On this week’s 51%, a woman nearing 80 is on a mission to introduce the world to Indonesian literature.
Then, we visit Zambia to learn what is being done to decrease the number of teen pregnancies and we’ll hear about a young woman’s campaign to put an end to a human rights violation.
LianGouw is a California-based publisher on a mission - to introduce Indonesian literature to the world. Gouw immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1960's and has returned to her country of birth just a few times, and just in the past five years, yet she says she still has roots, and a strong pull to tell Indonesia’s story, through the lens of its writers. She started her publishing company in 2011, DalangPublishing, and will have 10 titles come June 2015 – that’s when the Frankfurt Book Fair is held, and Indonesia is the guest of honor. LianGouw is also the author of Only A Girl. Another of the works published by Dalang is written by the late Indonesian feminist, Lan Fang, author of Potions and Paper Cranes. I asked Gouw what Lan Fang would say or do about today’s push for women’s equality in the U.S. and Indonesia.
Next, we travel to Zambia, which is struggling to cope with an increasing number of teenage pregnancies. AsumptaLattus reports.
The United Nations has called it a human rights violation, but the practice of cutting the sex organs of young girls and women, also known as female genital mutilation – or FGM – is still practiced on girls around the world. Until recently, governments have been unwilling to engage with the issue because it is deeply rooted in the cultures that practice it. However, more and more women are speaking out about the practice in a bid to stop it for good. LyndseyMelling reports about MunaHassan, a young Somali woman born in Sweden and raised in Britain, who is campaigning against the practice of FGM.
Photos of the rape and murder of two teenage girls in India over the summer were shocking, but as Sandip Roy explains, the story behind this is layered. And should the photographs that ended up going viral on social media have been published?
And that’s our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock. Our theme music is Glow in the Dark by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio.
