Half the Sky Major Figures

Srey Rath

Srey Rath, whose story is told in the book’s introduction, was a 15-year-old Cambodian girl who traveled to Thailand to work as a dishwasher to help support her family. Instead, she was handed over to gangsters who sold her into sex trafficking in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Rath was held prisoner and beaten until she submitted to her captors. After she finally managed to escape, she was recaptured by a police officer who sold her back into a brothel. She escaped, returned to Cambodia, and set up a successful food and beverage cart with the help of a local microfinance program.

Meena Hasina

Meena Hasina, introduced in Chapter 1, is an Indian Muslim woman who, as a girl, was forced into sexual slavery by a local gang of sex traffickers. She was kidnapped and taken to a brothel at about age 8. The brothel owner beat and raped her until she agreed to have sex with the brothel’s customers. When Meena twice became pregnant, the brothel owner took her children from her and kept them as hostages to deter Meena from escaping. Eventually, though, Meena did escape, but she never forgot her children. Later, Meena meets her son and manages to get the help of authorities to raid the brothel and return her now-grown daughter to her.

Ruchira Gupta

Ruchira Gupta is an Indian woman who runs an organization working to end commercial sexual exploitation in India. Chapter 1 describes how she and her organization helped Meena Hasina get her children back from the brothel where they were held captive. Her organization was instrumental in convincing the police to raid Meena’s former brothel and have her daughter returned to her.

Srey Neth

Srey Neth, who appears in Chapter 2, was imprisoned in a Cambodian brothel as a young teenager. One day, her cousin took her to the local market under the pretense of a shopping trip, then sold Neth to a brothel, where she was closely watched and never allowed to go outside. The police would not help the exploited girls because, in Cambodia as in other countries, brothels bribe police to look the other way. Neth longed to go back home, but the brothel owner asserted that Neth had not repaid a “debt” she incurred while being kept there. Kristof paid the brothel owner the amount owed and left with Neth, whom he took home to her village. Eventually, Neth trained as a hairstylist and opened her own beauty parlor.

Srey Momm

Srey Momm, also introduced in Chapter 2, was held in a brothel in Cambodia for five years. She wanted nothing more than to leave the brothel and go back home. Kristof paid for her release from the brothel owner and took her back to her home village. Momm had feared that her family and the villagers would shun her because she had been sexually exploited, but they accepted her story that she had had a job in western Cambodia. Her family welcomed her warmly, and the entire village celebrated her return. Her family set Momm up running a market stall, and everything seemed to be going well. One day, however, Momm disappeared. It turned out that the brothel owner had gotten her addicted to methamphetamines, and Momm could not bear the pain of withdrawal. Momm returned to the brothel, where she could continue to access the drug. 

Usha Narayane

Usha Narayane, an impoverished Dalit, India’s lowest caste, was determined to better her lot in life at age 28. Her parents were educated, and they sent their children to school. Chapter 3 describes Usha’s fearlessness in facing down a viciously violent gang leader who beat, raped, and killed local women and thereby controlled her neighborhood in the city of Nagpur. The neighborhood’s women were inspired by Usha’s bravery, and one day they confronted the gang leader and stabbed him to death. Usha was arrested for inciting the attack but was soon released. Since many women took part in the stabbing, none of them were ultimately arrested or charged.

Sunitha Krishnan

Sunitha Krishnan, whose story appears in Chapter 3, is a social entrepreneur who started an organization in Hyderabad, India, to fight sex trafficking. Local men who opposed her activism raped her, but Sunitha was undeterred. Working with a Catholic missionary, Sunitha started opening schools for the women trapped in brothels. She then opened shelters where girls who escaped from brothels could live without fear. The success of the shelters led Sunitha to try to figure out a way to rescue girls in brothels. Brothel owners attacked and beat her in retaliation. Sunitha went on to work with the Indian government and other women’s rights groups to start job training programs for survivors of sex trafficking. 

Woineshet Zebene

Woineshet Zebene, introduced in Chapter 4, lived in a remote area of Ethiopia where it’s considered a tradition for girls to be kidnapped and raped. At age 13, Woineshet was kidnapped twice and repeatedly raped by a boy who wanted to marry her. In rural Ethiopia, a girl avoids the shame of rape by marrying the rapist. Since this behavior is considered traditional, the rapist is never charged. Woineshet continued to refuse to marry her rapist. Instead, unlike most oppressed girls in her situation, Woineshet reported the kidnapping and rape to the police, who eventually let her live in a jail cell for her own protection. After her plight drew international attention, a women’s rights organization convinced the Ethiopian government to strengthen its laws against so-called bridal abduction.

Mukhtar Mai

Mukhtar Mai is a Pakistani activist and social entrepreneur. Chapter 4 tells how, when Mukhtar was a peasant girl living in Punjab, a local gang kidnapped and raped her younger brother. To cover up their crime, the gang leader accused the brother of raping another local girl. The tribal council believed this lie and decided that he had to pay for his rape by having his sister, Mukhtar, gang-raped. After such humiliation, Mukhtar would traditionally be expected to die by suicide. Instead, she reported her gang rape to the police, who—contrary to expectations—arrested the gang members who’d raped her brother.

The entire experience radicalized Mukhtar, who thereafter dedicated herself to starting schools for girls. When Kristof wrote an article about the school, donations poured in from around the world, and Mukhtar expanded her project. However, the incident embarrassed the Pakistani government, which used various tactics to silence and constrain Mukhtar. Eventually, the government relented, and Mukhtar traveled to the United States to speak at women’s rights conferences. As her fame grew, so did her women’s welfare projects, which eventually included health clinics and a women’s college.

