Watch: Nicholas Kristof on Maternal Mortality

“Although a half million women die each year, that doesn’t get attention, because the victims invariably have three strikes against them: They are poor, they are rural, and they are female,” journalist Nicholas Kristof says in a video interview about his new book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.



“If men had uteruses and were dying at this rate, every country would have a minister of paternal mortality, the security council would be meeting, this would be a real international priority,” he says.


Recently launched at the Wilson Center, Half the Sky tells the transformational stories of women and girls who are the “face of statistics” on four appalling realities: maternal mortality, sexual violence, and lack of education and economic opportunities.



“So many Americans want to help, but are skeptical,” so Half the Sky offers a “do-it-yourself toolkit,” says Kristof. People “can truly save individual women’s lives out there, and their babies’ lives, that would otherwise die.”