One Book, One Campus

#1 National Bestseller-From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era's most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it's also the best strategy for fighting poverty. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

In June 2009 a Pakistani mother of five, Asia Bibi, was out picking fruit in the fields. At midday she went to the nearest well, picked up a cup, and took a drink of cool water, and then offered it to another woman. Suddenly, one of her fellow workers cried out that the water belonged to Muslim women and that Bibi--who is Christian--had contaminated it. "Blasphemy," someone shouted, a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. In that instant, with one word, Bibi's fate was sealed. First attacked by a mob, Bibi was then thrown into prison and sentenced to be hanged.Since that day, Asia Bibi has been held in appalling conditions, her family members have had to flee their village under threat from vengeful extremists, and the two brave public figures who came to Bibi's defense--the Muslim governor of the Punjab and Pakistan's Christian Minister for Minorities--have been brutally murdered. In Blasphemy, Asia Bibi, who has become a symbol for everyone concerned with ending an unjust law that allows people to settle personal scores and that kills Christians and Muslims alike indiscriminately, bravely tells her shocking and inspiring story and makes a last cry for help from her prison cell."Proceeds from the sale of this book support Asia Bibi's family, which has been forced into hiding.""

Not many women can claim to have changed history, but Nafis Sadik set that goal in her youth, and change the world she did. "Champion of Choice" tells the remarkable story of how Sadik, born into a prominent Indian family in 1929, came to be the world's foremost advocate for women's health and reproductive rights, the first female director of a United Nations agency, and "one of the most powerful women in the world" ("London Times"). An obstetrician, wife, mother, and devout Muslim, Sadik has been a courageous and tireless advocate for women, insisting on discussing the difficult issues that impact their lives: education, contraception, abortion, as well as rape and other forms of violence. After Sadik joined the fledgling UN Population Fund in 1971, her groundbreaking strategy for providing females with education and the tools to control their own fertility has dramatically influenced the global birthrate. This book is the first to examine Sadik's contribution to history and the unconventional methods she has employed to go head-to-head with world leaders to improve millions of women's lives. Interspersed between the chapters recounting Sadik's life are vignettes of females around the globe who represent her campaign against domestic abuse, child marriage, genital mutilation, and other human rights violations. With its insights into the political, religious, and domestic battles that have dominated women's destinies, Sadik's life story is as inspirational as it is dramatic.

Legal empowerment is a powerful tool for reducing poverty. It gives people the knowledge, skills, and confidence to participate in development projects. It promotes inclusive growth, which reduces poverty by building people s capacity to improve their lives. Inclusive growth is a goal of Strategy 2020, which guides the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its mission to promote gender equality, empower women, and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The report presents the findings of a project funded by ADB, carried out by The Asia Foundation, and conducted in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan. The project aimed to identify and test legal empowerment strategies that increase access to basic social services, productive resources, and opportunities by women and other disadvantaged groups and to incorporate legal empowerment initiatives into mainstream development project."

The Zina Ordinance is part of the Hadood Ordinances that were promulgated in 1979 by the military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, self-proclaimed president of Pakistan. Since then, tens of thousands of Pakistani women have been charged and incarcerated under the ordinance, which governs illicit sex. Shahnaz Khan argues that the zina laws help situate morality within the individual, thus de-emphasizing the prevalence of societal injustice. She also examines the production and reception of knowledge in the west about women in the third world and concludes that transnational feminist solidarity can challenge oppressive practices internationally.