Musings

·         In India, 5000 child brides are burned alive each year because their in laws do not find their dowry acceptable. This number does not include the widows who are burned alive when their husbands die, along with all his other possessions. 

·         In Pakistan, women are kept in houses without windows, only allowed out after dark so they won’t be seen by other men. When these women give birth they are so vitamin deficient from lack of sunlight, their hip bones separate, leaving them crippled.

·         In Afghanistan widows and single women without families, die on the steps of hospitals because doctors refuse to treat them if they are not accompanied by a man.

·         In Viet Nam 70,000 women are forced into sex slavery and prostitution yearly.

·         In Nepal 200,000 girls are forced into the sex trade yearly.

·         In Nepal 34% of the women are forced into marriage below the age of 15.

·         In most of these countries it is not uncommon for men to throw battery acid in their wife’s face because she has displeased him. Many times she has their baby in her arms so the child is burned and disfigured as well.

·         On top of all these atrocities the women are coping with aids, extreme poverty, illiteracy, and in many of the countries, terrible government oppression.  For example, when Myanmar came under military rule in 1961 soldiers searched every single home confiscating all guns, bows and arrows, swords and knives so the people cannot defend themselves. Randomly the government will shut down all transportation, power and water to keep the people tyrannized. All emails and phone conversations are monitored at all times. One woman used our computer to send out her financial report so the government wouldn’t see it.