What We’re Reading 3/5/10

Mar 5th, 2010 11:58 AM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

The New Statesman (UK): A weapon against half the world
In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, co-founder of Justice for Women, Julie Bindel, calls for a global movement against sexual violence. According to Bindel, violence against women is an international epidemic and has been identified by the World Health Organization as a grave health issue, affecting more people than HIV and AIDS. Bindel highlights the connection between poverty and violence, including a new surge of sexual aggression in South Africa, arguing that the poorer the woman, the more vulnerable she is to exploitation and sexual violence. Said Bindel, “If a woman has to fight for clean water, she may be pressured to swap this for sexual favors. If there is no work in her town or village, she could be targeted by traffickers promising her a better life overseas.”

The New Times (Rwanda): Improving Sanitation Will Accelerate MDG Targets – Experts
The New Times reports that with only five years left to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target, experts have urged regional countries to prioritize programs that aim at increasing access to safe water and sanitation if the goals are to be achieved. This was suggested during the on-going second East African sanitation conference that is taking place in Kampala, Uganda. According to the Regional Director of UNICEF, major goals such as reducing child mortality rates and eradicating global poverty rely heavily on improving sanitation among the population in the region. Said the Director, “Access to sanitation facilities is a right as it safeguards human health and dignity. Every 10 seconds a child dies as a result of sanitation-related diseases, therefore there is need to urgently accelerate efforts to achieve development goals.”

The Telegraph: Sierra Leone: learning curve
Telegraph journalist Chris Harvey highlights the work of World Vision, a charity which is helping children overcome poverty and ignorance in Sierra Leone after decades of corruption, exploitation and civil war have left their mark on the rural country. According to Harvey, World Vision has been restoring school buildings in an effort to rehabilitate the education system, helping to pay teachers’ salaries and sponsor others to take the distance learning qualifications due to the fact that approximate 90 percent of teachers in the area are unqualified. Funds have also just been procured for health work, such as the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets to protect against malaria and to help reduce the astounding maternal-mortality rate of 2.1 percent, the highest of any country in the world.

Reuters: African poverty falling “faster than we thought”
Africans are getting wealthier more quickly than previously believed, according to a new study that also suggests the poorest continent’s riches are spreading beyond the narrow confines of its elite. The research, which assesses poverty levels and income distribution from 1970 to 2006, lends weight to a belief among local and foreign investors that Africa is finally beginning to build a new foundation on its own. The study also challenges the suggestion that strong African growth over the last decade or more has done little to alleviate grassroots poverty due to the countervailing effect of equally strong population expansion. Said the study researchers, “Africa is reducing poverty, and doing it much faster than we thought. The growth from the period 1995-2006, far from benefiting only the elites, has been sufficiently widely spread that both total African inequality and African within-country inequality actually declined over this period.”

The Associated Press: WHO: 85 million African children to get polio shot
The World Health Organization says more than 85 million children under five in west and central Africa will be vaccinated against polio in a new vaccination campaign funded largely by Rotary International. The agency says the massive campaign in 19 countries by U.N. agencies and the Red Cross will involve more than 400,000 volunteers and health workers. WHO says a 2008 polio outbreak in Nigeria spread throughout western Africa up to Mauritania, with previous vaccination programs failing to stop the outbreak.

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