American-Eurasian Women’s Program
American-Eurasian Women’s Program
Women across Europe and Asia are seeking new avenues to share their experience with their American counterparts in an effort to bring progress to the current state of conditions of women and their children that need to be addressed. The massive cuts in government spending on social services both in the countries of the former Soviet Union and in other parts of Europe and Asia have left women in such a predicament that they have become victims of poverty, hunger, violence, prostitution, and sexual trafficking. While for the most part, American women have also seen a reduction in pay and a reduction of government spending on services to women due to the recent Great Recession. American women have faced foreclosure and poverty as well. Today, women must band together to let their voices be heard, so that economic progress in world must not occur at the expense of women but at the inclusion of women within the economy and empowering them with a new voice in local, state and federal governments.
The new economies of Europe and Asia must provide new opportunities with living wages, away from sweatshop conditions of the 19th and 20th centuries toward a global economy where each of the members of the global village is provided with self-sustaining jobs which can only make each community stronger and more vibrant in the years ahead.
The Eurasia Center’s Women’s Program is that bridge where women in America collaborate with women in Europe and Asia (Eurasia) in order to research, write and build new initiatives for progress on women’s issues. Too often, governments and regions have remained silent in the face of the growing challenges of the failure of the world economies to address these issues. A further diminution of the role of women in politics is occurring, yet there are new growing women’s movements throughout Eurasia which are encouraging signs of optimism as activists continue to march and defend women’s basic rights. Their issues require serious research and a sharing of knowledge, experience, and ideas through an interchange with American women.
The Eurasia Center’s Women’s Program solicits foundational, donor and grassroots support to continue its efforts to mobilize women throughout the globe. The Eurasia Center will publish carefully tailored Reports to advance progress for women and work with Eurasian Governments, as well as local Eurasian nonprofits, to bring these issues to the level of visibility they deserve.
In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space and women to date have achieved great things as scientists, as business and government leaders, and much more. True progress can only be measured when all members of society protect, defend and nurture the rights of women.