Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> When I tell people what I do, I'm often called an idealist.
People look at me and they say, so, you want to change the world?
Well, actually I don't think that we need to change the world at all.
I think that the world is perfect as it is. I think that what we need to change is how
we treat the world, our attitudes toward the world.
>> My name is Lee White and I live here. When we consider the state of the world, economic
collapse, climate change, species depletion, food crises, acts
of genocide, terrorism and a war, and the increasing disparities between
those who have and those who don't, it's daunting.
>> We live in the globalized world where corporations are getting
more and more influence and have more reach than governments which are
in many cases bound to their national borders.
>> I actually believe now that enough people can see through the
illusionary way which banks can and legally do conjure into existence
money out of thin air.
>> There are many puzzles and mysteries in the mechanisms of aging.
Equally puzzling is why the fight against aging is not on the world's
agenda. Are just a few people interested in why we're
aging?
>> Critics like Danbesa Moyo have accurately and truthfully pointed out
that we have sent billions and billions of our tax dollars to the
developing world and much it of it has just disappeared.
It's also true that when you are just dumping money from a rich country
to a poor country that you can create dependence. These are problems with aid.
But it's also true as people like Dr. Jeffery Sacs have accurately
pointed out targeting specific problems can create a huge impact that
help break the cycle of poverty.
>> I believe in nonviolence struggling, in fighting against wars in
this world, in fighting against human rights violations.
>> 3 million girls a year are cut forcibly. FGM happens because women are disempowered.
They deserve to reach their potential. They deserve access to education, autonomy
over their own bodies.
>> We are portrayed as a world where you have the North with idea, with
technology, with capital. And the South is portrayed as this land of
lack of opportunity, corruption, and problems.
And if that were the case, then the only thing we need to do is to
transfer money and resources from the North to the South.
And we know that is not pathway that we need to follow.
>> If we want to survive as a species, folks, we've got to act together
as a species. Thank you for your attention.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, I'd like to welcome you here.
My name is Nicholas Kristof. I'm a columnist from the New York Times.
And I -- this is an unusual session in a couple of ways, but first of
all, I want to kind of give a bit of a PG warning.
And the reason is that we realized as we walked in, that the topic it
says "Design Your Cause." And so I think some of you may be here to
figure out how to design your own cause or promote it.
And this emerged because Julia Lalla-Maharajh designed her cause which
happened to be female genital mutilation. So as a result, this panel is about a discussion
of where we go and how we deal with female genital mutilation.
And we didn't want to have a lot of people wincing in the audience if
you were expecting a discussion about, you know, how one goes about how
designing your cause. So fair warning.
And, of course, this is unusual in that respect that, you know, we
associate Davos with turgid discussions of interest rates and Middle
East policy and whatever, not particularly about genital cutting.
The other way in which this was most unusual was that this topic arose
from a YouTube audience. And we've talked all the time about the importance
of social media, how we can build campaigns.
Well this is an embodiment of precisely that. And if you are here in the room, of course,
please turn off your cell phones.
If you are at home watching on YouTube, then turn on your cell phones
really loudly and just hit pause. Um, as I said, this topic arose because people
on YouTube were invited to vote among some competing ideas, some competing
causes. And Julia Lalla-Maharajh, I want to -- you
want to raise your hand there?
Um, Julia submitted a video which explains her passion, her cause, and
let's cut to that now.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Last year, I volunteered in Ethiopia.
And one of the things I saw there, female genital mutilation, has
completely changed the path of my life. I realized I couldn't look away from this
urgent issue. So I came back to London and volunteered with
an organization. And a friend sent me a link to the YouTube
Debates saying someone with a urgent human rights cause had to go to Davos.
And I thought, this is got to be it. So why send me to Davos?
Because I want to ask those innovative and intrepid world leaders to
put their hearts and minds and power behind ending FGM.
I've just found out that I am going to Davos. Since I won, I've been doing a video diary
every day and really just trying to raise awareness of the basics of
this very complex issue. So what is FGM?
It's very simply the removal of a girl's external genitals, the
***, the ***, and in severe cases, the wound that's left is sewn
up, so there's only a tiny hole left. I'm just pleased the day is here, actually,
because it's been a lot of prep to get to this point.
It's night one in Davos and as you can see, it's absolutely beautiful.
My belief is that issues like this can't stay on the margins, that they
really have to be debated at the highest levels.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
BILL CLINTON: I'll follow up. Bless you.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: I'm really delighted I entered this competition.
Who would have thought ten days later I would go from my kitchen table
to Davos? But let's not be complacent.
This is just a few days at Davos. There's so much more to be done.
There's still 3 million girls a year being cut.
So what can we do together today to help do something about this?
[MUSIC PLAYING] [APPLAUSE]
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, hats off to Julia on that, and fair warning,
as you can see, she may well buttonhole you in the room and try to get
you to join the movement. I also think it's really quite extraordinary
that considering all the causes that there that the YouTube audience
a large audience chose this one as a foremost issue that they wanted to
address. And I think in a larger sense it does reflect
the degree to which the rights of women and girls around the world
are rising on the agenda. But, um, Julia I wonder if you could -- if
we could just start off by you just addressing this question, you know,
given all the concerns that we have around the world, whether on
the human rights front or on the environmental front, economic front.
Why do you think this one is the one that should rise to the top and
why indeed did the -- did the YouTube generation, which is maybe more
your generation than mine, alas, sign up for it?
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: You know, I think it just really caught people's
hearts and minds and actually it has languished in that box that we all
tick that says this is too difficult. This is a taboo area.
This is something that we didn't know about. And as a result, I think just coming out,
and saying three million girls a year are still being cut -- people
just caught onto that. And a lot of the comments on YouTube actually
said, we didn't realize this still happened.
And I think just bringing it out in that way. And also, you know, what was wonderful was
people could go very instantly and look at clips about FGM in far
more detail. So using social media in that way, actually
allowing people to inform themselves about what the issue was, I think,
you know, just created this tidal wave of interest.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: We have a terrific panel and indeed a lot of
questions that have been submitted by YouTube viewers.
And we'll also, you know, invite your comments and questions as well.
Here on my left, beside me is Kathy Calvin, who's the head of the UN
Foundation, which has been very involved in this issue.
