Global Solidarity

After reading the article summarizing the murder crime, I instantly thought how similar this situation was to Lauren Marconi’s story of Edna’s Maternity hospital. In both situations, women are being left behind and abused in their culture. Women are forced to commit prostitution against their will – violating a common CST theme of human dignity and right. These cultures, to me, seem to be sexist. They treat women as objects or property rather than human beings.

Here in Chestnut Hill, PA we are truly living the good life, receiving an education in a school where we are encouraged to be leaders of society. We need to fight for others’ rights and share our gifts with the poor & vulnerable. I see it as especially our responsibility as an all-girl school to aid hurt women. As CST’s solidarity theme teaches us, we need to feel compassion for these women as if they were our own MSJ sisters. If a girl was killed in Chestnut hill for not agreeing to prostitution, I know our community would be outraged and come together as one to honor her life. Just because Afghanistan is not our home should not change our feelings towards this issue. Women nationwide need to come together as one.

I feel that hurricanes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters attract more attention to the public because we can, in some way, relate to these people. We too hear news of a bad storm heading our way and may become scared. Although we have never experienced a tsunami here, we share some perspective of how frightening and sad that must be. On the other hand, I have never walked through my neighborhood and feared being stabbed because I did not agree to prostitution. A tsunami also kills a multitude of people at once, and is such a natural phenomenon that people draw interest to it. I feel like we just see Afghanistan as a “different culture,” see their practices as their practices, and let them be.

To begin helping, we need to grasp and imagine the terrifying lives and dangers these girls face every day. The first step is to show compassion for them, and spread awareness. Just like a tsunami gets huge coverage, we need to have unjust female murders and discrimination shown on national television.