Globalization and Human Rights - Nicholas D. Kristof Blog

May 17, 2011, 4:24 pm

PBS Special on “Half the Sky”

Today was an exciting day: the formal announcement of a PBS special on Half the Sky (my latest book with my wife, Sheryl WuDunn). The two-night special will air in late fall of 2012, but it’s also part of a much broader trans-media project intended to raise global women’s issues higher on the agenda.

One of the elements that I’m particularly excited about is an online social action game, on Facebook. The idea is that a game is a good way to lure people into an issue, build awareness, and gradually cultivate engagement. The game will blur the lines between game actions and real-world actions that make a difference. It’s being executive produced by Games for Change, which uses games as vehicles for social change.

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May 14, 2011, 6:52 pm

Readers Comment on my Holbrooke Column

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

My Sunday column offers advice from Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the late American envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, for the crisis we now face in relations with that region. Holbrooke couldn’t speak out publicly at the time, but his posthumous views could not be more relevant at a time when we face a crisis in relations with Pakistan.

There’s obviously enormous American resentment at Pakistan and the double game it plays, and there should be. It’s frustrating that Pakistan pretends that its biggest enemy is India and spends vast amounts on troops on its Indian border and on a nuclear arsenal — when its biggest enemy is actually the illiteracy that feeds backwardness, unemployment, discontent and radicalism at home. When Pakistan spends seven times as much on its military as on its schools, that’s a catastrophic myopia. That said, washing our hands of Pakistan will only make things worse. In some sense, Pakistan truly is now (like Citibank) “too big to fail.” As I see it, the only way forward is to construct a real, honest relationship with Pakistan, not transactional in the sense of “you do this and we’ll give you that,” but an actual relationship that goes beyond the generals to the Pakistani people. That’s a long-term project, but it’s the opposite of abandonment.

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May 13, 2011, 8:38 pm

Report From a Pashtun Teen: Cricket, Diplomacy and Hope

By SHER BANO

Our Pashtun teenage blogger, Sher Bano, wrote this piece late last month on how the Cricket World Cup semi-final match between India and Pakistan really brought the country together and gave Pakistanis hope and something to cheer for. As we were getting ready to post it, the news broke that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad. We decided not to run the piece until things calmed down. In the meantime, Sher emailed us her reactions to the killing, and they perhaps offer a window into the thinking of some young Pakistanis. This is some of what she said:

“Although I am happy that a terrorist has been wiped off the face of this earth, I am dissatisfied with the way the mission was carried out and with many other things. I have so many questions in my mind…Was Osama really killed? How can Osama live safely in the same city where we go every now and then, and in an area near the army? Has the world become any safer with his death? What about my country’s sovereignty and our say? ”

She went on to say that many Pakistanis feel “helpless and worry about the future” ; that “some people think their minds are being played with” and that she’s afraid that “the world must be thinking about Pakistan as the hub of terrorism.” Whether this opinion is correct or not is her best guess, she said.

What’s clear is that the semi-final cricket match from last March gave many Pakistanis hope before more bad news hit their country. It proved what a great unifier team sports can be, even in the face of floods, drone attacks, and now…terrorists hiding out in their suburbs. So without further ado here is her piece.

–The Editors

Sher Bano's brother, Bahram Khan, 13, in celebration mode for the ICC Cricket World Cup's semi-final match between Pakistan and India that took place last March.

Sher BanoSher Bano’s brother, Bahram Khan, 13, in celebration mode for the ICC Cricket World Cup’s semi-final match between Pakistan and India that took place last March.

“Cricket: We love you!” Banners like this were streaming through my dreams last March. My life had become an ICC World Cup version of the Hollywood movie “Inception” as I was high on cricket shots! My world was Green and White, like the Pakistani flag.

And I wasn’t the only one. Pakistani spirits were at a peak during The World Cup, especially for the semi-final: the Pakistan vs. India match at Mohali. Walls along the streets were painted with flags, people danced to motivational songs and prayed non-stop. I kept myself busy painting the faces of my friends and family. At the time of the match, there was a standstill. All streets had been cleared, seats were occupied, and eyes glued to screens, while full bladders were ignored. There was tension. But there was even more fun!

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May 10, 2011, 7:11 pm

Hikers on Trial

By SARAH SHOURD

On May 11, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two of the three American hikers who were detained by Iranian officials after crossing a border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran in 2009, will go on trial in Tehran for espionage. They have been held in Evin Prison for almost two years.