Beside her, Larry ***, who is the head of Amnesty International, the
Executive Director of Amnesty, which has likewise been involved in this
as a central human rights issue. And Ann Veneman, the Director, Executive Director
of UNICEF, which has both gathered the data on this -- the 3 million
figure annually in Africa alone figure that Julia cited, and
is also been very active in supporting one of the ventures in Senegal,
Tostan, that has been most effective in really seeing progress against
this. Kathy, let me maybe start with you.
You know, is indeed one of the problems that this does feel like a
taboo topic; that you know, it always seems to me that AIDS -- so many
millions of more people died of AIDS because it involved sex and it was
hard to talk about. It is the problem here that it involves genitals
and so it's something that it's very hard to have a serious conversation
about.
KATHY CALVIN: You know, I actually think it's not a hard subject to
have a conversation about -- and that Julia said the right thing.
I don't think people really understand that it's still exists.
It sort of one of those things that we heard about in our childhood and
we don't hear enough about it today. So my -- my hat is off to Julia for bringing
this back up front and center.
I think the other reason we don't hear as much about it is it's about
girls. And we don't really have an understanding
of the life of 600 million girls around the world, that they don't get
to stay in school, they get married off early.
They are subject to genital mutilation. Their lives are challenges in ways that American
girls don't really understand and when they hear about it, they're
shocked. They think it's unfair, and they want to do
something. So yes, there's probably something about how
do we talk about this? I frankly think reproductive health is just
as difficult to talk about especially when it comes to girls, but increasingly
people -- I heard Melinda Gates yesterday speaking out about
it. It's time to deal with these issues and so
here we are.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Larry, one of the -- I had a conversation once with
a Sudanese diya, a women who does the cutting and I pushed her on
genital cutting and she said, this is our culture.
This is our religion. What business is it of you Americans whether
we circumcise our daughters?
How do we answer her?
LARRY ***: Well, it's a very important question. And when Amnesty started working on this several
decades ago, it was a question that actually for awhile even divided
our own membership. People were very afraid that they were being
culturally insensitive or even imperialistic in taking this on.
I think what makes the difference is hearing the voices of the actual
women who experienced this and who are fighting against it.
It then becomes clear it's not a question -- who defines the culture
and how does culture change? Culture is not something stagnant.
Of course, it's easy for us to say, you know, human rights always trump
culture. It's also interesting that these cultural
arguments are usually not always used to justify cruelty and pain that
effect women and not men. I think if men were being cut in this way,
somehow the cultural arguments would fade away.
But I think it is very important to: (A) listen to the women
themselves make their voices heard because that completely undercuts
the argument that this is something being imposed from abroad.
It's not. And secondly, I think it is important to take
the cultural argument seriously in the sense that to end the practice,
one has to really seriously address how you get the whole community
to understand that this is something which is not in the interests
of a community, not in the interests of the girl they care about.
And to take the lead in fact in trying to stop it.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Let me, Ann, let me sort of follow up on that in the
sense that this is something that the West has pushed hard against
really since the 1920s. I think because of British influence Sudan
banned infibulation which is the worst kind of FGM back in 1925 and a similar
period in Kenya. And in fact, it really led in those, especially
in those early periods, to something of a backlash.
It was this sense these outside imperialists telling us what to do,
this is our culture. So Ann, if you could maybe talk a little bit
about I mean is it fair to say that especially since the 1970s when there
was a ramped up effort that that effort really didn't, that it really
was something of a failure, which is my view.
But that now, in the last ten years or so, we're kind of getting the
formula for what works?
ANN VENEMAN: I think, um, part of the problem is as you say that
people react to having them, having them their cultures, you know, said
that they're not right. So as Nick mentioned one of the organizations
that has been very successful is an organization called Tostan,
T-O-S-T-A-N, for of you who want to look it up on the web.
It works primarily in West Africa, but also across the band of Africa
where this practice is most prevalent. But I think the important thing about is that
it starts at the community level with community discussions.
One of the first things that they did was they no longer referred to it
as female genital mutilation, because the word "mutilation" is
judgmental, the word cutting is factual. This came about with conversations with the
leadership of the communities themselves.
I've visited the first community that Tostan began in.
And they started by talking with the imam, the senior leader.
This was a community where men and women were so separated that the
women literally had to walk in a different part of the whole community
if the men were sitting in the town square. There was absolutely no mixing of men and
women. So they began with the imam to talk about
the health impacts. And suddenly the lights go on, and say, well,
yes, I remember my niece went a little crazy after this because of
infection. Well, they had never put the health impacts
really on the agenda. So then they begin to talk about it as a human
rights issue. The community now, has come together men and
women, not only has this practice -- they've abandoned it as a community,
but they've also seen that the education rates have gone up; the
access to health care has gone up; better access for women to reproductive
health services and attended births.
So there's been a lot of impacts of working together as a community.
Now the other thing that they found, again, a cultural aspect is you
couldn't just do it in one community. And so you had to reach out to the other communities
because the question was if my daughter is not cut, she
won't be able to get married because it's a cultural expectation.
And so they had to begin to work in groups of communities to really get
impact on this practice. Now, there are over 4,000 communities now
in Senegal that have abandoned as a result of this community-based
approach. And so I think we now know what the formula
is that works.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: And just to push a little harder.
I mean, it is fair to say that the previous campaign really since the
1970s, these laws passed, conferences held -- I was in Guinea last year
where FGM is punishable by life imprisonment on the part of the
parents, or in some cases if the girl dies, actually by execution.
And yet, 99 percent of Guinean girls are still cut.
I mean, given the need to learn from mistakes, is it fair to say that
that long campaign, until the more community-based approach of Tostan,
really is a failure that we should learn from? And I'll toss that out to anybody.
I don't mean to subject Ann to -- to this. But, I mean you're welcome to address that
Ann or anybody else can jump in.
ANN VENEMAN: I think, I mean I think this is one of the consequences
is that, you know, people don't want to be told what to do particularly
when they believe it's part of their culture that has been around for
generations. On the other hand, one of the countries with
the highest prevalence of female genital cutting is Egypt.
And they have, particularly with some of the women in the country
speaking out themselves, some of the local women, some of the leaders
including the First Lady speaking out on these issues, they're finding
that they can have an impact particularly as more and more women get
access or more and more families get access to television.
