“In many poor countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy.”

The New York Times devoted a recent issue of its magazine to women’s rights, calling them “the cause of our time”. The lead article, titled “The Women’s Crusade” and written by Nicholas D. Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn, explores some of the ways in which helping women benefits everyone, regardless of gender. The authors note that “There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism.” Furthermore numerous studies show that “women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.”

The article continues to say that “aid appears to work best when it is focused on health, education and microfinance”. At PPES we agree completely! Obviously, women’s education is at the heart of our mission, but through projects like Rags to Pads we also help promote women’s health. Even that project has an educational benefit, as Kristof and WuDunn note, menstruation is a major cause of absenteeism among girls in the developing world so by providing low-cost sanitary napkins Rags to Pads helps the girls make the most of their education.

And as if women’s rights needed any more of a boost, their promotion even makes sense economically. To find out why Bill Gates agrees, check out the article, “The Women’s Crusade”, here, and read the rest of the issue, here.

- In India, the declining number of girls in the 0-6 age-group is cause for alarm. For every 1,000 boys there are only 927 females -- even less in some places.

- India introduced laws against child marriage in 1929 and set the legal age for marriage at 12 years. The legal age for marriage was increased to 18 years in 1978.

- 44.5 % of women ages 22 to 24 were married before age 18. More than one in five – 22.6 % – were married before age 16, while 2.6 % married before age 13.

- Of every 100 children who enroll in school, 70 drop out by the time they reach the secondary level and of every 100 children who drop out of school, 66 are girls.

- India is home to the highest number of child laborers in the world. Census reports clearly point to an increase in the number of child laborers in the country, from 11.28 million in 1991 to 12.59 million in 2001.

*source: InfoChange and Reuters

Rehka Kalindi is a girl who lives in Bengal, but her story is quite similar to those of the girls of Pardada Pardadi. While only 12, Rehka scorns play ("Little children in nursery play") and has worked gathering and selling firewood for years now. Her home has no electricity, running water or toilet.

When her parents told her she was to be married, however, Rehka fought back. She refused, saying she wanted to get an education and wait until she was 18. Her parents tried to starve her into submission, but they finally relented, and girls in her village now follow Rehka's trend.

The girls at Pardada Pardadi face the exact same situation as Rehka does. While not easy, some manage to stand strong and fight against child marriages, but it's never easy. We're happy that the message is being transmitted throughout other parts of India as well, and hope this trend continues throughout!

Click here for the article in full.

On why daughters are kept home:

To the extent that daughters are better substitutes for their mothers ...than sons are for their fathers in labor market activity, we'll see girls in school less. And since in agricultural activity men's activities depend on physical strength in a way women's activities do not - so if you have a farm household and it's his job, the husband's job, to plow and clear and the wife's job to weed, the daughter can fill in for her mother in a way the son cannot fill in for his father. So little girls' time is valuable inside the household and little boys' time not so much.

On the immediate economic benefits (or lack thereof) of educating a daughter:

Another thing it depends on is the number of years the returns are earned by the household and that often brings us to patterns of behavior post-marriage. If you have a daughter and you educate her and she gets married and she goes to live with her husband's family and her income accrues to her husband's family, you have basically invested in nothing. ... If you invest in your son and he gets married and stays with you and takes care of you in your old age...then you have invested in social security, in essence. And so, to the extent that women provide income back to their families for shorter periods than men, because they move in with their husband's families, because they leave the labor force when they have children ... women's education may be a less good bet than men's. That has nothing to do with parents' affection for their children, it has nothing to do with social discrimination against women, it has to do with the reality of the way women behave and how that different from men behave.

On the flaw of rational and purely economic considerations in educating women:

Aljazeera has released a short documentary video on India's growing gender imbalance. The incidence of aborting female fetuses is high enough that in some regions there are as few as 800 women per 1000 men. You can watch the video here.

In such an atmosphere, it becomes all the more important to educate young women so that they may educate future generations and put an end to this awful practice.