• 130 million women have been subjected to genital cutting.

• 1% of the world’s landowners are women.

• 5 thousand women a year are murdered in honor killings.

• 107 million women in the world are missing, vanished.

• Girls aged 1 to 5 are 50% more likely to die than their male counterparts in India.

• One woman dies in childbirth every minute across the globe.

• One in seven women will die in childbirth in Niger, Africa.

• 27% of women surveyed in Ghana stated their first sexual experience was through rape.

• 18% of women in Afghanistan can read and write.

• Education of women is considered illegal in parts of the world.

• Millions of women and girls throughout the world as enslaved as domestic servants and prostitutes.

“Women hold up half the sky.” This is an old Chinese saying.  Women may hold up half the sky, but the earth is crushing us.  How can this be?  Why is it allowed to happen?

We can act, and things can change.  The New York Times has a series of articles on how we can help to empower and educate the world’s women.  “How changing the lives of women and girls in the developing word can change everything.”

We can Act.  We can Change.  We can make a difference.

RR