A Royal Baby Girl?

As we excitedly await the arrival of a British bundle of joy, I would like to stick my neck out there and predict that the baby will be a girl.

If the privileged baby is a girl, she will be born into a developed society where she can potentially become queen one day, where the fight for equal rights for the sexes continues, but where much progress has been made. She will be expected to undertake public duties including engaging in philanthropic and community-based development.

My hope is that she (or he, if it is a boy), will feel compelled to support women in less privileged positions.

Earlier this week I went to a fantastic talk organised by UN Women and the Australian Institute of International Affairs- the first in a Youth Event series. A wonderful and truly inspiring young woman of only 25 years old named Preethi Sandaram spoke of her two years volunteering through Indicorps in a village of just 25 houses on the Indo-Pakistani boarder.

Like Preethi, I have seen how some women live in developing countries through my three months volunteering with Raleigh International in Borneo. For one third of that time I was part of a team installing taps in remote village houses so that everyone in the village could benefit from clean, fresh drinking water from a gravity-fed water filter system. All of the village men worked in palm oil plantations during the day, leaving their wives at home to cook, clean and look after their (often many) children. A few weeks into the project, we discovered a situation where a male village elder was taking advantage of the fact that these women were on their own at home during the day without their husbands around. He had been threatening them with a perang (a large knife), demanding that they pay him a week’s worth of their husbands wages if they wanted a tap installed. Of course, this was dealt with as soon as it was discovered. It was explained to all villagers that no one was to be victimised in such a way and that everyone could have a tap for free.

This gender discrimination that I experienced was small-fry compared to Preethi’s experience in a small Indian village. In her hour-long talk she described how women barely left their homes at all and certainly did not leave the village. The biggest barrier to their movement in this post-conflict area was the high threat of violence- especially sexual violence. Over the two years that Preethi was there, four rapes, including one gang rape occurred. Speaking to the village women, she discovered that ‘domestic violence’ was not a concept that they understood there, because it was so much the norm.

Baby girls born into that village are certainly not Royal Babies.

Baby girls born into that village are born into a society where women have a very low status; growing up as young girls they cannot go to school for the risk of attack, cannot be seen out and certainly cannot be seen interacting with males. Another factor is that the village is a known through-way for heroin from Afghanistan- a country that produces around 90% of the world’s heroin. Many village men are addicts, or alcoholics. Drug smuggling is one of the highest paid industries men can be in (much better paid than taxi driving) so the young village boys have that as their greatest aspiration.

Preethi’s work and level of dedication are nothing short of incredible. During her two years (which in itself is unbelievably impressive), she set up many schemes to alleviate some of the issues faced there. At the age of 23 and undertaking the project work largely alone, Preethi established a new education system where boys and girls could learn key subjects and sports together. Preethi also established a new fashion business using the village women’s existing sewing skills. For the latter, Preethi worked hard to set up bank accounts for these women (which took three months in itself) and to negotiate with the women’s husbands so that they could be allowed to travel into the next town to buy textiles and to sell their garments. Her schemes have gone from strength to strength and have made a huge positive difference.

With regards to the rapes (this was the most shocking part of Preethi’s story for me), work is being done to encourage women to report them, for example through having more female police officers and educating both male and female officers in handling rape cases appropriately.

Of course, this village is just one of many facing similar difficulties not only in India but across other post-conflict areas around the globe.

My message to the British Royal Baby, male or female, is: "Welcome! The world is beautiful. Please, as you grow and learn about our world, make use of your privileged position to help alleviate the pain felt by less privileged women and girls around the world".