From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
It's amazing how little data the world has about women and girls. There are even gender gaps in the data we use to measure gender gaps.
To me the question is, why are we denying them the obvious rights they should have? They are flesh and blood, they feel pain as we do, they experience joy, they have their own behaviours and their own languages among themselves that they understand and we don't.
Hip-hop gives a ground-level view of what it might mean to live under what are nearly warlike conditions in communities that face a myriad of daunting circumstances.
From my perspective, however, justice alone is insufficient for reconciliation. True reconciliation must originate within a society, involving both victims and perpetrators. Yet, accountability is an essential starting point, laying the groundwork for reconciliation efforts.
Probably most importantly was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.
The displacement that people face is now over generations not just years. The old model was to keep people alive until they go home. That model is broken, less than 3% of the world's refugees went home last year.
The twenty million people who currently need assistance in Pakistan are not terrorists, nor of strategic importance for our governments. They are much more important than that, they are people like you and me- men, women, families, children- who only want the best for their lives, and who were already struggling with immense poverty, even before nature yielded a blow.
First and foremost was the consolidation of democracy. Second was the stabilisation of the economy. Thirdly- and probably most importantly- was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.
Consider a car with malfunctioning brakes; it's unsafe to let it on the street, as it could cause harm. You'd need to confine it, but you wouldn't punish it or moralize its malfunction. Instead, you'd seek to understand why its brakes failed.
With blockchain, you may not even need to bring someone to court, because the evidence is already there- on the blockchain! Producers can sell their products and services to people they don't know and need not trust—- so that expands their market.
I had this burning passion in me to prove to myself, and on behalf of other women, that if my voice was being stifled... and if I was being treated a certain way... that I had to stand up. What type of example would I set to other women and girls? I had to show that if you get knocked off the horse, you get right back up.
It's extraordinary to see the gains that have been won in the past half-century. The period from then till now is the blink of an eye in the vast passage of human history and the historic persecution of LGBT+ people.