Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

In the first part of Chapter 1, “Emancipating Twenty-First Century Slaves,” the authors focus on the story of Meena Hasina, an Indian woman first kidnapped and trafficked at age eight or nine. She was forced into sex work at age 12. In India, around three million women are sex workers. The authors note that “while many of them now sell sex to some degree willingly, and are paid, a significant share of them entered the sex industry unwillingly” (5). Given the stigma attached to sex work, it’s extremely difficult for women to leave.

Similar to Rath’s experience, the brothel owners—including the family matriarch, Ainul Bibi—beat and threatened to murder Meena if she didn’t have sex with their customers. In addition, they gave her drugs to make her more compliant. The brothel didn’t allow the women to use condoms. Although Meena didn’t contract HIV, she became pregnant twice. Meena didn’t want the pregnancy out of fear for her unborn children, but the brothel owners “welcomed the pregnancy as a chance to breed a new generation of victims. Girls are raised to be prostitutes, and boys become servants to do the laundry and cooking” (6). Ainul took away Meena’s two children, Naina and Vivek. The owners hoped that taking Meena’s children would prevent her from running away.

Meena attempted to go to the police several times, but they were corrupt. Many policemen visited the brothels, where they received free sex. After one police visit, Meena’s neighbor told her that the brothel owners were planning to murder her for her continued disobedience. The authors note that murder “doesn’t happen often in redlight districts, any more than farmers kill producing assets, such as good milk cows” (7) but add that if brothel owners consider an asset too “nettlesome,” they might do so, “as a warning to the other girls” (7). Meena fled the brothel without her children and traveled by train to another town several hours away.

One of Ainul’s sons, Manooj, heard of Meena’s whereabouts. He paid her a visit, demanding that she become a sex worker in the new town and give his family her profits. The family didn’t want Meena back at their brothel since she was a rabblerouser. Meena agreed since she didn’t know any other way to support herself. Manooj returned periodically to collect money from her. He often beat her because he was displeased with the amount. On one such occasion, a local pharmacist named Kuduz intervened. Kuduz and Meena eventually married, which infuriated Manooj. She gave birth to two more children but never forgot Naina and Vivek.

Meena returned several times to the brothel, hoping to take back Naina and Vivek. Initially, they didn’t realize that Meena was their mother. The brothel owners beat, starved, and abused both children. When Naina turned 12, Ainul wanted her to be enslaved for forced sex work. Vivek tried to stand up for his sister, but Ainul and her family beat and locked him up. Naina became a sex worker. Vivek tried once to use a phone from his sister’s tips to call for help but was caught. Ainul and her family beat both siblings for their disobedience. Upset over what was happening to his sister, Vivek fled the brothel in hopes of finding their mother. Vivek found Meena.

Meena, in turn, eventually rescued Naina with help from the aid agency Apne Aap Women Worldwide. The aid agency’s founder, Ruchira Gupta, orchestrated a national police raid on the brothel, and the police rescued Naina. She was treated in a hospital for severe injuries and a morphine addiction. While Meena and her children face risks (including retribution from the still-angry brothel owners), Meena refuses to accept sex work for herself or her family. She’s now a community organizer working to prevent parents from selling their daughters into sex slavery.

In the second part of Chapter 1, “Fighting Slavery from Seattle,” Kristof and WuDunn examine how people can help defeat modern sex slavery. They first underscore the importance of being “brutally realistic about the complexities of achieving change” (17). They cite examples of successful projects, especially those focused on health and education, including the work of Overlake School principal Frank Grijalva. Grijalva had his students sponsor a school in Cambodia through American Assistance for Cambodia. Some American students were able to visit the school when its construction was complete, bringing with them school supplies. The experience was eye-opening for the American students. The roads were in terrible condition, and landmines remained throughout the countryside. The American children and their families decided to continue their relationship with the school, including funding an English teacher, installing internet for email correspondence, sending more school supplies, and building a playground. The Overlake School eventually expanded their assistance to a school in Ghana.

In the first part of Chapter 2, “Prohibition and Prostitution,” Kristof and WuDunn outline how they think that the political tools exist to abolish modern sex slavery but that the political will is lacking. One reason for this is the divisive political nature of sex work. Democrats and Republicans in the US generally work separately to crush sex slavery—one exception being the bipartisan passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. The authors summarize the two parties’ different perspectives:

The left often refers nonjudgmentally to “sex workers” and tends to be tolerant of transactions among consenting adults. The right, joined by some feminists, refers to “prostitutes” or “prostituted women” and argues that prostitution is inherently demeaning and offensive (26).

These two perspectives around what to call sex workers contrast starkly, making it difficult for the political sides to agree on legislation. The authors, alongside those working on the ground to end human trafficking, find the debate irrelevant.

Before their years of investigatory work, the authors believed that prohibiting sex work wouldn’t work. Instead, they preferred that it be legalized and regulated. Aid groups often push for this model, known as a harm reduction model because it enables aid groups to distribute condoms, which slows the spread of HIV/AIDS, and gives them access to the brothels to check on women and girls.

The authors have since changed their minds, noting that the harm reduction model doesn’t work in most countries in the Global South because governments are too under-resourced to ensure that brothels follow the laws and regulations. In addition, legalizing sex work still “attracts a parallel illegal business in young girls and forced prostitution” (26).