So they can address some of these issues on things like soap operas or
other ways of communicating with women on television to begin a little
bit more dialogue about whether or not this is really something that
has to be continued in the culture or whether or not it can be changed.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: And I think as well, Nick, that the absolute
importance of a multilevel approach, so the community grassroots level
work is absolutely vital. But unless, as you say, the legislation is
there, unless legislation is enforced, unless there's allied advocacy,
a media campaign's coming in to tell people about the changes in law.
Recently, Uganda outlawed FGM, but there's a criticism there that
governments done very little to actually tell people within Uganda that
it's illegal. So you need an approach across the board that
is there to reinforce this message.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: And Julia, there's a question here that from a
YouTube viewer, um, and I wondered if you could answer it while raising
some of the consequences, the practical consequences, in terms of
health *** assault whatever it may be. Mitch from London says if you could spend
five minutes with a grandmother of a girl that was about to be
cut, presumably the grandmother being -- the assumption is grandmother
is the decisionmaker there, if you could spend five minutes with
a grandmother of a girl who was about to cut, what would you say?
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: You know the first thing --
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: And actually if -- maybe let's pretend Mitch didn't
say five-minutes, let's say one minute.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Okay. Not five minutes.
Actually first of all I'd listen. I'm volunteering in this area and I know as
Larry was talking about this charge of cultural imperialism coming
in changing communities. I cannot sit in front of a grandmother and
leap in and tell her why this is wrong.
But what I can do is talk about health impacts, as Ann said, the causal
links between what happens in FGM, and then the constant infections,
the sepsis, the childbirth complications, everything that results are
not known often because the girls are cut at such a young age.
So they don't realize that the impacts that this has.
And in fact, many circumcisers are the greatest advocates within their
own community to say why this must end, once they've seen it.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Larry, your -- you and your organization are
obviously focused on human rights. And if a -- um, what -- has the human rights
community been sort of slow to look, to focus on some of these broad
issues that involve every home?
In other words if a -- if a Sudanese dissident gets arrested by the
government, then obviously everybody writes letters.
If 3 million girls a year get cut, then you know, whether it's
organizations, whether it's we in the media, everybody -- that people
kind of tune out.
LARRY ***: Yeah. There's no doubt about that.
We have been too slow. And it's a sort of painful history to have
to look at. To understand not only the importance of this
issue but the important general of the rights of women as key not
only to women but to in fact the advancement of all human rights.
And it really was the Women's Movement that pushed the human rights
community to begin to understand this. And as it did, our work on all human rights
began to improve because the lessons that you've learned about FGM
are lessons that in fact apply to other human rights violations as
well. That you have to work with the community,
that you have to understand, you have to listen, that you have to empower
the people who are there and you also understand that in this issue,
it's not simply a question of -- of this issue separate from the larger
issue of violence against women and the larger issue of the devaluation
of women, of the discrimination against women.
I don't think you can really solve -- and Tostan certainly took this
approach the reason it adopted a human rights approach was because
human rights speak across-the-board. That has a holistic vision of what people
need. It's not just issue-oriented, but it's issued
on the basic rights that everyone needs.
And when it did that, the community began to understand this not as a
isolated cultural practice that everyone condemned by as part of
general fight for the human rights of everybody in the community.
And I think that made a difference. But we have learned a lot.
And we need to keep learning. I think now, I'm proud to say, that certainly
my own organization has made the rights of women central, central
to its work on human rights.
KATHY CALVIN: And I would just add where the UN is on the ground
dealing with this, whether it's UNICEF or UNFPA, the population fund,
or UNIFEM, the approach is actually a very holistic one where they're
trying to keep the girls in school and take care of all the other
issues that change both the culture of the community, and the girls'
own aspirations for her life, in effect, empowering her.
But the cutting takes place at such an early age, you have to deal
with, then, the mothers and the fathers and the whole community.
So the girl doesn't become an advocate for herself until it's too late.
I find it interesting that, you know, there's roughly 28 countries in
which it's prevalent still. 19 of them have laws against it, it is criminal,
criminalized in those countries.
But that's only half, and even in those countries, we're still fighting
this battle. So there is a rule of law problem here that
I'm sure you're dealing with as well.
That it -- that's not the only answer obviously. You need -- you need these groups in there
trying to change the culture at the group level.
LARRY ***: And it's also important to point out it's not a problem
that just confined to Africa or -- I mean, it's now around the world.
It's in Europe; it's in the United States. And that even makes it even more complicated
to talk about how you're going to -- to stop it.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, that actually goes to a question here from Rob
from Loos, which is think is in the UK, asks, "You and others have
talked about the need to stop FGM within a generation.
Do you really think you can do it?" Kathy?
KATHY CALVIN: Well, there's a goal that the UN has set that to
eliminate by 2015, which is the date for the millennium development
goals. I don't think there's any real we shouldn't
be trying for that. That's far enough away that we could really
do a concerted effort and frankly, it's going to take a global campaign,
you know. And we need a global campaign for girls.
This ought to be right front and center at the beginning of it.
So I think it's doable.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: So there's a -- there may be a parallel with China.
Foot binding was actually punishable by exile on the part of
the parents -- had zero impact. At various points, it was banned.
No impact. And then early in the 20th century, really
remarkable quickly, it disappeared.
And it went from a perception on the part of parents that if they
didn't bind their daughter's feet, that it would be hard for her to
marry, to a perception that if they bound her feet, it would be harder
for her to get married. And, um, it, you know, I guess that --
KATHY CALVIN: One emperor changed the rule, changed the perception.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: It was a really a bottom-up social movement, um, led
by elites from within the country, um, part of this sense of awakening.
And supported by outsiders to some degree but -- but really led from
within, pushed from within. So I guess the question is how we can replicate
that, and whether groups like Tostan are indeed -- whether this
is the next sort of foot binding analogy, so that the change once it
comes you've reached the tipping point, it will happen very, very quickly.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: I just want to come back to that point Kathy
made of 2015. I wished I shared your optimism, Kathy.
I just feel that we're here talking about solutions.
We seem to know what works. We know this model is there.
We know about the respect we have to give to communities.
