women in developing countries had never completed their primary school education. That number represents a huge pool of untapped girl power: that same report suggests that educated women are more likely to get married later, survive childbirth, raise healthy kids, find work, and earn more money, among other positives.

Trafficking of woman and children This is the fastest growing crime in the world, it pulls in an estimated $99billion per year and there’s an estimated 25 million people trapped in forced labour, with an estimated 71% being woman and girls.

Spartacus apologies I didn’t realise it was an offensive term.

It’s fine Fermats, it can wear you down that the default here is always white but that’s my issue.

Regarding the FGM, communities can only educate each other so much. And if your church is mainly from the same reason that practice it, or your community then it can easily continue in cycles.

I do really believe this does need to be something social workers and teachers take an active role on.

I believe when a woman is in labour, Midwife’s now do have make note of weather the mother is ‘cut’ and report it but then what happens with this information? We know that girls with cut mothers are more at risk, but who is following this up throughout the primary years to ensure it does not happen to them? This is focusing solely on UK cases of course, further afield is a more difficult case to handle.

God, this thread seems to have taken a bizarrely combative turn.

Given the recent revelations regarding NGOs such as Oxfam and Save the Children, I'm sure many of us have concerns about how to ensure our donations are actually helping women and girls.

I'm currently donating to the Fistula Foundation and Camfed, but I'd love to hear where others are giving or if there's anyone knowledgable about the sector who could share their thoughts.

Fistula foundation is another great one helping woman with birth injuries!

Another small thing we can do to help if you don’t have much physical cash is a charity called ‘smalls for all’ who I believe also help woman in Africa and other countries suffering fistula injuries as well as actually some woman in the UK. You can send them your old (or new) underwear to distribute.

Cohle that's a very good point about Oxfam and Save the Children. I donate to MSF (not a feminist donation specifically, a general humanitarian one) partly because I'd heard that they had robust policies on aid workers not predating on vulnerable women - but it turns out even they have their problems [angry']

The Fistula Foundation sound worth a look - do you have a link handy? I donate to women's shelters (my county is one of those where the local authority pulled all funding from women's shelters in favour of "safe rooms" which seem only have had the detrimental effect of leaving vulnerable women subject to the bedroom tax on top of being at risk from their violent exs.)

smalls for all where you can donate your old underwear to help those that need it both abroad and in the UK- www.smallsforall.org/

Anti-Slavery ideas for fundraisers and how to be vigilant on spotting trafficked people - www.antislavery.org/

CAMFED supporting girls to get an education - camfed.org/

Fistula foundation supporting woman with birth injuries - www.fistulafoundation.org/

I used to rely on organisations like Charity Navigator but their focus on financials and transparency in governance (whilst obviously important) doesn't capture the information on safeguarding and sexual exploitation that I'm particularly concerned about.

I'd love to know if anyone has any alternative resources where these sort of policies and procedures are taken into account when evaluating charities.

The plural of woman is women Early. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

The amount of times I’ve seen this rudimentary mistake taking place on these boards of all places is distracting and depressing tbh.

How often do you see it with man/men? Hardly ever.

That's a pretty good list. I would add safe access to contraception and also access to toilets, as well as being forced into prostitution (ie not just being trafficked, but having to work as a prostitute for other reasons such as poverty).

There's lots of overlap between different issues, of course. There's a good article in today's Guardian about lack of toilets in some parts of the world (the piece was on Madagascar in particular) so people defecate outside. Girls and women are at risk of being raped if they walk alone to the area where people defecate, and when they are menstruating they will stay off school because of the lack of toilets.

Obviously child brides/being forced into prostitution/sexual violence/not having access to contraception or abortion/maternal injuries in childbirth all overlap.They're all to do with women's lack of bodily autonomy and men having control over women's bodies.

You could probably add things like not having the vote in some countries or not having access to justice (e.g. in those countries where men's testimony is regarded as having higher value than women's).