“Their lawyer Mr. Shafii is STILL being denied access to Josh and Shane,” said Alex Fattal, Josh’s brother. “All Josh and Shane have in Iran are each other, Mr. Shafii, and God,” he continued, saying that the hikers’ families are hoping for an innocent verdict within the next 24 hours.

Sarah Shourd, the third hiker who was released last September for humanitarian reasons, has given a brief description of what she imagines their life to be like these days. For more information, visit Freethehikers.org.

–The Editors

Shane Bauer, left, Sarah Shourd, center, and Josh Fattal, sit at the Esteghlal Hotel in Tehran, Iran. Their espionage trial resumes on May 11.

Press TV, via Associated PressShane Bauer, left, Sarah Shourd, center, and Josh Fattal, sit at the Esteghlal Hotel in Tehran, Iran. Their espionage trial resumes on May 11.

For five hours a day the sunlight shines through the only window in Josh and Shane’s cell in Evin Prison, casting a small square of light on the wall. As the sun steals across the horizon, Josh and Shane’s square of light moves in its own arc across the 10 feet of their universe.

Very little reaches Shane and Josh inside those four walls. The closest they come to nature is a single potted plant that they pass in the hallway outside their cell each day. Their only view of the outside world is a patch of blue sky divided by steel bars. Their cell contains two beds, a sink, a toilet, a shower and an empty space about the size of a large beach towel. With fluorescent lights continuously kept on, Josh and Shane never enjoy the luxury of darkness; in order to sleep at night they have to tie a shirt around their eyes.

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May 7, 2011, 6:23 pm

Reader Comments on my Family Planning Column

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

My Sunday column is from Somaliland but makes an argument closer to home: that Republican cuts in family planning assistance are short-sighted and will lead to more maternal deaths. And on Mother’s Day (or, as I like to style it, Mothers’ Day), shouldn’t saving mothers’ lives be a top priority?

A couple of points that I’d like to elaborate on, though. First is that I think Americans sometimes exaggerate how easy it is to reduce birth rates abroad and think it’s just about handing out contraceptives. That assumption is based on the fact that when birth control became available in the West, women took it up rapidly. The difference is that American or European women in the 1960’s wanted to curb fertility and embraced contraceptive technologies, while in countries like Somalia today women (and men) are much more wary.

Many rural African women have told me that status in the village is defined in part by how many children, especially sons, a woman has. So if a woman goes for several years without getting pregnant, she may be looked down upon. And even if she is sure that she doesn’t want to get pregnant, she may be wary of contraceptives — or fearful of getting caught using them without her husband’s permission (and husbands tend to be even more suspicious of fertility control than women). And some methods, like injectables, can lead to complications such as bleeding that turn women off if there is no ongoing counseling available. Or rural clinics will get a supply of contraceptives, but then will run out when a woman shows up for a resupply — logistics are much harder in Somaliland than in America.

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May 6, 2011, 12:29 pm

Notes From a Young American in Congo: The Stigma of Rape

By AMY ERNST

My father sent me the story about the CBS reporter Lara Logan, who survived a brutal sexual assault by a mob in Cairo’s Tahir Square in February. What hit me was not just the brutality of the attacks, but the redoubtable strength she showed by speaking out about potentially the most stigmatizing and painful experience a person can endure. It’s no secret that survivors of sexual assault such as Ms. Logan often choose not to come forward, and it’s not difficult to see why.

M., a young woman I spoke with recently during a group discussion in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, spoke softly of her ashamed parents.

“They said I’m no longer their child.” she said.

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May 3, 2011, 9:00 am

On the Ground with a ‘Gap Year’

By GREGORY KRISTOF

Rick Altieri Gregory Kristof, who took a gap year in China before starting college.

I’ve periodically recommended that high school students take a “gap year” after graduation, by deferring college entrance for one year. Most colleges encourage students to take a gap year, partly because students then arrive a little more mature, a little more ready to study, a little more worldly. It’s becoming a bit more common, and Princeton now pays for some kids to travel during their gap year, but most people are still wary of the idea. In fact, almost every kid I’ve talked to who has taken a gap year raves about the idea, so I thought I’d commission a guest column from my eldest son, Gregory, who is currently taking a gap year in China. He spent most of the year studying Chinese at Tsinghua University and then at a language school in Dalian, and soon he’s going to finish up the year studying Spanish in Peru. On the side, he worked and volunteered. Here’s his take:

–Nicholas Kristof

It took place on a frosty peak tucked away in the Tibetan highlands: my friend Rick and I walked in on a group of monks as they were on their knees, groaning.

They were performing secret rituals involving yak butter.