Um, and many, many local NGOs and civil society organizations are
working on the ground, and you know to pay tribute to all of those
small organizations really at danger as well. One of the women who's contacted me through
this campaign, Lucy Maswa, who said, you know, go forth and speak at
Davos about this. And her story, once she started speaking out
within her community, she was ***, she was beaten, she was tied to
a tree, she was jailed. She's luckily living now in the US.
But I think what we need to see is how we can in the next five years,
if that is true, take this to scale -- I'm using the language of Davos
there -- but really, you know, what is preventing us if we know how to
make things change, why can't we put this into place?
It is a funding issue? It is a global awareness issue?
What needs to happen? What are the levers that we can pull?
If we were sitting here saying actually this is to intractable; this is
too difficult. We're not going to address this issue.
Fair enough. But we're all sitting here in vehement agreement
that is a severe abuse, a child's right abuse, a women's right
abuse. We've got a solution.
What can we do?
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: A bunch people from on YouTube asked variations of
that, you know, what have we learned from -- from, well, one person
asked what have we learned from *** campaigns that can be transposed
into working to eradicate FGM, various other people asked, you know,
variations of that. But Ann, given what you talked about earlier,
isn't indeed one lesson perhaps that a bunch of outsiders, at the
treetops, the top-down efforts on their own aren't going to get very
far and that what does work is outsiders supporting indigenous efforts
from within the culture, and giving them the microphone and
us standing back and letting them lead the way.
I mean, is that -- is that part of it?
ANN VENEMAN: Well, I absolutely think it's part of it.
I think that if you can't change the norms, the practices of
communities unless you listen and understand and have a dialogue.
And again the Tostan approach did exactly that, listened to the why,
listened to the perceptions. And then also gave information about the health
effects, the facts. I think that's one of the things that we haven't
done enough of as an international community around a number of
these issues. And you mentioned ***/AIDS, you know, one
of the most difficult things, we've gotten better coverage of prevention
of mother-to-child transmission, of treatment of AIDS generally,
of treatment of pediatric AIDS -- one of the most difficult things has
been to understand how to have an impact with education.
It just hasn't seemed to work. And part of it is, I don't think we understand
and listen to communities enough.
For example, you know, one of the things that you talk about in
Southern Africa where AIDS is most prevalent is use of condoms.
But there are practices in places like Swaziland, where in order to get
married, you have to get pregnant first to show your fertility.
Well, it's a little difficult to talk about using condoms when you want
to get pregnant. And so, I think, if you don't listen to the
community and understand the whys, the -- how the practices work and
what's going on truly in the communities and have a dialogue about
it, you can't actually make the change.
And I think this, this human rights approach, engaging the community in
human rights, in women's rights, in men and women understanding each
other and why things are happening is a way to really make an impact in
changing some of these practices, particularly those that are most
harmful for women.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Larry?
LARRY ***: If I could just -- because I don't want to create a sort of
dichotomy between the approach that you just described, which I fully
support, and the idea of outside pressure because that can lead to a
kind of paralysis on the part of people who aren't able to have a
dialogue with the community. And I think the lesson not only on this issue
but on many, many other issues is as Julia said you need a multilevel
or multifaceted kind of approach.
Because I think to take your China example, which is really
fascinating, which I want to like learn to use more -- there was also
very, very strong political will on the part of the government that
played a major role I think, as I understand it.
At least I'm thinking about --
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I actually -- I think at previous points there was
central political will that actually didn't really get anywhere.
And at the time when foot binding really ended up being eradicated you
had very weak central governments that --
LARRY ***: All right. I was thinking it happened after the Revolution.
But it happened before?
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, it began happening before and the end of the
Ching Dynasty and then after that in a period when you had real social
awakening but pretty fragile central governments.
LARRY ***: Well, at any rate, my point is that I think you need to
put -- we need to put pressure on governments to not simply pass laws,
which is the easy thing to do, but to actually not allow the kinds of
practices that Julia talked about. I mean it's -- you know, where people are
being threatened. People are -- lives are in danger, you need,
the outside world needs to be in support in a very practical way of people
who are speaking out and who are being threatened as a result of
speaking out on this issue as well as on other women's rights issues.
So I don't think it's an either/or thing. I think that we need very much to correct
what I think is a longstanding failure to appreciate the community
approach. But I also think we still need to keep --
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Let me press you on that a little further since you
have an -- a Y chromosome here. And I think there might be some men watching
whether here or on YouTube who will think hey, you know, this isn't my
fight. I don't have a ***.
And what end -- and the same thing, I think, applies to a lot of other
women's rights issues. Um, what do you say to them?
Is this their fight or not?
LARRY ***: Oh, absolutely, it is their fight. If they care at all about human rights, about
their own freedom, and their own dignity.
I mean, I think that was my point about the linkage between the fight
for women's rights and the fight for all human rights.
I mean, it's not -- we all can very easily draw the connections between
the status of women in any particular society and the general status of
human rights in that society. And that includes the societies in which many
of the people who are watching this, um, discussion live.
Insofar as -- and it's the experience of my own, my own life and my own
organization that it was the struggle of women for their rights that
made us understand our own, our own rights and the way things are
connected, and the way that -- the approach we were taking was a
very narrow and very limited approach. So I think it's in the vital interest of every
man. And we, of course, don't live in isolation
from women. You know, we have daughters, we have wives,
we have lovers. We -- you know, it's inconceivable to me that
someone could say this is not of any interest to me because I'm male
and this happens to women, anymore than I would expect women to say,
I'm not really interested in what happened to Nelson Mandela because he's
a man and I'm a woman. I mean what kind of world is that where we
suddenly divide our feelings?
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Maybe one more way of thinking about it is that the
Holocaust wasn't a Jewish issue civil rights weren't a black
issue and FGM isn't just a women's issue.
LARRY ***: Right. Exactly.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: And I think particularly, men play such a huge
part in the communities that practice this as Ann has said because one
of the key reasons for FGM being in place is it makes a girl marriageable.
And when, as part of these community conversations, the men come
together and decide that they will marry an uncut woman, this is how it
changes within a generation. And you then move though to the next community
which is the intra-marrying group.
So men are so vital in this debate and particularly as religious
leaders as well.