Du’a Aswad

Du’a Aswad, who is discussed in Chapter 5, was a 17-year-old girl living in a Kurdish region of Iraq. She was in love with a local boy, and one night she stayed out with him unchaperoned. Although she didn’t have sex with him, she was accused of having done so and was sentenced to death for the transgression. Male members of her family and village would murder her in an “honor killing” as punishment for shaming them and ignoring tradition. Du’a was dragged outside where hundreds of men kicked, stoned, and crushed her for half an hour until she died. Honor killing is illegal in this region, but the law is never enforced.

Mahabouba Muhammad

Mahabouba Muhammad’s story appears in Chapter 6 as an example of the dangers of inadequate reproductive health care for women. As a girl, Mahabouba lived in western Ethiopia, where her family was so poor that she ran away to work as a maid in a nearby town. Sometime later, a man convinced her he had a better job for her, but instead of taking her to work, he beat and raped her. It turned out that this much older man had bought Mahabouba to be his second wife.

When Mahabouba was 14 years old and seven months pregnant, she ran away from her captor’s home. She decided she could bear the child on her own, but her young body did not have a birth canal large enough for a successful birth. Mahabouba went through labor for seven days before the child in her womb died and her pelvis began to rot. By the time a birth attendant got to her, Mahabouba had suffered fistula, the rupturing of her bladder and colon. She was shunned because of the stench her body gave off. Unable to walk, she crawled to a nearby missionary, who took her to a hospital in the capital, where surgeons repaired her fistula.

Simeesh Segaye

Simeesh Segaye, introduced in Chapter 6, was 21 years old when she entered the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia’s capital. Before admission, she had suffered two days of obstructed labor, and she nearly died before she got help. Her husband had abandoned her, so she spent two years in a hut near her parents’ home, curled up and deeply depressed. Eventually her parents sold their livestock to raise money to get Simeesh medical care at the fistula hospital. Even after her successful surgery, it took months before Simeesh could walk again.  

Dr. Pascal Pipi

Dr. Pascal Pipi is mentioned in Chapter 7 as an illustration of the attitudes that compromise women’s reproductive health care in developing countries. Dr. Pipi was the head surgeon in a fistula hospital in Cameroon. When an impoverished patient arrived at the hospital, he refused to help her unless her family paid far more money than they had. Her baby had died inside her and was decaying, poisoning her from within. Yet Dr. Pipi refused to operate, convinced the family was lying about how much money they had. With his patient near death from long-obstructed labor, Dr. Pipi went home for the day. The next day, he operated, but she lapsed into a coma and died from an infection three days later.

Edna Adan

Edna Adan of Somalia is introduced in Chapter 7. When she was 8 years old, Edna’s parents had a woman come to their house and cut away Edna’s external genitals. Genital cutting, also known as female genital mutilation, is a long-standing tradition in Somalia and some other predominantly Muslim African nations. It is done for several reasons, among them to prevent women from deriving pleasure from sex. Later in life, Edna went on to work for the World Health Organization (WHO) to advocate for the cessation of genital cutting of women. She used her own money to build a maternity hospital where patients are treated and women are trained as midwives and nurses.

Ellaha

Ellaha appears in Chapter 9 as a 19-year-old inmate in a detention center for wayward girls in Afghanistan. She arrived there after refusing to marry the man her parents had chosen for her. Ellaha had so impressed her employer that he arranged a scholarship for her at a Canadian university; she was ready to leave for Canada when her family caught her and locked her up. After a week of severe beatings, Ellaha agreed to the arranged marriage, but before it could occur, she escaped and got her old job back. When her parents found out that her boss had given her a cell phone, they had her arrested and thrown in jail. Ellaha chose to stay in jail to avoid the wrath of her father, who might well have murdered her in an honor killing.

Sakena Yacoobi

Sakena Yacoobi is an activist for women’s rights in Afghanistan. Her aid organization, introduced at the end of Chapter 9, is called the Afghan Institute of Learning and supports a network of secret schools for Afghan girls. The schools must be secret because the Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, opposes girls’ education. Sakena expanded her organization to support and teach Afghan refugees in Pakistan, where women may also be trained to become teachers. She went on to create a network of mobile health clinics that offer rural Afghan women help with family planning and other health services. Kristof and WuDunn describe Sakena as one of the most effective social entrepreneurs in Afghanistan.

Dai Manju

Dai Manju was a young girl living in a remote, roadless village in China. Chapter 10 describes how, after Kristof wrote an article about the intense poverty and isolation of Dai and her village, donations came in to improve conditions for her and the villagers. Residents built a road up the mountain to their village and a new school within the village. Dai herself went on to graduate from high school and obtain a degree in accounting. She also helped her neighbors get jobs now that they could travel to nearby towns via the new road. Eventually, Dai started her own company.

Saima Muhammad

Saima Muhammad is a Pakistani woman whose story is told in Chapter 11. Saima’s husband wanted a second wife because she did not bear him sons. He beat her mercilessly, and she was afraid he’d abandon her altogether. Saima sought support from a local women’s group—part of a larger organization called the Kashf Foundation—in her hometown near Lahore. With its support, she began what became a highly successful embroidery business. Saima’s business did so well that she began making small loans to other women who needed seed money to start their own businesses. 

Goretti Nyabenda

Goretti Nyabenda, who appears in Chapter 11, gives an example of the good that can be done by microfinance, the lending of small amounts of money to aspiring entrepreneurs in developing countries. A farmer in Burundi, Goretti had few prospects for rising above poverty. Though her husband forbade it, one day she snuck away to attend a meeting run by the international aid organization CARE. Goretti was inspired and organized a CARE group in her area. At each of their meetings, the women donated a tiny amount of money to a collective pool. They then decided to lend small amounts of this money to local women who wanted to start their own business. Goretti got seed money to start her banana beer company, which became wildly successful. The availability of microcredit transformed the lives of many other local women whose businesses also thrived.