The Forgotten Widows

Widows as a group are not often thought about, and as a group of suffering women are usually forgotten. Yet, there are 258 million widows in the world. The number has increased 9% since 2010 due to conflicts in the Middle East. One widow in seven lives on $1 a day or less. The Loomba Foundation, a British charity has issued a report which they presented to the UN documenting the plight of these women. In the US a widow with children will face obstacles, but usually surmountable ones. For one thing in the US women can work, or go to school adding to their options as widows. The options before them may not Continue reading “The Forgotten Widows”

The Plight of Poultry Workers

I’m revolted by certain working conditions, by what people have to do to earn a living and be able to survive. I’ve written about farm laborers and Amazon employees, now I find that poultry workers work in what an Oxfam recent report calls grim conditions. The machines are faster than they were years ago, they have to process 34 chickens per minute, and in an 8-hour shift, they only have a half hour for lunch. They are not entitled Continue reading “The Plight of Poultry Workers”

Cyber-Exploitation

https://oag.ca.gov/cyberexploitation That’s the URL for a website giving victims of cyber-exploitation—otherwise known as porn revenge—resources, including help with how to have images, videos, and sometimes damaging statements, removed from social media. I do feel that it’s particularly important to give it because several stories I read from mainstream media spoke about such things as how ground breaking it was that California was the first state to do this but did not include it. The site began by California Attorney General, Kamala Harris, does not seem to me to be a cure all for cyber-exploitation, but Continue reading “Cyber-Exploitation”

Mental Health in Africa–New Hope

I first learned how the mentally ill were treated in Africa from a cousin, a gynecologist practicing in Paris, who had done a residency in Senegal. She was so shocked by what she observed, people, including women in labor, chained, that later it became one of the reasons she became a psychiatrist. Part of her research was triggered by her observation that so often the mentally ill in Africa, in this case, women, had been so traumatized by difficult lives, it’s as if they took refuge in mental illness. That was years ago and people are still chained, and in Continue reading “Mental Health in Africa–New Hope”