Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.

They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

Two Pulitzer Prize winners issue a call to arms against our era's most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women in the developing world. They show that a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad and that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women's potential.

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, husband and wife, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China as New York Times correspondents. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer for his op-ed columns in the Times. He has also served as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, and as associate managing editor. At the Times, Ms. WuDunn worked as a business editor and as a foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Beijing. They live in the New York area.

Introduction The Girl Effect

Chapter One Emancipating Twenty-First-Century Slaves

Fighting Slavery from Seattle

Chapter Two Prohibition and Prostitution

Rescuing Girls Is the Easy Part

Chapter Three Learning to Speak Up

The New Abolitionists

Chapter Four Rule by Rape

Mukhtar's School

Chapter Five The Shame of "Honor"

"Study Abroad"—in the Congo

Chapter Six Maternal Mortality—One Woman a Minute

A Doctor Who Treats Countries, Not Patients

Chapter Seven Why Do Women Die in Childbirth?

Edna's Hospital

Chapter Eight Family Planning and the "God Gulf"

Jane Roberts and Her 34 Million Friends

Chapter Nine Is Islam Misogynistic?

The Afghan Insurgent

Chapter Ten Investing in Education

Ann and Angeline

Chapter Eleven Microcredit: The Financial Revolution

A CARE Package for Goretti

Chapter Twelve The Axis of Equality

Tears over Time Magazine

Chapter Thirteen Grassroots vs. Treetops

Girls Helping Girls

Chapter Fourteen What You Can Do

Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes

Appendix: Organizations Supporting Women

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index