WAMC: 51% Show # 1025 (2009-03-05)

51 % The Women's Perspective

51% Show # 1025

(2009-03-05)

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ALBANY, NY (WAMC) -
According to a UN Commission, one in three women will be beaten or sexually abused during her lifetime. Women are often the population most at risk in times of hardship. The economy collapses - violence against women increases. War breaks out - violence against women increases. In the Sudan, the Darfur region has gotten international attention. This year, the Save Darfur coalition and the US Holocaust museum co-sponsored a forum to bring attention to the plight of women in Darfur. Since Darfur rebels began their fight against Sudan's government in 2003, agencies have reported hundreds of rapes, but experts suspect that's just the tip of the iceberg. With barriers to prosecuting men for rape and a lack of law and order, women and girls have been singled-out for sexual violence.

Correspondent Laura Iiyama has more from Washington:

5:04 Darfur - Iiyama

Coming up, women taking charge of business in one African nation.

If you missed part of our show, you can listen to 51% anytime. Just download our podcast at wamc.org or call 1-800-323-9262 to order a CD - you'll need to know the program number. This week's show is #1025. (6:59)

From the Sudan, travel southwest toward the Indian Ocean. Somaliland declared itself independent from Somalia seventeen years ago. But not a single other country has ever formally recognized it as a bonafide nation...meaning it's ineligible for international aid or loans. That may be because 90 percent of men in the capital of Somaliland are out of work. But Richard Lough reports that the marketplace bustles with activity - because it's the women who run the businesses.

5:44 Women in Economy - PRX

This piece originally aired on the World Vision Report.

According to a World Health Organization study, the risk of an African woman dying in childbirth in the year 2000 was one in 20. In Eastern Asia, that statistic was one in 840. One organization involved in a global effort to make modern reproductive-related medicines available in developing countries is Gynuity. President Beverly Winikoff says Gynuity's goal is to make modern medicine available to women in a woman-friendly environment.

2:20 Winikoff - Barnett

The organization is Gynuity, and president Beverly Winikoff says the goal is to improve overall health care for women. You can find out more at g-y-n-u-i-t-y dot org.

Next we travel further south to a country that borders South Africa - a country that is splintering apart. The Committee to Protect Journalists this year gave its lifetime achievement award to a prominent human rights attorney in Zimbabwe...a woman who stands between reporters and attempts by the Mugabe regime to shut them down. Laura Iiyama is back with a conversation with Beatrice Mtetwa.

5:23 Mtetwa - Iiyama
(15:23)

That's it for this edition of 51%
Thanks for listening. If you have any comments about today's program or ideas for future shows, please email me at sbarnett@wamc.org.
For 51%, I'm Susan Barnett.

(:24 pads out to 25:00)
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