Charity Fest: Women Empowered: A Global Campaign for Gender Equality by Phil Borges
I’ve often written about what a small industry professional photography really is and my recent connection to Phil Borges is a prime example. We’ve shared a lot of the same friends in the industry for many years, but really don’t know each other very well. A print of his, which was a gift from a friend at Kodak in 1997, proudly hangs in my home.
Two weeks ago I put out a Tweet on Phil’s work which I had seen on the Microsoft Icons of Imaging site. Within 24 hours Phil contacted me to say thanks, which lead to a conversation about Charity Fest and here we are this morning!
I’ve been a fan of his work from the very beginning. While many see his signature as his unique selective toning process, for me personally it’s a combination of his subject matter and the look in their eyes. There’s a very special distinct calmness, yet haunting strength to the power of a Phil Borges portrait. But more important than the portraits themselves is Phil’s dedication to simply not compromise. He’s literally gone to the “ends of the earth” to capture the images, dragging equipment into remote parts of the world that very few of us will ever have an interest in visiting.
As described on the Microsoft, he’s a “humanitarian storyteller”. His Charity Fest contribution is a about a project near and dear to his heart, using his camera to increase global awareness for gender equality and the rights of women around the world.
For nearly two decades I have been documenting indigenous people and the various human rights abuses imposed upon them by invading countries or corporations that wanted their land and resources.
However, over time I began to notice that the most universal and widespread human rights violations were imposed from within– abuses that were embedded in the fabric of the culture. It was the discrimination and oppression of women and girls that I was shocked to see almost everywhere I traveled in the developing world.
So in 2004 I began a project consisting of a traveling exhibition, book and mini documentaries titled Women Empowered: A Global Campaign for Gender Equality.
Empowering women has been found to be the most effective strategy for addressing poverty and building stability in the developing world. In much of the world women support and care for their families, grow the food, and collect fuel and water, yet they usually face social and economic discrimination that prevents them from attending school, working for wages, and taking part in civic life. Poverty has a greater impact on women, and vice versa, empowering women results in greater and faster progress in reducing poverty.
Consider these statistics from the United Nations:
- Of almost 900 million illiterate adults in the world, 2/3 are women.
- Women produce half of the world’s food yet only own 1% of the farmland.
- Today only 15% of the legislators in the world are women.
Women Empowered is intended to shed light on specific gender issues worldwide and the struggles of women and girls in developing countries to achieve gender equality. Their struggles and triumphs speak to the universal themes of courage, empowerment, and human rights.
Here are a few of the extraordinary women I have met that have broken through a cycle of repression or cultural tradition that limit their well-being of the communities – women heroes, remote and unknown, on the vanguard of a global shift toward gender equality.
Akhi, (age 32), pictured above, for women’s rights in a brothel, Tangail, Bangladesh. At age 13, before she had even begun menstruating, Akhi was sold into a brothel by her aunt. After working for several years, she became highly depressed and attempted suicide. Her failed attempt brought about an epiphany: her life could be used to improve the lot of her fellow sex workers. Akhi accomplished the near-impossible task of gaining support from religious, political, and social groups to create an organization to advocate for sex workers rights. Despite being arrested three times, she prevailed and, in 1998, formed the ÒNani Mukti Sangha organization. Since the group commenced, condom use in the brothel has increased from near zero to eighty-six percent, and the number of 12- to 13-year-olds recruited into the brothels has decreased. Today, she continues to fight tenaciously for sex workers rights, and is said to have such a forceful personality that even the police are afraid of her.
Asgeli, (age 52), pictured above, Afar tribe, Awash Fontale, Ethiopia, Africa. As a leader of the circumcision ceremony, Asgeli had performed hundreds of female circumcisions. Now, like others in the village, she is supportive of the change in custom that Abay had advocated. She said, “We did the circumcisions because that is what had always been done. We were in the dark house and did not know.”
