Indian Sect Members Vow To Marry Sex Workers 21
More than 1,000 followers of a multi-religious sect in northern India have decided to buck traditional wisdom and turn whores into housewives in an attempt to help them escape exploitation. The group (DSS) claims their pledge will also help stop the spread of AIDS. It is estimated that 40%-50% of women working in red light districts in large cities are HIV carriers. Dr Aditya Insan, a senior DSS functionary, said, "This will have to be a slow and delicately handled process. Many women are HIV-positive. Some have young children and are understandably concerned about their future. We need to ensure these women are protected legally once they are married."
Re:Nutcases (Score:2, Insightful)
How's this:
The demonstrated link between educating women and raising living standards in third world countries has little to do with basic sanitation or in sending them into the workforce. It's main benefit is to counter a lot of the bullshit spread by organized religion: to inform young people that children are not "miracles" sent by God to help harvest your crops. Rather, they consume resources and cost money and having everyone reproduce past the rate of replacement is a recipe for ecological disaster and inescapable, crushing poverty.
You can draw a straight line from those guys standing there with their hands up, through the religious shamans, imperialist priests and other irresponsible leaders misinforming and improperly educating young women, failing to teach sane economics and basic physics, encouraging overpopulation and resource depletion, through other exploitative institutions from sweatshops to poorly-structured welfare programs to red light districts everywhere, right to the penniless, child-burdened female sex workers they are pretending to "rescue" from the ridiculously poor decisions every one of them sanctioned and encouraged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bHZRSlhJxY [youtube.com]