Political springs, as in social movements that topple and/or transform political regimes, occur when the youth of a nation get on the move. And that may be what happened in Nairobi this past Monday. A harbinger of spring. 

Four hundred or so young women marched, shouted, hooted, danced, chanted, filled the streets of Nairobi. They carried a banner that read, “50% of all positions allocated to women should be reserved for women under 35 years. Give women an opportunity for fair representation through nomination rules of political parties.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolTr96_4nM The women wore purple to symbolize their demands for fair and balanced appointments. They were a rolling democratic action. They were … a purple zebra. As Youth Agenda has explained, “Young women (Purple) in appointive and elective positions in political parties should appear as many times as the white on a zebra...#purplezebra”. The #purplezebra emerges from many sources. The new, improved Constitution of Kenya (pdf) provides more rights and protections to women, children and youth, both defined as vulnerable citizens. In particular, the Bill of Rights of Kenya’s recently passed Constitution specifies the State’s responsibilities to women, children, youth, minorities and marginalized groups, and elders. The Constitution also mandates that no gender will have more than 2/3 of elected or appointed positions. This does not limit women to 1/3 but rather ensures that at least 1/3 of elected and appointed positions will be women. It’s a definite step forward, which of course relies on implementation. The young women of Kenya have looked at the results thus far, and kept their eyes on the prize. In a country in which 70 percent of the population is 35 years or younger, age matters. Or at least it should. And Kenya is that country right now, and all predictions and projections suggest that it will continue to become younger and younger again. This means, for women like Susan Kariuki, Chief Executive Officer of Youth Agenda, the group that brought the women who came from all political parties and structures together, the women in office must be from the 70%, the 35-and-under super majority. This means that restrictions, such as fees, must take into account the high levels of unemployment and underemployment of young women and address them accordingly. This means that the Parliamentarians as well as the appointed officials are on notice: don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall, there’s a purple zebra coming to do more than rattle your walls. #purplezebra on Twitter.

Last Thursday, Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court unanimously “chastised” state security agents for torturing Jestina Mukoko, national director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, four years ago. They came at dawn, December 3, 2008. Armed men broke into the house of Jestina Mukoko, the only surviving parent of a teenage child who watched, helplessly. They took her, in unmarked cars, and held her incommunicado for 21 days. During that time, they beat her feet with rubber truncheons. They dumped her into solitary confinement. They forced her to kneel on gravel, to endure searing pain. They questioned her about the whereabouts of her son. As Mukoko explains, “Psychological torture was the order of the day.” Under duress, the abductors, which is to say the State, handed Jestina Mukoko over to … the State. Where she was again imprisoned, in the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Detention Centre, after having spent time in police cells that had already been deemed “unfit for human habitation.”

Mukoko told this story in May to the Oslo Freedom Forum in a panel titled “Spotlight on Repression: A glimpse into some of the world’s least known and most repressive regimes." Her talk is entitled “In Mugabe’s Crosshairs.” Where does that torture begin? As Mukoko notes, at the outset of her talk, she was denied her freedom for 89 days in prison, but she has been denied her freedom for far longer than that. Where does the torture begin? At the house invasion? The abduction? The disappearance? The beatings? The kneeling on gravel? The nights with drunken captors taunting and threatening her? The police cell? The prison? The mandated weekly visits to the police, while awaiting trial? It also begins in the globally constructed status of “least known”. Four years ago, when Jestina Mukoko was abducted, and then for the three months of her ordeal, she was in the news. Zimbabwe was in the news. Then Mukoko was released, and her story was relegated to the conference halls of human rights organizations. And so Zimbabwe, somehow magically, receded into the Brigadoon fog at the season’s end. Except that Zimbabwe did not go away. Jestina Mukoko was not the only person abducted that year. Among the 20 or so abducted, at the same time, by 'State security agents', there was Nigel Mutemagawu, two years old. He was taken with his parents and held incommunicado. He was beaten and then left without medical attention. All of those cases are still pending. That means, as Mukoko explains, that they must drag themselves, every Friday, to the police station to verify their whereabouts: “I know how traumatic that is.” Jestina Mukoko and so many others are still kicking in Zimbabwe. She’s suing the government for torture. She continues to document violations and to give voice to those who suffer atrocity. She, and many others, continue to work for the project that is peace. Where does the torture end?

