International Reporting: Women and Children in Crisis
I can't say I was extremely excited about attending this conference at first. I rather enjoy going to my Multi-media Journalism class and the thought of missing it yesterday to listen to some women speak about something I had no interest in, wasn't something I was looking forward to. I didn't know what to expect and so I figured I would get there early just in case there was going to be a large crowd. As soon as I arrived I noticed that two of my professors were there. I also spotted both of the presenters. I was a little surprised at how young they looked. I had expected them to be older. This kind of caught my attention. I knew that these two women were there to speak to us about their journey to other countries. They traveled to other parts of the world to witness and document a specific crisis that is currently affecting both women and children. As soon as they began presenting their findings I was immediately sucked in.
The first woman who spoke about her trip was Melissa Turley. Her story focused on the violence and inequality that women face everyday in South Africa. She initially wasn't sure about what issues she was going to focus on when first arriving in South Africa but quickly was exposed to a few she felt did not get the exposure it deserved. She explained how in South Africa women's rights were almost non-existent. Especially if a woman was gay. It was not unusual for a lesbian to be murdered simply because of her sexual orientation. The men in that country believed it was very "unnatural" to be a lesbian and one way they felt it could be "cured" was to rape the woman. They felt that by raping them it would turn them straight. 
Another issue she covered was prostitution. At this time prostitution is still illegal in South Africa and there is a group of women who are fighting to change that. They believe that by legalizing the act of prostitution it would actually increase the safety of these women. At the moment This country has the highest rate of HIV in the world within the age range of 18-24. The spread of this terrible disease comes primarily from the raping of women. She showed some of her photos taken of the huts where the people there lived. The same huts where most of these women were raped and couldn't even imagine living in such a place.
The second presenter was Allison Shelley. Her stories of the treatment of young girls in Nepal really angered me most. This may be because I myself have two young girls and the thought of them being treated the way these little girls are treated is inconceivably. Allison explained that in India, girls are forced to marry at an extremely young age. Some as young as 12 years old. They are then also forced to get pregnant. I can't even imagine what kind of trauma those girls must go through because of these acts. She also spoke about something I had never heard of before. The word is "Chhaupadi". This is a little shed or hut, sometimes where the animals are kept, where girls are sent each month to live when they are menstruating. In this country a girl is thought of as being "dirty" when she has her period. They are not allowed to live in their own homes during this time. This applies to women and young girls. They are not even allowed to cook during this time. It can be extremely rough for them especially when the weather is bad.
Although the thought of this practice makes me feel very sad for these women I have to wonder how they really feel about it. If it is their culture to do this... and it's how they were raised .... do they feel like it is normal? Maybe they do not see it as inhumane as we do. I was very interested to find out more about how they personally feel about it. I found this video on Youtube and it quickly answered my question.
The conference concluded with this years Pulitzer's Center on Crisis Reporting winner. She spoke briefly about where she will be going and the issues she will be documenting. Her journey will be to Northern Ireland where she hopes to cover the topic of how certain locations there are separated by religion. She explained that there are people living in Northern Ireland who have never met another person who practiced a different religion. She will cover the violence that erupts there because of this segregation and how it affects the youth of that country.
I have to say that I actually am so happy I got the opportunity to attend this conference and listen to these women speak. The photos that they shared were beautifully taken and so visually capturing. They gave you a sense of what it might be like to be there in their situations. It brought to my attention issues I had never even thought about before. And although I know that I would never be able to work on a project so far away from home as they had done, their presentations has made me wish I could.
To find out more about these women and their journeys visit http://pulitzercenter.org
