Third World Girls

"'We know for a fact that an investment in girls is the best anti-poverty measure that we can choose,' said Jo Scheuer, co-ordinator of disaster risk reduction with the United Nations Development Program."

BEN DEPP / PLAN INTERNATIONAL

This was taken from an article that was posted in the Toronto Star today, which discussed the ways girls and women are indiscriminately maltreated during times of natural disaster in developing countries. The facts were appalling. The statistics were stunning. "Girls are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster" than boys and men. When parents are given the choice between saving their daughters or sons in times of strife, floods and food scarcity, they choose their sons as it is these heirs that will maintain the bloodlines of the families. Their daughters are abandoned and left for dead. 

Girls are susceptible to early pregnancies, to rape, to prostitution and death in the time following national emergencies and village disasters. They are vulnerable and seeking shelter, food and warmth, and so, turn to those who offer aid, no matter what the form of aid appears in. If money or food are to come of selling their bodies, they are pushed back into a corner that offers little room for recourse. 

Please read this: Toronto Star: Why girls are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster. Support Plan Canada. Read the literature that Because I Am A Girl has to offer. 

Women are immaculate. Women are resilient. Women are powerful beyond measure. Far too often are we hidden in nooks and crannies around the world and forced to submit to the requests of those who offer crude and unwarranted "aid", simply because we are not offered it from any other source. Let's change this.