Empirical evidence suggests that crackdowns (which the authors call the big-stick approach) in combination with social services for women and girls, including job training and drug addiction counseling, can help curb sex slavery. In addition, police need better training to check for underage girls and to avoid using brothels themselves. Crackdowns, in fact, tend to make police more hesitant to accept bribes from brothel owners. These methods all help reduce brothel owners’ profits.

The authors note how many feminists and liberals think crackdowns drive sex slavery further underground. They cite the Sonagachi Project as one example of how harm reduction models can be successful. This project was supposed to help empower women sex workers through the formation of a union. However, Kristof and WuDunn learned that this wasn’t the result. Through testimonials from Geeta Ghosh, who lived and worked in Sonagachi, the authors demonstrate how the union helped cover up human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of underage girls. In addition, Anup Patel, a Yale medical student, conducted research on condom use. He found that the brothel owner, rather than the woman or girl, negotiated the price of sex with the customer. Moreover, the customer could pay extra to not use a condom regardless of what the woman or girl wanted. These findings starkly contrast with the union’s propaganda.

In the second half of Chapter 2, “Rescuing Girls Is the Easy Part,” the authors document how “rescuing the girls from brothels is the easy part…The challenge is keeping them from returning” (35). The stories of Srey Neth and Srey Momm, two girls whom Kristof and WuDunn purchased from brothels in Cambodia, illustrate this challenge. After buying the girls, the authors returned them to their families. Both girls faced numerous tribulations, including job failure, an HIV scare, and temptation to return to the brothel for drugs. Eventually, however, both girls were able to leave the brothel completely behind.

Kristof and WuDunn learned three lessons from Neth and Momm. The first is that rescuing girls from brothels is challenging. In fact, they suggest that it can even be impossible, which is why they recommend focusing on preventing and closing brothels. The second lesson is that people trying to help women and girls shouldn’t give up. Some interventions won’t work, but those that do change lives. The third lesson is that even a huge social problem is worth solving. While not all girls will be educated or saved, people should still help because it makes a difference and gets the world closer to ending the oppression of women and girls.

In “Learning to Speak Up,” the first part of Chapter 3, Kristof and WuDunn start by outlining one reason that so many women and girls are oppressed: “They grin and bear it” (47) because they’re culturally conditioned to always accept men’s decree. The authors underscore that they don’t blame those forced into sex work. They understand that sometimes accepting abuse is easier. However, they note that “as long as women and girls allow themselves to be prostituted and beaten, the abuse will continue” (47). Traffickers themselves understand this reality, which is why they often prey on uneducated women and girls. Education and empowerment training are one way to show women and girls “that femininity does not entail docility, and can nurture assertiveness so that girls and women stand up for themselves” (47).

The authors point to the slum of Kasturba Nagar in India as an example. The Dalits, or Untouchables, mostly inhabit this slum. Usha Narayane, a Dalit from the slum, helped the women and girls in her community fight back against Akku Yadav, who “was a higher-caste man who had turned an apprenticeship as a small-time thug into a role as a mobster and king of the slum” (49). He and his people terrorized the slum for 15 years, including through sexual humiliation of women and brutal murders. Most Dalits couldn’t leave the slum, so they tried to keep their daughters at home to protect them. The police didn’t interfere because Akku Yadav targeted only Dalits. He mostly left Usha’s family alone given their education levels.

This all changed after Usha complained to the police about Akku Yadav’s harassment of a woman named Ratna Dungiri. Akku Yadav threatened to “rape [Usha], burn her with acid, slaughter her” (50). The confrontation between Akku Radav and Usha reached other neighbors. The community was deeply proud of Usha and horrified that he’d try to harm her. After seeing Usha fight back against him, they did too, driving him and his gang away with sticks and rocks. Elation spread throughout the community. This was the first confrontation they’d won against Akku Yadav. The community marched to his house and burned it to the ground.

The police arrested Akku Yadav for his own protection. Rumors spread throughout the community that the police planned to release him after his hearing. Hundreds of women from Kasturba Nagar appeared at the hearing and stabbed him to death. It was clear that this event was carefully planned, likely by Usha. Since she wasn’t at the hearing, however, she could deny wrongdoing. Moreover, all the women in Kasturba Nagar claimed responsibility, ensuring that no single individual could be blamed for Akku Yadav’s death.

In the second part of Chapter 3, “The New Abolitionists,” Kristof and WuDunn document “an exploding movement of ‘social entrepreneurs,’ who offer new approaches to supporting women in the developing world” (54). Social entrepreneurs work outside traditional aid agencies. They start their own businesses to address social problems in new and creative ways. Women have risen as leaders in this new social movement.

One example is Ashoka Fellow Sunitha Krishnan, who helps fight trafficking in India. After being raped for trying to help poor villagers learn to read, Sunitha decided to focus on human trafficking. After a crackdown at a brothel left women and girls stranded without any source of income, Sunitha, alongside a Catholic missionary, started a school and shelters. Then they began rescuing women and girls from brothels. Sunitha called their organization Prajwala, or eternal flame. Prajwala empowers women and girls by providing social services, including education, rehabilitation, and skills training. Sunitha has helped thousands of women and girls leave sex work.