This week at the G8 conference in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed his nation to leading the way in the cause of helping women and children in developing nations.<\/p>\n
“Together we are committed to moving the world toward the day when women in developing countries will not die or suffer disabilities from pregnancy or childbirth,” Harper said<\/a>.<\/p>\n He went on to commit roughly $1.8 billion to help with maternity-related health programs around the world, hoping other nations would match suit.<\/p>\n Mr. Harper’s initiative is welcome, but his read on the problem — and the solution — is only half correct.<\/p>\n It’s true that women and children are at the center of the greatest moral crisis of the modern era.\u00a0 But the answer isn’t to protect motherhood, or the narrow concerns involving pre- and post-natal care.<\/p>\n The real answer is to begin the long, hard road to equality for the world’s women, billions of whom still live in abject servitude, with little control over the key decisions that shape their welfare.<\/p>\n Who they will marry, when they will bear children, where they will work, what religion they will practice — all decided by fathers, brothers, and even their sons.<\/p>\n In 1972, John Lennon diagnosed the problem accurately enough, singing that “woman is the n—- of the world.”<\/p>\n His analogy of the condition of women to black slavery was frightening to people.<\/p>\n Many of us, in developed and undeveloped nations alike, have internalized the idea that women are second-class humans.<\/p>\n Across the political spectrum, we find ourselves making apologies for religions, cultures and political structures that limit freedoms for women, without their consent or input.<\/p>\n We accept Orwellian language that justifies a brutal system of economic, social, political and sexual servitude.<\/p>\n Many on the right talk about religious freedom, while many on the left talk about cultural sensitivity.<\/p>\n But the proof is in the pudding.\u00a0 The countries where the treatment of women is most Medieval are also the poorest.\u00a0 Men and women alike in those societies suffer the highest rates of malnutrition, disease, lack of education and war.<\/p>\n Sadly, there are signs that things are getting worse, not better.<\/p>\n In recent decades, the rates of human-trafficking — women forced into domestic- and sexual-slavery — have been on the rise.<\/p>\n And with the steady diaspora of families from Islamic countries, many of the most morally unacceptable abuses of women are taking root once again in Western nations, where women’s freedoms are established in law.<\/p>\n The enslavement of women on religious principles isn’t limited to Islam.\u00a0 Roman Catholics, Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, they all find common cause in their relegation of women to second-class status.<\/p>\n Nor is religion the only — or even the primary — cause of women’s subjugation.<\/p>\n Still, the question of how to integrate Muslim immigrants into our society, where the equality of women is sacrosanct, is one of the challenges of our time.<\/p>\n There are no cure-alls to this age-old evil.<\/p>\n But the steady empowerment of women strikes me as the surest path to ending many of the problems that now seem intractable.<\/p>\n If you want young mothers and their children to fare better — as Mr. Harper clearly does — the answer isn’t better Western-funded hospitals.<\/p>\n The answer is to make sure that that young women have enough freedom and independence and education to make smart choices, for herself and her family.<\/p>\n Clearly, there’s a long road ahead.<\/p>\n The fight to end slavery began in Britain in the late 1600s.\u00a0 Britain didn’t formally end the trading of slaves until 1807.\u00a0 And it wasn’t until 1865 that the United States ratified the Emancipation Proclamation.<\/p>\n But in many societies, women have shown that there are shortcuts to liberation and empowerment.<\/p>\n Women in the United States didn’t win the right to vote until 1920.\u00a0 They have now risen to the heights of power in our society, leading in board rooms and on battlefields.<\/p>\n “Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history,” wrote Hanna Rosin, in the latest issue of Atlantic Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same.”<\/p>\n As a consequence of this second great American Revolution, our society is stronger, fairer, more prosperous, and (yes) more moral.<\/p>\n In this, our nation is still a model worthy of emulation.<\/p>\n It’s no accident that the Statue of Liberty portrays a woman holding\u00a0 a beacon of hope and change to the world.<\/p>\n That statue, officially called Liberty Enlightening the World, also shows that fearless and powerful woman stepping on a set of broken chains.<\/p>\n