Peeking out from behind animal fur curtains, Rick and I hoped that they hadn’t noticed us yet. They hummed and sat in rows facing a stage of yak butter candles that threw images against the walls like kicked hacky sacks. Back in the shadows, I worried: What would happen if they saw two white dudes chillin’ behind the furs?

“Pssst,” Rick said. “I think we should leave.”

“Let’s make for the door.” I said.

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May 2, 2011, 12:00 am

After Osama Bin Laden…

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

President Obama has just announced that the United States killed Osama bin Laden today in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and recovered his body. It has been nine years and seven months since Osama orchestrated 9/11, but an American team finally killed him. His body is in American hands. This is revenge, but it’s also deterrence and also means that bin Laden won’t kill any more Americans. This is the single most important success the United States has had in its war against Al Qaeda.

So what does this mean? First, it is good for the United States reputation, power and influence that we finally got bin Laden. Bin Laden’s ability to escape from the U.S., and his apparent impunity, fed an image in some Islamist quarters of America as a paper tiger — and that encouraged extremists. Bin Laden himself once said that people bet on the strong horse, the horse that will win, and the killing underscores that it’s the United States that is the horse to bet on. Moreover, this sends a message that you mess with America at your peril, and that there will be consequences for a terror attack on the United States.

That said, killing bin Laden does not end Al Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian No. 2, has long played a crucial role as Al Qaeda’s COO. And Al Qaeda is more of a loose network than a tightly structured organization, and that has become even more true in recent years. AQIM, the version of Al Qaeda in North Africa, is a real threat in countries like Mali and Mauritania, and killing bin Laden will probably have negligible consequences there. The AQIM terrorists may admire Osama and be inspired by him, but they also are believed to be largely independent of him. And Anwar al-Awlaki, the Qaeda-linked terrorist in Yemen, likewise won’t be deterred by bin Laden’s killing — Awlaki’s ability to engage in terrorism will be affected more by the upheavals now taking place in Yemen and whether that country has a strong and legitimate government that takes counter-terrorism seriously.

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April 30, 2011, 6:41 pm

Readers Comment on My China Column

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

The Chinese expression for “contradiction” is “maodun,” based on the characters for spear and shield, like this: 矛盾 . And these days no place seems fuller of 矛盾than China. They’re also the backdrop of my Sunday column.

I worry a bit that readers will get whiplash, for my Thursday column was about China’s harsh repression in the worst clampdown in more than two decades, and today focuses on China’s remarkable success in other dimensions. In other words, the first focused on the negative, the latest on the positive. What’s most extraordinarily positive to me is that a Shanghai kid has a lower risk of infant mortality than a New York kid, a better chance of attending an excellent public school, and a longer life expectancy. (That’s for kids with a Shanghai residence permit; add in migrant laborers, which may be a fairer comparison, and the figures become closer.)

I often think that we Americans tend to look at China depending on our priorities and oversimplify a vast country. The human rights problems are real, but so are the health and economic achievements. There is a big difference between China and Egypt: China’s autocrats are amazingly competent. Yin and yang are both real; neither is the “true China.” We just have to live with the 矛盾 — and hope that some day soon China will stop oppressing people and just focus on enriching them. Your thoughts on the column?

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April 23, 2011, 5:25 pm

Human Trafficking in the United States

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

My Sunday column looks at human trafficking — but in America. This is a subject I’ve written about a good deal in Cambodia, India, Pakistan and elsewhere abroad, and there’s sometimes a tendency to think that the problem just exists overseas, or just among foreign women smuggled in the the U.S. It’s true that the worst places in the world for forced prostitution maybe Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Burma, and so on. But we also have significant problems in the United States — particularly among home-grown young teenagers — and we don’t have the credibility to address the problems abroad unless we clean up our act at home.

Frankly, no model works particularly well in addressing this problem. But there’s a growing sense that the “legalize and regulate” approach doesn’t work particularly well (although Australia may be an exception), because it tends to create a parallel market in underage, trafficked girls. That’s certainly the experience in the Netherlands. Thus the approach that seems to be gathering steam is the Swedish model, in which johns are prosecuted but the women/girls themselves are treated as victims and are given social services but are not prosecuted. The advantage of this is that it cracks down on demand, which in turn reduces the incentive for trafficking girls in Sweden. A growing number of countries are moving to adopt that approach, and police officials in New York City are studying it as well.

Skeptics will note that there is also voluntary prostitution. Of course there is. There was also voluntary work on cotton plantations. But my point is that some of what appears voluntary is in fact coerced, and that should be a higher law enforcement priority. The bottom line is that we need much more aggressive enforcement against pimps, rather than just tossing their victims in juvenile detention. I encourage you to look at Rachel Lloyd’s compelling new memoir, “Girls Like Us,” which is the best thing I know written on domestic trafficking. And after you’ve read the column, I’d welcome your thoughts.