KATHY CALVIN: And I think when we focus on rights, we get stuck.
When we focus on economics, which is really what this all comes down to
is kind of what's a girl worth and is this about marrying her for her
value -- it changes. I think because it's girls, people do react
differently than women. So I think that's going to help bring more
people to the issue. We've used economic incentives in a number
of cases to get communities to think differently about early marriage.
And the consequence of the man finally having a reason to stop and
think about his daughter marrying early or marrying late, when there's
an economic incentive to do so. And in the case, in Ethiopia, a girl who stays
in school is eligible for a sheep or a goat for her family if she
stays in school two more years.
The fathers have been saying, hmmm, I wasn't really in the conversation
before. I had no reason to have the conversation.
I had no reason to think about it. I had no reason to think about the value my
daughter could bring to my family if she stayed in school longer.
The economic incentive got him to pay attention. So I'm for the hybrid solution, which is the
community, the listening, incentives where we can -- where we can apply
them. And I know not everybody loves incentives
but I think they work and the external pressure.
but I think rights sometimes gets people into the different kind of
conversation where we have -- we have a different view of rights.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Speaking of a different kind of conversation, we've
been -- we've been discussing at one level. But I want to kind of make it real.
And we have a video clip from Mali, and I have not yet seen it.
I'm briefed that everybody in the history who has ever seen it has
promptly burst into tears afterward so pull out your handkerchiefs.
But if we can role that, that would be great.
[VIDEO PLAYING]
[CHILDREN CRYING]
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, that goes a zillion times a day in much of the
world. And, um, I don't know exactly what kind of
cutting this was, but it did not appear to be infibulation which is the
much worse kind. And in that case, the girls' legs are afterward
often tied together, and for a couple weeks or so the wound can
heal. And is, you know, is that squared.
Jennifer, I'm sorry, Jane, from the UK asks how can women fight GM in
cultures where they have no voice? And likewise, Sam from Devin says FGM seems
to be about what women in some cultures believe they must do and be,
to have value to the men who hold power.
If we're to change the thinking of men and women in these cultures what
can we draw from our own experience to guide us?
And let me put out this -- frame that to the panel.
I mean, I think that there's a perception that this is often really
about men oppressing women, and it seems to me at least that it's much
more complicated than that. And typically, this is what women, in fact,
are doing to other women. That the men, they may want to marry a girl
who's cut but they're largely removed from the decision making.
And in fact, partly because men are more likely to be educated they --
it seems quite plausible to me that men are more likely to be against
FGM than women are in these countries. I don't know any survey but that, anecdotally,
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.
So I wonder if the problem, you know, isn't often patriarchal values
even misogynistic values, that are absorbed and transmitted as much by
women as by men, you know, if that isn't a better way of looking at
this than men oppressing women.
KATHY CALVIN: Well, and the video just showed women are the primary
carriers of the culture. I mean, Ann, you've probably -- because you've
seen it, you know, that is the way it's passed on.
And you may have a point of view on that but that's how it -- it is
carried into the community.
ANN VENEMAN: Well, I think that, I mean, certainly that clip showed
that it is practiced -- when it's actually done, it's women who cut the
girls. And -- but yet, it is the men who were saying
my daughter will not be able to get married if she's not cut.
So I think it's -- it's a practice, it's a culture that has to be
addressed as a whole not -- it's not just women.
It's not just men. It's everybody's responsibility to kind of
look at how this is going to change.
Now having said that, it is not the same -- it's not practiced the same
in every country. I went a year before last to Sierra Leone.
I was reading my briefing papers and I find out female genital cutting
is quite prevalent in Sierra Leon. So I call up Molly Melching, who founded Tostan,
and I said, what are you doing in Sierra Leone?
And she said, we're not because it's completely different.
They practice something called secret societies. And secret societies are where girls would
go before there was an education system, they would go off for maybe
a few months at a time and they would learn how to be a wife.
They'd learn how to do all of these different things.
This was their education. And part of it was, they got cut.
Now those secret societies still exist in Sierra Leone and still a
number of young girls get cut, although less and less.
And the secret societies are much less about going for a long period of
time and more just about cutting now. But one of the things I found when I was there,
is that young teenage girls who were still in school were talking
about these secret societies and these practices as things that
they were going to try to help be a part of the past.
And so I think there is some ability to engage in some of these kinds
of communities, again, the practices are different. And in that country, it's -- it's done in
a completely different way. So I think it's again, it's about listening,
it's about learning. Learning about the particular culture and
practices of a country and the history of it.
I think is key to finding the way to eliminate it.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Speaking of culture and practices I mean another
layer of complexity here is frankly religion. That there -- and I want to be very clear
here -- a great part of the Muslim world does not practice cutting.
There's nothing in the Qur'an about cutting. In the Arabian peninsula, almost nobody does
any cutting. And there are also a number of Christian places,
Ethiopia, in particular.
In fact in Ethiopia, Christians do some of the most severe cutting.
All that said, most of the cutting occurs in Muslim countries, whether
that is in Africa or in Asia. And doesn't that -- I mean, given the problems
right now between the West and the Muslim world, doesn't that create
one more layer of complexity if you have Western efforts to
go against a practice that is disproportionately embedded in the Muslim
world? And I don't know who I want to hand this nice,
this potato to.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Can I turn it around and just say Mauritania has
just issued a fatwa against FGM. 34 Islamic leaders have actually just said
that this is absolutely not in the Qur'an and not an issue.
I hate to address the positives in the debate, but you know there is
change. And at least if we know that this is one of
the key issues, at least we can begin to address it.
LARRY ***: I think one of the things that has changed that we need to
not keep acting as if it hasn't changed is that, you know, human rights
issues are no longer a concern of the West somehow.
And the human rights movement is no longer located in the West.
It's everywhere. There are human rights organizations, there
are thousands of human rights organizations in virtually every region.
And in the Muslim world there are incredible organizations and fighters
for human rights. And I think what has to shift is that we need
to see -- this is something my organization has to struggle
with -- is how do we shift our role from being sort of the saviors of
the world that savior paradigm to a role of like really empowering
and trying to help and listen to those organizations in those cultures
who are fighting. There is an incredible struggle, which we
often don't publicize very much, we don't write about it very much, we
act as if it's not there within Islam, within the Muslim world, on
these issues, on what it means.
