In India, where traditionally boys have been preferred over girls, a village in backward Bihar state has been setting an example by planting trees to celebrate the birth of a girl child.

In Dharhara village, Bhagalpur district, families plant a minimum of 10 trees whenever a girl child is born.

And this practice is paying off.

Nikah Kumari, 19, is all set to get married in early June. The would-be groom is a state school teacher chosen by her father, Subhas Singh.

Mr Singh is a small-scale farmer with a meagre income, but he is not worried about the high expenses needed for the marriage ceremony.

For, in keeping with the village tradition, he had planted 10 mango trees the day Nikah was born.

The girl - and the trees - were nurtured over the years and today both are grown up.

Dowry deaths

"Today that day has come for which we had planted the trees. We've sold off the fruits of the trees for three years in advance and got the money to pay for my daughter's wedding," Mr Singh told the BBC.

"The trees are our fixed deposits," he said.

In Bihar, payment of dowry by the bride's family is a common practice. The price tag of the bridegroom often depends on his caste, social status and job profile.

The state is also infamous for the maximum number of dowry deaths in the country.

But the mango trees have freed Nikah's parents of undue worries. And their story is not unique in Dharhara village.

With a population of a little over 7,000, the village has more than 100,000 fully grown trees, mostly of mango and lychee.

From a distance, the village looks like a forest or a dense green patch amidst the parched and arid cluster of villages in the area.
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By Amarnath Tewary
BBC News
Photo Credit:
Prashant Ravi

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When Meg Whitman won the Republican nomination for California governor on June 8 it was a first for a Republican woman in the state. It was also the first time a female candidate ever contributed so much of her own money to a political campaign.

Whitman, 54, worth an estimated US$1.3 billion ($1.5 billion) when we last totaled her wealth back in March, has spent more than US$70 million on her campaign so far and has reportedly said she's willing to double that number to get elected.

It is an audacious sum, but even more notable is the fact that Whitman has so much cash to spend in the first place. Twelve years ago Whitman was just another rising female executive with an admirable track record at such firms as Procter & Gamble, Disney and Hasbro. Then in 1998 she took a leap of faith and accepted a job as chief executive of eBay, then a small tech firm with 30 employees. The payoff was equity in the burgeoning company.

Thanks to that decision, Whitman soon joined the ranks of the 1011 billionaires in the world. Rarer still, she's one of just 14 female billionaires in the world right now who earned their fortunes, rather than inherited them. The richest of them is China's Wu Yajun, worth $3.9 billion and ranked 232nd in the world in March when we published our 2010 Billionaires list. By contrast, 665 men are self-made billionaires including the three richest people in the world, Carlos Slim Helú , Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Among the 14 women, who represent just two per cent of all self-made billionaires, at least five of them started their business with their husbands, brothers or sometimes both. Giuliana Benetton, 72, originally knitted sweaters that her brother Luciano would then peddle by bicycle. Rosalia Mera, 66, helped then husband Amancio Ortega make dressing gowns and lingerie in their home; they eventually divorced but she kept a stake in the now multibillion-dollar apparel maker Inditex, best known for its Zara stores. Doris Fisher, 79, and her late husband Donald started the Gap in 1969.

Some of the others who got wealthy on their own include Oprah Winfrey, 56, and J.K. Rowling, 44, both of whom overcame tough personal odds to strike it rich in media and entertainment.

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By Luisa Kroll (Forbes.com)
The Sydney Morning Herald
Photo Credit:
Robyn Beck

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FOR a group dedicated to the health and well-being of children to advocate the cutting of girls’ genitals seems inconceivable.

But the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), in a review of its policy on the practice known as female circumcision, did tentatively ask if, in order to avoid the most dangerous behaviour, doctors should be allowed to perform some kind of “ritual cut” in the clitoral skin. The academy likened it to ear-piercing and said that it might satisfy the cultural requirements of people wedded to the practice.