WaterAid is a charity that I actively support - they are very clear about the need for women to have access to clean water, safe toilets and washing facilities and up until now, seem to have avoided the usual capture by anti women groups.

www.wateraid.org/us/media/female-friendly-toilet-guide-wateraid-unicef

Issues around menstruation is defined a big one, whether it's girls being sent to menstruation guys, or unable to attend school.

Related is the issue with lack of single sex toilets available for women and girls. Wateraid (already mentioned) is doing some good work around this I believe.

And not to make it a trans thread, but it is notable that all of the issues listed in this thread impact women and girls due to their biology.

Agree with those above also.

Marie Stopes International are fighting for safe abortion and access to contraception wordwide - mariestopes.org/

FORWARD (Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development) is an excellent and unapologetically women-led, women-focused anti-FGM org. Lots of information and training for domestic initiatives and their website but also a great deal of international news and participation. I'm picky about donations to charities that purport to be for women but don't actually centre them, so have often donated to this one.

www.forwarduk.org.uk/

Regarding the FGM, communities can only educate each other so much. And if your church is mainly from the same reason that practice it, or your community then it can easily continue in cycles.

They would take some issue with this and certainly favour bottom-up activism rather than top-down imposition. Avoiding the Woke Saviour trope, as it were.

We’re led by African women for African women. This means our roots and our hearts are in the communities we work with. They set our agenda, guide our decisions and sustain the change we create together.

We believe that lasting change has to come from within. So we don’t do top-down transformations. We work with people and partners at a local level, building on their insights and sharing our expertise. So that when we’re gone, the change lives on.

Thanks for the FORWARD link, I no longer donate to women’s organisations that don’t actually centre biological women in their decision making processes.

Agree, FOWARD is another great charity! Appears their founder was at the forefront of the campaign to make FGM a prosecutable offence in the UK and a human rights violation by the UN.

I didn’t say communities can’t help lang, just that professionals need to get involved in the UK also and FORWARD appear to be helping to advise those professionals which is great.

This is an excellent twitter thread to read and contribute to.

twitter.com/ariana_erbon/status/1158794046275543040

It is a shame that most woman’s charity’s also employ men but I think, for me at least, I can look past that if it means helping more woman and girls where it’s needed.

www.gov.uk/female-genital-mutilation-protection-order

The consultation is to provide legislation similar to that in England and Wales.

Men as leaders that should read, I have no issue with Male volunteers etc, woman’s rights is everyone’s issue to solve and a lot of the time, men’s causing.

Do any of the charities listed above ‘not centre biological woman in their decision making processes’ wurzel I’m confused about what you mean

I think it's hard to balance between avoiding white saviour attitudes and avoiding fear of intervention by white people eg teachers/social workers who could prevent harm.

One thing that helps is addressing implicit racist bias among those people who could help so they can be more reflective about their motives.

It can sometimes help avoid 'othering' type attitudes to remember that fgm has been perpetrated against women of many cultures. So has forced marriage.

I have Mormon and Christian friends who are white who had forced marriages.

There are white women (especially lesbians) who had clitoridectomies.

Women in the West are pressured to consider labiaplasty very young (see Embarrassing Bodies).

When women get together and talk across difference (as recommended by Audre Lorde) we can share experiences and see how to help one another.

Rather than acting on behalf of someone we don't really understand.

I think that's one reason women only space is so crucial for me.

Kwisa is a good organization in Scotland raising awareness of fgm

It is a shame that most woman’s charity’s also employ men but I think, for me at least, I can look past that if it means helping more woman and girls where it’s needed.

I can't and don't. Inclusion of men inevitably results in at best imposition of saviourism and at worst, activism that works against women or even abuses them. Hello Oxfam. Hello Save the Children.

Inclusion of women service users in decision making is also vital. Otherwise we get the laughable Woke Saviour women parachuted into exec positions and ignoring service user needs, as we've seen of late in DV charities.

Women centred. Vital.

This is a great thread!

Women's hour had a hard hitting programme on how black women in the uk are enormously disadvantaged in terms of maternity care recently. Not sure exactly which charity is working in this though.

Can I also just clarify why woman and not women is being used?