Trumps Launch Full Assault On International Programs That Benefit Women & Girls

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The Trump family double teamed their lies about women's rights with the proposed elimination of Hillary Clinton's Global Women's Issues Office, a State Department office that fights for the rights of women all over the world, with a special focus on defending those who are in the most precarious and vulnerable situations in impoverished countries.

This office is far more than a do-gooder initiative, which is clearly how one of both Trumps see its mission.  How ironic that this news broke hours after Ivanka Trump tried to persuade a skeptical audience in Berlin that her father is a "tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive." In fact, most terrorism experts and the highest ranks of the US military know that women's empowerment programs are vital for America's national security.  Women Are the Best Weapon in the War Against Terrorism wrote Foreign Policy in this 2015 article. When we heard Trump declare that he has no interest in soft power, we knew the Global Women's Issues Office was on the chopping block. Just as the cuts to preventive medical care and birth control for women will enhance greater risks of terrorism, the inability of the Trump team to educate themselves on the opinions of their own generals on this matter is reckless and puts America at increased risks for decades. 

In her recent Georgetown speech, Hillary Clinton reminded us that women's rights are the first targets of fundamentalists. AOC reminds us that Hillary is correct and that -- no matter what Ivanka Trump has to say -- Washington DC is also in the hands of the most conservative administration in decades. Cutting back women's rights is their prime objective as well.

Note that many Senators -- including Republican senators -- do not abide by these deep cuts in the State Department. So we can't say for certain if the office will actually be abolished in the end, since it is their decision about how to fund the government, not Trump's. Still, the so-called support for women by the Trump administration is a joke. 

The Global Women's Issues Office did survive the short-term funding bill passed over the weekend to keep the government running. It's the 2018 budget negotiations that will be critical. 

In a related matter, CNN sent thinking women's tempers flaring yesterday with news that the Trump administration intends to discontinue 'Let Girls Learn', Michelle Obama's signature girls education initiative. CNN reported on an internal memo of Trump's intention to end the program which includes leadership camps, mentorship programs, school libraries and other resources intended to help 62 million adolescent girls attend and stay in school. The White House says the program has not changed, but did not say whether it would be maintained in the future or why the memo was sent.

AOC has reported on Michelle Obama's work for 'Let Girls Learn' and also her 2016 trip with CNN and the documentary 'We Will Rise'. 

Read: In Trump's Plan to Gut Foreign Aid, Battle Lines Drawn Over Global Women's Issues Foreign Policy

Shakira's Barefoot Foundation Commits $400,000 to School in Haiti

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GivingTracker| Shakira is one of our muses here at Anne of Carversville, a quintessential Smart Sensuality woman: smart, sexy and with heart. A constant activist for the poor and underprivileged, Shakira walks her talk in word and deed.

Shakira was in Haiti on Thursday, celebrating the upcoming renovation of a historic Catholic girls school, severely damaged in the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Shakira always gets down with the people. In Haiti, with her song ‘Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) setting the mood, Shakira grooved with students from Port-au-Prince’s Elie Dubois high school.

‘I’m convinced that the key to a dignified future for Haiti is through education,’ said Shakira.

Shakira’s Barefoot Foundation donated an amazing $400,000, matched by the Inter-American Development Bank, to restore the high school. Reconstruction of the nine-classroom, 250-student school will hopefully begin in two months and will take about 14 months to complete.

It is expensive to reconstruct the school because everything must be imported, said project manager Eric Cesal of Architecture for Humanity. As a special gesture, students — many of them still living in tents more than a year after their own earthquake — folded paper cranes in support of students in earthquake and tsunami-ravaged Sendai, Japan.

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