Ashley Judd, a well-known Hollywood actor and humanitarian, a Board Member of Population Services International (PSI) and a the Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, will be writing posts for the ONE Blog during her March 2007 travels through India. During the trip, Ashley will address women’s issues, and have the opportunity to discover how families can be empowered to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
As I arrived into Mumbai, I saw a family near the runway where we landed with pails pulling water out of a filthy ditch, in which the children were also playing. The drive to the hotel hummed with the experience of Mumbai, the largest city in the world, the monochromatic shanty roofs of a million person slum, families living on sidewalks, beggars, many of whom themselves have maimed their children in a desperate attempt to extract money from tourists, hundreds of thousands of matching little taxis, all manner of rickshaws, flowing somewhat miraculously in multiple directions at once, accompanied by a giant symphony of horn honking. They do love to honk their horns in ole Mumbai.
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Prostitution for women is a complex issue that is traced to one fundamental thing: the lack of equality for girls and women, historically and currently. The ongoing sexual objectification of our gender leads to ongoing inequities in education, economic, property, and legal disempowerment, which in turn, of course, keeps women and their children powerlessly stuck in the violence of poverty. For me, the most fundamental expression of this poverty is a woman’s inability to negotiate, much less control, her own sexuality and fertility.
To that end, I work with PSI/India to help reach the most poor and exploited for an immediate health intervention at the most basic level. In addition to helping India curb its HIV emergency, for me, preventing unintended pregnancy is a deeply moral issue of profound implications and urgency. No child should already be living brothels, much less born into them. No child should be food insecure at any time, much less know no other way of life. While we cannot change the living status of these vast numbers of poor overnight (80% of India’s 1 billion live in poverty) we can help women not have more babies that bind them further to destitution, to powerlessness, to pimps and madams. The numbers are huge, so huge. The women are broken, the children doomed.
The overall solution to what I believe is gender apartheid must be balanced and broad; it requires a spiritual revolution that allows girls equal access from early age to education, microfinancing, a redefining of “women’s work,” and universal human rights.
Tomorrow, I am going to the notorious brothel district in the world’s most populous city, Mumbai, where girls and women have absolutely none of the above.
-Ashley Judd”
(Photo credit: Jenny Mayfield)
Ashley Judd, a well-known Hollywood actor and humanitarian, is a Board Member of Population Services International (PSI) and is the Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, an education and prevention initiative of PSI, which uses media, pop culture, music, theatre and sport to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS among young people. Ashley Judd will visit India during March 2007. On her visit to India, Ashley Judd will address women’s issues, which are close to her heart, and have the opportunity to discover how families can be empowered to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies.
Ashley will be writing posts for the ONE Blog throughout her trip. Below is her first:
To even type “India” and “travel day” for me is an exquisite thrill. As a kid I yearned with such poignancy to see the world! I imagined sophisticated travels, eccentric adventures, and anthropological scrutiny of native populations.
And now, here I am embarking on a remarkable journey to my 10th developing country with YouthAid/Population Services International, rather than focusing on Aruvedic spas and colorful Hindu temples I am zeroed in on the largest slum in Asia and the largest brothel district in India, and what I do in these non tourist destinations (unless you’re a sex tourist, a category of person we shall address later), is reach out to poor people with upbeat, effective behavior change messages focused on medically accurate sex education, HIV/AIDS and STD prevention, and family planning.
A quick stat to demonstrate why: 24 million babies are born in India every single year. Yes, the equivalent population of Australia is born annually. 80% of India’s population lives in poverty and the majority of babies are born into devastating hardship.
Remember, the great Mahatma Gandhi was very clear: Poverty is the worst form of violence. And, the number of HIV+ in India is greater than the population of the U.K. The need for measurable, sustainable, immediate intervention is utterly critical. We will have a special focus on girls and women’s empowerment, and engaging men who go to sex workers about their attitudes towards women.
I am often asked why in the world I do this social justice work in squalid places filled with filth and despair, and I am, by the grace of God, slowly learning that piece of my own story. I have always had an absolutely insane insensitivity to sexual exploitation of any kind—overt, covert, institutionalized, spontaneous on the street, whatever. I simply cannot tolerate it. I know now that I was abused myself, and of course, it all makes so much more sense. I have no need to dissemble what happened here; for one, I have healed, and I have done that work in the appropriate safe places with the appropriate people. The only reason I mention it is that you’ll come across the word “recovery” now and then as I write. I could not journal without making reference to it. It has saved my life. It has changed my life. Today, I have recovery, and with it comes healthy boundaries, loving detachment, and the ability to serve for the sake of serving, not because I am unconsciously trying to wrestle my own unresolved griefs. We are all one, and I am unbelievably moved to live this out, time and again. We are one.
If you choose to keep reading these diaries, you’ll hear about our goals as an ngo (non governmental organization) and our awesome programs in India. They won’t all be so terribly intimate (I might be lying right now!). My personal goal is to feel, just once, compassion, tenderness, and dare I say love, for a perpetrator. To see someone who exploits other human beings and to understand completely that the behavior is not the soul. To remember that abused people abuse, that the definition of power with which they live is as arid and abusive as the system in which they confine women. To truly love just one madame or pimp—-even if only for a breath, that is my goal. This is my prayer.
Ashley
(Photo credit: Jenny Mayfield)