After a chorus of condemnation the AAP swiftly released a new statement, anxiously stressing that it does not endorse “clitoral nicks”. Judith Palfrey, the group’s president, says there is absolutely no case for it and that doctors must oppose all forms of genital cutting on girls. The academy’s British and Australian counterparts, and the UN, have voiced a similar position.

Cutting girls’ genitals is still common in 28 mostly African countries and among their migrants abroad. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 100m-140m women have been subject to the practice and thinks that some 3m girls are at risk each year of one of four forms of cutting, ranging from the symbolic to life-ruining. In countries such as Somalia, Egypt and Guinea, over 95% of women have undergone some version of it.

Some see it as a matter of hygiene, others as a rite of passage into womanhood. Its Muslim, Christian and animist defenders all cite religious grounds. Where the practice is a prerequisite for marriage, economic factors play a role too.

Attempts to stamp out the practice have gathered pace since the 1980s. Now 18 African countries have banned it, although laws are patchily observed. Nawal El Saadawi, an Egyptian who suffered mutilation and has campaigned against it for more than 50 years, says that education is needed, not just prohibition.

A mixed approach probably works best. Burkina Faso has a hotline to the police for girls who feel they are in danger. Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative, a group in the Narok district in Kenya, has a safe house for girls fleeing their families. Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organisation, a Kenyan women’s NGO, offers “circumcision through words”, an alternative rite of passage without the bloodshed.

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The Economist

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"Ignorant" officials are obsessed with punishing victims of trafficking rather than targeting those behind the crime, a report claims.

A coalition of human rights groups says the system for handling victims in the UK is "not fit for purpose".

It wants an independent anti-trafficking watchdog to be created to oversee the work of officials.

The government says it will "look very carefully" at criticisms of the system "and act where necessary".

The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group is a coalition including Anti-Slavery International, Amnesty International UK and ECPAT UK (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children).

In its report, "Wrong kind of victim?", it accuses the government of breaching its obligations under the European Convention Against Trafficking.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said the emphasis must be "switched to victim protection, so that it's not all about hounding people for immigration offences".

"We pushed hard for the government to sign up to the anti-trafficking convention, but the government has botched its attempt to deal with this most despicable of crimes," she said.

"In particular, the identification system is clearly not fit for purpose, with under-trained staff displaying ignorance over what trafficking actually is."

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BBC News

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Trafficking in Wales

Susan notes: this article by Iranian lawye and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi really strikes a chord: amazing women never give up...

The protest movement is now a year old – but the feminists at its helm can look back on decades of courageous activism.

This weekend one year will have gone by since the Iranian people took to the streets in droves to protest at the fraudulent elections that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency. These peaceful demonstrations were met with extreme violence carried out by the Iranian regime. Since that day, the people have not backed down and continue to fight peacefully for basic human rights. Meanwhile, the government continues its crackdown on any opposition or dissent with ever increasing brutality.

Just a few weeks ago, on 9 May, the lengths to which the regime will go to crush its opponents came to light. Five political prisoners were executed in secret. Not even their families or their lawyers were notified.

Shirin Alam Holi, a 28-year-old Kurdish woman, was executed along with four men. In letters from Evin prison, Shirin wrote of being tortured to confess to charges of terrorism. She refused to confess, sealing her fate. At least 25 other men and women await the same fate on death row.

However, as we see time and time again, the harsher the repression, the stronger the movement grows. And as the story of Shirin Alam Holi demonstrates, women are at the forefront of the struggle for human rights in Iran.

But it is interesting to observe that this powerful feminist movement was not born out of the elections. It has been gaining strength and momentum since the Islamic revolution of 1979 – when the regime began imposing laws that were discriminatory against women – and even predates the revolution. Women in Iran have enjoyed the right to vote for nearly 50 years, since 1963. Today, under an even more repressive regime, they are flooding the ranks of doctors, professors and chief executives. Women now constitute more than 63% of university students. Is it any wonder that they refuse to stand idly by and accept that their lives are not worth as much as that of a man?