And that's the struggle, I think, which is ultimately going to
determine the success for the reasons we gave about when human rights
succeed, it's because they're rooted in the indigenous struggle; in the
culture, and that's what I think is the hope for this.
That's it becoming a global issue not a Western issue being imposed on
the part of the world that carries it out, which was the model decades
ago.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Marion from Germany asks what do you think should be
the punishment levelled by the international community for nations that
permit FGM? Um, now I don't -- my hunch is probably none
of you think countries as such should be punished but, why not?
I mean there are levers that we can apply to countries to take this
issue more seriously? Or would that create a backlash that would
be unhelpful?
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: It's already there in the Maputo Protocol, which
has been signed up to by many African states, but not yet ratified.
So absolutely we have role to play as an international community to get
some of these issues enshrined in law. And, you know, we had a conversation about
CEDAW, the -- elimination of -- sorry.
The Commission for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women --
trips off the tongue, you know, all of these levers do play an
important part, I think. And we need to keep the pressure up to ensure
that they're ratified.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: CEDAW has been, of course, passed by a hundred and
-- I don't know how many countries, and one of the very few that has
not passed it is the US. Um, let me open this up more broadly.
There are folks here. We have a microphone.
>> Hi, I'm Michelle from San Francisco. And I volunteered, I'm one of the many volunteers
with V-Day and I'm also in a doctorate program in international
human rights education in San Francisco, so I wrote a paper last year
on FGM. In the literature, I noticed that one of the
reasons why the women are continuing the cutting is because it's one
of -- it's their means of economic sustainability.
So I was wondering given that it's the Economic Forum, what
public/private sector partnerships have been built-in, if there are any
subsidies that governments might be giving to women to help them
transition from this profession, and what means are -- what else we can
do as civil society actors to help move that forward?
And also in terms of leveraging some of the new media technologies --
and Kiva.org and Women for Women International, and Donor Choose, like
what we can do to help move that forward.
KATHY CALVIN: You know, we've been try to go move the issue of girls
up on the agenda of Davos and have been fairly successful, had a very
good session yesterday about girls and trying to look at the actors,
government, non-profits and business, and there's a role for each.
We've actually just created a girl fund to help support with private
sector money as well as government money, work in communities to give
girls more rights, keep them in school, give them access to health and
freedom from these -- from *** violence or some of these other
causes. So I think increasingly, if we get more players
who are educated about this and are engaged in it, the money does
talk. And, you know, that will be an important piece
of changing the way the culture works.
And I -- to what Julia said earlier, I think the communities need to
see that this is part and parcel of what it will take for them to grow
and become a modern, a modern area. So I absolutely think you're right.
That we've, we've got to make this a part of the work that all of the
communities are doing, so when the US puts money into these
communities, this is one of the things they're checking for.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I would just also add that, um, in -- not in
Senegal, but in most other places, the person who does the cutting is
the traditional birth attendant, the traditional midwife.
And one -- there has to be a much broader effort to address maternal
health. I mean, there is this, it's a scandal that
more than half a million women die a year in childbirth unnecessarily.
And partly that is because there has been a broad, and essentially
failed effort, to improve maternal health through traditional birth
attendants. It did not work and now I think we're all
realizing that. But as we gear up a newer system to improve
maternal health, based on people who actually have much better training,
who can refer to a hospital, who bring people to clinics, real
midwives, then I think it's plausible that those people will then have
influence in those communities over reproductive health.
And it will go away from these traditional, these diya, who are the
ones who were doing the cutting.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Sorry. What I find quite shocking about the FGM arena
is the fact that 140 million women are living with the consequence
of FGM and, um, they appear to be missing from things like the
maternal mortality debate, from the child death, all of the MGDs that
this addresses. And the continuum of care that is needed for
these women in particular and yet, there's so much happening within
this field. And everywhere I look FGM always seems to
be missing. And I think exactly as you say all of these
instruments can come into play.
And in a way, what we need to do is to be focusing on a plethora of
solutions that can help bring this back into the mainstream, really.
ANN VENEMAN: If I might just pick up on the whole issue of maternal
health and these issues, you know, we had a little film about Mali and
the prevalence of female genital cutting in Mali, but in many of these
countries, there's also a very high incidence, along with female
genital cutting, of early marriage. And the two issues combined, we know that
the risks to maternal health are greater with women who have been cut.
We also know that, that a girl who was under the age of 15 who gives
birth is five -- has a five times greater chance of dying in
childbirth. And so, when I was -- Mali was my last field
trip as a matter of fact just in November, and I had very interesting
conversations with the Health Minister about his responsibility to
address the issues of early marriage and female genital cutting, because
they truly are issues with health consequences to women and effect the
maternal health and mortality issues.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I mean, Kathy let me just follow up on that.
Given the success of this grassroots kind of Tostan model of education,
discussion, leading to addressing FGM, can that same model then be
applied to the whole panoply of other issues, of keeping girls from
dropping out of school, preventing child marriage, various reproductive
health questions including family planning. I mean, is this bottom-up, grassroots, supporting
the local actors model is that something that can be used against
a whole variety of other threats to the well-being of girls around
the world?
KATHY CALVIN: I mean, I think that's the only way it can happen.
I think when we've tried to do things like just focus on education or
just focus on health, we're not nearly successful because we're not
dealing with the underlying issue of the girl's value.
So if you put them all together: Economic empowerment, education,
health, especially the access to this kind of health care and
reproductive rights, then you're really dealing with a whole chain
mechanism that can make a big difference. But it really has to be that.
And luckily, the UN has a five-point approach to girls, and that's the
way they do it. And I think increasingly we will all adopt
that kind of a holistic -- to your word -- holistic approach.
>> Ron Freeman, Moscow. Madam Lalla-Maharajh mentioned in Mauritania
a collective fatwa against FGM.
I wonder if we could get a few more facts about what lead to that and
whether it was any milage, so to speak.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I do know that there has been a real effort by some
of the community organizers to get Muslim clerics organized in this
effort, because there is a perception on the part of many ordinary
people that this is religious, that this is their religion.
