Watch This Video And Weep For Our Sisters

What do Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Pakistan, India and Somalia have in common?

They’re the five countries where women are at greatest risk for violent oppression. They’re the five countries where women face the highest rates of domestic servitude and sexual slavery, female infanticide and feticide, female genital mutilation, honor killings, acid attacks, stoning, child marriage and maternal mortality. That’s in addition to the normal horrors like starvation and disease, which disproportionately impact women throughout the world.

Did you know that in the DRC a woman is raped almost every minute? And that many of the prostitutes in India are housewives driven by poverty to sell their bodies so they can feed their kids?

This video is less than five minutes long. But it will help you understand why a wide range of leaders—from former US presidents to heads of Christian NGOS—consider the exploitation of women the most devastating injustice in the world. And why they insist that if our efforts to fight injustice don’t prioritize women we’re never going to see the changes we long for.

View Video

Now that you’ve seen the truth, please do more than weep.

• Read Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Everyone should read this book.

• Google any of the above-mentioned violations of women—sex trafficking, for example, or honor killings—and begin your own research. One of the most important things we can do is learn and then speak up about what we learn.

• Check out the work of the leading Christian NGOS—World Relief, World Vision, Compassion International, International Justice Mission, the Salvation Army—or your favorite organization, to see how they are empowering women. Use their websites to learn more and to financially support their interventions.

• Buy fair trade products that provide jobs for women who have been rescued from sex trafficking or domestic slavery. Trade As One is my favorite fair trade company.

• Or, do something else; get creative; be unique.

• But please, to quote my old friend, Jerry Butler . . .

DO SOMETHING . . . SOMEWHERE . . . NOW!