Empowering Women: Why It’s a Key to Ending Human Trafficking

A great post to share:

Women are disproportionately victimized by traffickers. A disproportionate number live in poverty and lack education and health care. (Check out this post from last week about the size and scope of human trafficking.)

This year at STF, we’re going to take a closer look at what it means to empower women, and how to promote opportunities for women’s health, education, business, and life choice.

While it might seem that focusing on women perpetuates inequality and leaves impoverished men and boys without resources, empowered women empower communities.

When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

(Chris Fortson, “Women’s Rights Vital for Developing World,” Yale News Daily 2003.)

In the info graphic at the end of this post, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) explains why empowering women is so important.

And The Girl Effect shows the power of 12-year-old girls in this video.

It’s no secret that STF is already in the business of empowering women. All our products are made by women who’ve previously been exploited. They’ve been given extensive job skills training and health care, and they’re paid a fair (often generous) wage.

Around the world people are taking action for women:

• • This journalist in Bangladesh calls for men to band together to bring an end to violence against women.
• • These farming innovations give power to the women who produce over 50% of the world’s food.
• • This interview with Swanee Hunt, founder of Institute for Inclusive Security, explains how women are a vital part of the peace negotiation process.

Throughout the year, we’ll be pointing you in the direction of different ways you can help empower women; but don’t doubt your own creative abilities. Look around you community: Are there women who need literacy training or rides to the doctor? Are there girls who are falling behind in school because they have to care for their siblings during homework time? Are there organizations focused on women who need volunteers?