And so when you get Imam saying now, now, they don't do this in Saudi
Arabia, there's nothing no the Qur'an, that then that actually has a
tremendous amount of authority and so, that has been one reason for
trying to get these fatwas.
>> Young global leaders and actually I come from the Muslim world.
And this is why I wanted to kind of to give the comment.
In fact, something like this is totally prohibited in the Muslim world.
And just kind of to rephrase Kristof's question, I would assume it's
more culturally than it's religious. So this is more actually instead of saying
that it's Islam. So that's kind of that first layer to really
acknowledge it. And I really respect that Ann Veneman by mentioning
that the First Lady in Egypt stood out and acknowledged that this
is totally against our -- let's say, or their traditions, their religion,
and all the, let's say, the social intrinsic values that we were raised
up through. Now, unfortunately, it's my own analysis,
is only a comment so me allow to take some time --
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Please, well, have a question.
>> There's no question. Just wanted to clarify that.
So thank you.
>> Thank you. I'm Jim Breyer.
I'm a venture capitalist with Accel Partners in Palo Alto.
And I've been on the board of Facebook and an investor in Facebook for
about five years.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: What's your next investment?
>> Well, we have -- we have about a dozen investments in social media
companies around the world. And Julia, and for any other panelist that
might be interested, what can we as either business investors or part
of the business community around social media do better for further
many of these causes that we've talked about today?
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: I'm going to talk to you afterwards one-on-one
because I need your advice. Absolutely, I was talking about someone just
the other day about how he uses mobile phones to get medicines into villages.
And able to predict supply and demand in a much, much clearer way.
And having been out in Africa, knowing the growing use of that sort of
technology is absolutely crucial. I mean, imagine if this network of -- as we
said before, taking things to scale, imagine if we can do that through
empowering community leaders to -- you know, even if it's someone
saying I know that there's a cutting ceremony that's due to take place
within two months. And then being able to gear up around that.
I think there's so much that can be done and the empowerment around
that is huge. But also what I found through my experience
is how many people have contacted me globally so this is not just
about what the West can do. I had some many e-mails from people in Cameroon,
in Guinea, in all sorts of places saying what can I do in my
own community? And one thought is just about, you know, there's
not one database, for example, that's --someone contacted me from
Guinea-Bissau to say can I download from the web?
I'm about to teach this class. What can I download from the web?
I couldn't find a single place where that person could just go to be
able to say to their community these are the issues that you could deal
with. So we need to hit this straight on.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Let me just add something there vis a vie what Julia
has done. Frankly, one of the problems is that we in
the news media tend to drop the ball on these kinds of issues.
That's what we do, we tend to cover what happened yesterday.
We tend not to cover what happens everyday. And whether it's public health issues, whether
it's this kind of daily human rights abuse, it just falls through
the cracks. And since we don't -- since we in the media,
who tend to be the ones who help shape the agenda and since we drop
the ball on these kinds of issues that leaves it frankly to people like
Julia to bring it up on the agenda.
And I really salute you for having done that at Davos.
And I think that is a model for a whole range of other issues whether
it's malaria or anything else that, you know, this is our greatest
weakness. We are not covering things that happen everyday.
We blow it on those issues, and you've got to raise those and poke us
and kind of hold our feet to the fire so that we actually do a better
job of covering these incredibly important issues that are ongoing and
part of the background and get ignored as a result.
ANN VENEMAN: If I might just talk a little bit about -- you talked
about the use of cell phones for everything from monitoring nutrition
to health and UNICEF is doing a lot of this work.
But we also support Tostan extensively, and one of the ideas of Tostan
has been that these communities that have become Tostan communities,
eliminating the practice through this community-based approach suddenly
they begin to see cell phones in these communities, particularly owned
by women. And yet most of the women are illiterate.
So they've now started in some of the Tostan communities, a
texting-for-literacy program, where they're teaching women how to read
because it's so much cheaper to text than talk in Africa, unlike the
US. And so I would challenge the tech community
to say how do we take the next leap forward, recognizing that many of
these communities that practice these cultures are now into the cell
community as well.
>> Yeah, my name is Rich, and I run an international NGO that works on
aging in the developing world. And firstly, I opt my NGO and partners, over
70 countries, to play a role.
Older people in many of the countries are connected to this particular
practice and maybe we can actually do something constructive and maybe
a coalition needs to be built. But I think one of the most striking things
for me is about voice. I mean, it is important.
I can't remember the name of the Somali model that wrote her
autobiography about her life. But I think the more that that happens, the
more that voice can be heard at the national level, and that actually
women who have had to bear this are able to have the courage to
speak. And using Facebook, you know, maybe there
are ways to enable voice to be heard I think that that will be transformational.
And I don't know quite how we do that but so maybe it's a useful
strategy.
>> Hello. I'm from Switzerland, Isabel.
And I just wanted to ask what kind of programs do we have to empower
mothers who've been cut? They say they need to do it for the daughters
but how can we empower them to educate their sons not to marry a
cut girl because then if the expectation is not there anymore, maybe the
girls won't undergo this.
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Part of the model that we're all saying Tostan,
you know, in fact, a number of local civil society organizations are
also implementing this model. Part of that is as well as having conversations
with the women, you of course, have conversations with the men.
And of course, mothers are talking about their sons as part of this but
the whole community is coming together, so the hope is that everyone
all at once does come to a shift in awareness about the practice.
>> Thank you. I work at the newspaper and I'm also a young
global leader. I just wanted to ask you in terms of getting
spokespeople from communities that have given up female genital
mutilation to go to communities that haven't yet.
I mean, I'm sure you've had some experience of this.
But if we can take this to a greater scale, if there's funding of such
projects to facilitate their travel, because I think that's the best
way to get the message out. To say that we used to do it and we've given
up and these are the benefits is probably the best person with
credibility, cause often with these issues, it's about credibility.
And I think it's wonderful. Have you raised that this is not an issue
for Muslims or that Islam is the one calling for this, and I think that
breaks away the taboo because if you tell Muslims and I am one of
them -- and this is not to say, that just because you're Muslim we think
that you are a bad person doing this.