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April 16, 2011, 5:35 pm

The Power of Punk’d

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

My Sunday column is about the ways bottom-up grassroots youth movements can bring about social change, from toppling Hosni Mubarak to curbing teen smoking. I was drawn into the subject out of fascination with the way the Serbian youth movement had developed strategies that spread to the Georgian revolution, the Ukrainian revolution, and the Egyptian revolution. But an equally important application of this approach is in fighting poverty at home and around the world.

I’m always fascinated by evidence of what strategies are most successful in chipping away at poverty, and these kinds of approaches have a strong record. There’s also some indication that there are lessons for school reform: student-owned strategies with peer-to-peer learning have in some cases helped overcome a culture hostile to learning and turn it into one in which learning is cool. I’d welcome your thoughts here on the column.

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April 9, 2011, 4:37 pm

Our Lovable Government

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

And, yes, that’s meant ironically. My Sunday column argues that the latest budget battles have been a supreme example of dysfunction. At the last minute Friday night, the two sides agreed to a budget deal and averted a government shut-down, but this is still a wretched way to run a superpower. And while I particularly blame the Republicans for threatening to shut down the government (a threat that Democrats did not make during the Bush years), it’s also true that the Democrats are at fault for not passing a budget and spending bills when they should have last year before the fiscal year began, when they controlled both houses in Congress.

While I was appalled at the shut-down threat, I do think that John Boehner proved a savvy negotiator who managed to extract huge concessions from the Democrats. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Democrats get spine transplants, and the Republicans heart transplants.

Sadl, this crisis was only the first act in at least a three-act play. We still have the 2012 fiscal year budget to work out, and then the raising of the federal debt ceiling. Aaaargh. I have a headache already. And I’d welcome your comments.

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April 2, 2011, 4:03 pm

Reader Comments on My Libya Column

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

My Sunday column argues that there are indeed lots of uncertainties and legitimate criticisms of President Obama’s operation in Libya — but weighed against it are the many lives that it has saved, and the prospect that it will ultimately remove Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. On balance, I think the intervention was not only essential but maybe a step toward the emergence of a bit more of an international conscience, the growth of the doctrine of the “responsibility to protect.” As for the argument that we’re inconsistent in our interventions: of course we’re inconsistent, but would you rather we consistently save no one?

And I also announce the winners of my Win-a-Trip contest. Thanks so much to all of you who applied, or who posted your comments — and stay tuned for the trip itself.

Please post your comments either on the Libya intervention or on the Win-a-Trip results.

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March 30, 2011, 3:15 pm

When a Girl Is Executed … for Being Raped

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

We’re all focused right now on Libya and budget battles at home, but this story from Bangladesh just broke my heart and outraged me — and offers a reminder of the daily human rights struggles of so many women and girls in villages around the world. A 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl, Hena,allegedly was ambushed when she went to an outdoor toilet, gagged, beaten and raped by an older man in her village (who was actually her cousin). They were caught by wife of the alleged rapist, and the wife then beat Hena up. An imam at a local mosque issued a fatwa saying that Hena was guilty of adultery and must be punished, and a village makeshift court sentenced Hena to 100 lashes in a public whipping.

Her last words were protestations of innocence. An excellent CNN blog post, based on interviews with family members, says that the parents “had no choice but to mind the imam’s order. They watched as the whip broke the skin of their youngest child and she fell unconscious to the ground.”

Hena collapsed after 70 lashes and was taken to the hospital. She died a week later, by some accounts because of internal bleeding and a general loss of blood. The doctors recorded her death as a suicide. (Women and girls who are raped are typically expected to commit suicide, to spare everyone the embarrassment of an honor crime.) I’ve covered enough of these kinds of stories to know that it’s difficult to know exactly what happened unless you’re on the scene talking to everyone who was there; maybe the imam has a different version of events. But all accounts that I’ve seen such that this was a brutal attack on a helpless girl in the name of sharia and justice.

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March 29, 2011, 4:56 pm

Where the Grid Will Not Go

By JOSH RUXIN

When an Italian priest and his cadre of nuns founded the Munyaga Health Center in 1986, it was a barebones operation. Tucked among the rolling green hills and small mud homes of eastern Rwanda, the health center had limited services; the nearest source of potable water was five miles away, and kerosene lamps were often the only source of light. The center’s most expensive technology was an array of solar cells to provide power for part of the day.