For All Women Registry

So, I watched something today that really touched my heart and I wanted to share. You might have seen this on Oprah yesterday, but just in case, I wanted to pass along this information. I don't normally watch Oprah, but after reading the "about caption," I decided to view this particular episode. I could not take my eyes off it. Her show featured two journalists, Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, reporting on what they have termed "genocide" in their book "Half the Sky." The book features the discrimination, degradation, abuse, lack of education, and rape that women are suffering from across the world, especially in places such as Africa. More women have been killed in the past 50 years from these factors than all of the men combined in all the wars of the 20th century. And somehow this problem has been overlooked. More than 20 million women are "sold" to pimps who sell their bodies in brothels and torture them.

I am usually a firm believer in the phrase, "the buck stops with you." You are where you are right now due to the choices you have made in the past. Yes, life has some unexpected turns, but you still have the privilege of choice. But this philosophy only holds true on one principal truth, human rights.

1 out of 20 women die in pregnancy in Africa. Getting pregnant is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to you. And we in America can ignorantly look at these women and say, well you're paying the consequences for your actions. This is not the norm for these women, these women are raped as a form of weapon, which then makes them uneligible for marriage or work, not to mention the diseases they come into contact with with hardly any available healthcare! Kurtis's surgeon left Whidbey Island in September to go to Ethiopia to try to educate physicians on complex surgeries. People are trying to help, but imagine what we could do if everyone did something small. He is truly my hero in more ways than one.

This is not a matter of feminism, this is a matter of providing safety, education, and healthcare to a human being that is being left behind. We live very affluent lives in America with many things that we take for granted. Yes, the healthcare industry is in disarray, but its more a matter of money than availability. We have amazing healthcare facilities in this country, vaccinations for children, charity clinics, and great organizations such as the Salvation Army that help families in need. These women have NOTHING because they cannot earn a living because they are not allowed to have an education and very few are willing to help. They are looked on as nothing more than animals.

So, I wanted to post the website on Oprah's page that makes it easy to help. For what is pocket change to us can change a life! I have to admit, I had heard about these things before, but I did not realize the magnitude. I think awareness is the key here.

www.oprah.com/forallwomen

On this website, you can support a mom, help a rape victim, save a slave, teach a girl, offer a microloan in order for a women to buy a cow, or just help by passing along this information.