On the contrary, there is an appreciation this is not simply that the
Qur'an dictates but sadly there are those that twist the religion on so
many different levels. So I salute the way you've approached it.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I know that when people, you know, have been making
this point, the fact that Saudi Arabia does not -- there's no --
there's no cutting in Saudi Arabia, that is one of the things that is
always emphasized and one of the things that has the greatest surprise
to people, has the greatest authority. I don't know of any cases, I don't know if
anybody else does, of, you know, people, envoys being sent, clerics from
Saudi Arabia, for example to communities in these countries to say,
you know, you've got it wrong.
Um, but I mean, in fact there -- in my experience, invariably in every
country there are voices from within that country who are saying this
is ridiculous. This is not -- and so, so, you know -- and
to the extent that those people speak the language and have local credibility
and authority.
>> Sorry. Very, very quickly but I mean, the communities
that did used to practice it, that's what I mean.
Like you mentioned in Senegal or Mauritania where there's a community
that it was recently actually practiced and then given up because I
think that's the most credible voice.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Very good point. I want to now kind of wind up and for those
who didn't get a chance to ask your questions, you know, feel free to
mob the folks here afterward.
But we've been talking about something that happens to 3 million girls
a year. Human rights violation, I think we agree on
a vast scale. Leads to more maternal mortality, leads to
more girls dying of infection at a scale, and we don't really
know. When a girl dies after she's been cut, people
just say, oh she just died of malaria.
People don't acknowledge how often this happens. But what do we do?
Somebody is here wants to get involved; somebody is watching on
YouTube. They can go to the Tostan website which is
Tostan.org T-O-S-T-A-N.org, learn more about it in that way.
They can go to Julia's website. And I'll -- I'll -- I don't know.
I'm sure --
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Which is EndFGMnow.org But also another excellent website is ForwardUK.org.uk,
which is where I volunteer as well.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Let me -- so let's go systematically through here
and maybe Kathy you can start. You know, what does somebody do?
KATHY CALVIN: Well, I think it's awesome that this -- that the YouTube
community chose this issue and already has stood up for it.
So having a voice is the first thing. The second is to become an advocate for girls.
If you haven't seen the girl effect video which is on YouTube, it's an
awesome thing and I think it gives you sense of the positive that if
you can be become an advocate for girls we can end should have these
trouble some things. I think you had a great idea which is instead
of shame and blame, we ought to be finding those who've already begun
to fight back and, you know, we all probably need to do a better
job of thanking Uganda for just making the thing against the law right
now. So I think we all have voices and we should
be using them more and we've got the tools now.
LARRY ***: Well, first of all, I think it's clear to everybody that
this is part of a larger struggle for women's rights in general and I
think. And I'm happy to be agreeing with Nick on
this that this is a particular moment in history where this battle
really is ripe, can really be -- there can be a sea change in
the world. I think FGM is part of that issue.
I don't think it's the only one, but it's a continuum of how we raise
the status of women and how we just make intolerable practices that
have seemed tolerable. And there's myriad ways for people to get
involved and it's not only a question of the west against the developing
world that it's also a question of the fight within each country
where these issues are still involved.
So I think that's the first thing and the second thing is that Amnesty
is involved right now in a campaign in Europe to, to try to change the
practices and policies of the European Union to make sure that they are
supporting the kind of approaches that we've talked about here.
It's very easy for people to get involved in that.
They can Google their local Amnesty website for whatever country
they're in. And also to make sure that women who are trying
to get refuge in this country or in countries in Europe because
they have a legitimate fear of being forced to be cut, that the laws are
changed to make that possible for them to do.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: And Julia, in case anybody doesn't have your website
down yet --
JULIA LALLA-MAHARAJH: Clearly, the website but what I really think we
need to do is make FGM much more explicit. The data, the porosity of the data is shocking.
There is a lot that's out there. But how can we ascertain the global scale
of this issue if we don't actually know what we're dealing with?
The 3 million figure we're all quoting is in Africa alone?
It doesn't tackle Indonesia, Yemen, UAE. It doesn't tackle Europe, where we know 500,000
women are living with FGM.
So we don't understand the scale. We don't understand what needs to be done
on a country-by-country basis to tackle the problem.
A solution in Indonesia is completely different to what we need in
Cameroon, in Sierra Leone, as Ann has said, in Senegal.
We need to be very, very cognizant of what is the global action plan?
Without that, we can't cost a solution. If this is a matter of resources, then great.
Let's just get on and fundraise. But until we are much more aware about the
global scale of this problem and what needs to be done about it, we can't
reach that target of 2015. I think very kind offer from an NGO already
working in this field -- thank you, I'll be in touch -- but equally,
all the NGOs working in this area, please get FGM on your agenda.
Do something more about it. And I've run out of steam.
Go to my website. There are five easy things that you can do.
They may seem little things. But lastly, do what you can.
This is going out to the YouTube community. They'll be people watching all over the world.
I chose to enter a competition on Davos; you may want to find out what
is happening in your local community. You may wish to fundraise.
You may wish to push your government on various things or your MP.
Know what your action is and what your agency is.
And please just do something. It's international FGM day, sorry.
International anti-FGM day on the sixth of February.
That's a week today. Contact a journalist.
Talk about FGM. Thank you.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Don't feel you have to contact this journalist in
particular. I'm already on board.
Ann?
ANN VENEMAN: Well, certainly I would agree with all that's been said.
But I think it's -- first of all, so important to recognize that this
is first and foremost a violation of the rights of the girl child.
Think about the fact that most of the people, the children who are
subjected to this are between about the ages of 4 and maybe 12.
I mean, this is a human being that really doesn't have the right to say
no. It's imposed on her.
The second thing I would say is that everyone should look at those
organizations that are working in this arena. It isn't a popular cause.
These organizations can't generate lots of resources for their work.
And so support those organizations that are truly making a difference
in this area.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Um, let me just also say, finally, that, you know,
this is indeed just part of a broader puzzle. And that quite aside from the simple moral
issue, it's imminently practical issue we're not going to make progress
against global poverty, against insecurity unless girls are
brought into the picture brought into the formal economy, educated,
and so on. This is one facet of that larger picture.
And then we really hope that you whether you're here, right here, or
watching on YouTube, you will get engaged. And I think Julia really deserves our thanks
and appreciation for bringing this issue to Davos and to YouTube
to the Davos debate. And please join me in thanking her and all
of the panelists here today.
[APPLAUSE]