The crushing effects of global poverty are not simply the concern of international leaders or economic policy makers. Global poverty is a matter of personal ethical and moral significance for people of faith. In a tangible way, the question asked by Cain at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” resounds in the voices of billions around the planet, “Yes, you are”. At every baptism and confirmation in the Episcopal Church we vow to “respect the dignity of every human being”. Global poverty has a human face and its eradication has one too.
Often overlooked in attempts to eradicate poverty is a most vulnerable population: girls under the age of 24. The United Nations reports that more than one-quarter of those living in Asia, Latin America the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and women between the ages of 10 and 24. Datafinder (a service of the Population Review Board) reports more than 600 million girls live in the developing world. This population – already the largest in history—is expected to peak in the next decade. Stunningly, they add, for every development dollar spent, less than one cent goes to help girls.
Society’s neglect of girls and women is not a modern phenomenon. It is remarkable how many females are mentioned but not named in Holy Scripture. Noah’s three sons are named, but neither his wife nor his daughters-in-law have names. Elijah receives food and performs a miracle for the widow of Zarapheth but she remains nameless. One searches in vain for the names of the Woman at the Well, the Widow of Nain, Peter’s mother-in-law or the Canaanite Women.
Recently, groups including the Buffett family’s NoVo Foundation and the NIKE Foundation have united to produce The Girl Effect, an internet site dedicated to raising awareness of the suffering of young girls. They point to the 70% of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth who are girls. Lack of schooling contributes directly to the high ratios of girls who marry before the age of fifteen. Early sexual activity is linked to the horrifying statistic that 75% of all girls age 15 to 24 in
The Bible offers powerful images of girls and woman who have changed history. The laughter of Sarah, who overhears that she is to bear a child at age 99, becomes the boy Isaac: one of
Helping girls brings immediate and tangible effects. An extra year of schooling for a girl increases her future wages by more than 15%. Girls invest two and a half times more of their earnings for the welfare of the families than do boys. Raising the standard of living for a girl can impact a family, a village, a nation which has ignored her and generations of women before her.
An old story is told of a mountain man who walks into town one day. He is exhausted from years of chopping down trees and splitting wood. The local hardware salesman announces he’s got just the solution; it’s a chainsaw. It can cut more wood faster than any three lumberjacks. Impressed, the mountain man buys the chainsaw and disappears into the woods. One week later he’s back in town and he’s angry. The thing doesn’t work at all. The salesman asks to see the saw. He flips the switch, pulls the cord and the motor roars to life. “What’s that noise?” the mountain man screams.
“The revolution will be led by a twelve year old girl” reads one of the banners at www.girleffect.org. Truth is that hundreds of societies across the globe struggle daily in poverty. Part of the solution is to engage the half of their population that has been ignored and misused. If everyone (including girls) is given the dignity of an identity, an education and the opportunity to contribute, then the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals are achievable. Poverty can be halved by 2015. And we can live in a world that respects human dignity; a world where every girl has a name.
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