Online Archives

BY LESLEY A. CARTER

Gender and justice took center stage at the nation's largest gathering of faith-based advocates.

United Methodists joined several hundred other advocates and attendees interested in social justice at the Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Arlington, Va., March 25-28. Workshops and keynotes focused on the theme "Development, Security and Economic Justice: What's Gender Got to Do with It?"

The Rev. Daisy Machado, academic dean and professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary in New York, set the tone for the conference with her emphatic statement that "the bottom line is that religion is about human well-being."

Speaking about the plight of women and girls in the border cities of Mexico, Machado connected violence against women with global economic policies that both exploit them and exclude them from reaping the full benefits of participation in the world marketplace. Women in those cities, she said, must work 11.5 hours to buy one box of diapers and four hours to buy two pounds of beans, and they are frequently the victims of violence and discrimination for entering the workplace at all. "God calls us to see, to judge, to act," Machado stressed.

The General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) sponsored a Saturday morning workshop on maternal health and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs,) of which reduction of the maternal mortality ratio by 75 percent and universal access to reproductive health care constitute the fifth goal of eight to be achieved by 2015. Katey Zeh, a GBCS consultant, focused on the Healthy Families, Healthy Planet Project, emphasizing that only partial success has been achieved on this goal. "We have only achieved a reduction of the maternal mortality rate of about 30 percent," she said.

Potential federal budget cuts to foreign aid are jeopardizing the chances of complete success on this goal, Zeh pointed out. Even at current funding levels, 215 million women worldwide would prefer to delay or space the births of their children but lack the means to do so safely.

Beatrice Gbanga, a medical coordinator and trained midwife from the Sierra Leone Annual Conference, spoke movingly about the challenges that she has faced both as a woman and as a medical professional in West Africa. Women, she said, face multiple issues that affect their health – poverty, backbreaking hours of labor both at home and at work, many types of abuse, mental health issues (including depression), and a religious culture that emphasizes their subservience not only to God but also to men. "We put ourselves in a lower status; our grandmothers taught us that," Gbanga stated.

Gbanga emphasized that when providing medical care to women, the emphasis needs to be on the whole person, not just reproductive health care issues. Gbanga's own niece, who delivered two children before the age of 19, realized with her aunt's help that she needed to utilize family planning services, and in so doing has become "more mature, and wants to be empowered to do things for herself. She is now more useful to her community than if she had had children every year."

Other sessions at the conference focused on topics such as human trafficking, the development of advocacy skills in advance of a Capitol Hill lobbying day, and refugee resettlement. Attendees also met with others from their denominations at a lunch on Saturday.

Of the conference, Zach Anderson, a United Methodist seminary student and pastor from Lincoln, Neb., said, "It's been inspiring and extremely informational so far in a short time. There's lots of energy and wisdom here – it gives me hope for the Christian church."