On Thursday, July 26, the Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town had an opening: Mo(u)rning. Photographic and other works by Zanele Muholi. Muholi had lost much of her work a couple months earlier in a more than suspicious burglary, and so the exhibition was a meditation on mourning, the processes of receiving and releasing the dead and the lost, and morning, the processes of a new day, of another new day. Those who know Muholi’s work will not be surprised to hear the exhibition was brilliant. Rooms upon rooms of portraiture, of lived experience, of love. Video installation merged with photography merged with graffiti and poetry. One wall held, or exposed, Makhosazana Xaba’s poem, “For Eudy”:

For Eudy I mentioned her name the other day but blank stares returned my gaze while all I could see was: The open field in Tornado Open hatred on the field. I thought I could explain but the rising anger blocked my throat cause all I was thinking was: This tornado of crimes is not coming to an end. Did anyone read a manifesto that has plans to stop hate crimes? Which party can we trust to bring this tornado of crimes to an end, an end we’ve been demanding?

How should we pen that cross and put the paper in its place while we remember painfully that the open field in Tornado is forever marked by her blood? Name me one politician who can stand up and talk about the urgency to stop these crimes, one who can be counted, to call them what they are.  Name me one. Go, celebrate Freedom Day, while we gather and stand on this open field in Tornado shouting for the world to hear: Crimes of hatred must stop!

The next wall had the following scrawl: Somber? Grim? Hopeless? No. The night of the opening, the space among the pictures, the testimonies, and the videos was a space of celebration, of hugs and winks and laughter and more hugs, a space of joy. When the communities of local Black lesbians and their friends came together, the event created the joyous space. It was an opening. For one night, in South Africa, the work of mourning is the work of morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5J-i1U6PXQ This week, the World Bank issued a report, South Africa Economic Update: Inequality of Opportunity. The report accurately and unsurprisingly details the depth of inequality in the new South Africa. For some, this report, and even more inequality itself, proves that “the spirit of Verwoerd still haunts” the nation. For others, the report details a present day threat to the future, a future that should be one of growth. For others, it’s something of a mix of national and global. A global sluggish economy takes a special form in a nation marked, perhaps constituted, by “a yawning gap between the nation’s richest and poorest citizens”. Everywhere the reports comment on the persistence and roots of this inequality. Rightly so. As some note, the report itself identifies the subjects of the inequality: “In addition to being young and living in certain locations, being a woman and non-white still matters, increasing the likelihood of being unemployed or underemployed significantly (over and above any impact of these attributes on education).policy—one of the rare policy goals on which a political consensus is easier to achieve.” Elsewhere, the report suggests, “Whether a person is born a boy or a girl, black or white, in a township or leafy suburb, to an educated and well-off parent or otherwise should not be relevant to reaching his or her full potential: ideally, only the person’s effort, innate talent, choices in life, and, to an extent, sheer luck, would be the influencing forces. This is at the core of the equality of opportunity principle, which provides a powerful platform for the formulation of social and economic policy—one of the rare policy goals on which a political consensus is easier to achieve.” As far as the report goes, it’s fine. The data seems more or less reasonable and in line with many other reports on inequality in South Africa. The history, however, has one glaring omission. The World Bank itself. Nowhere in a report on the roots and persistence of inequality in South Africa is there any discussion of the role that the World Bank, the IMF, and other powerful multinational agencies played in the development of South African economic policies, from Kempton Park to Mangaung and beyond. If this report suggests that South Africa is still haunted by the spirit of Verwoerd, it also suggests, by omission, other specters must be named as well, starting with the authors of the so-called Washington Consensus. * About the video. As Equal Education members and supporters from across South Africa gathered at the movement's first national congress in Johannesburg last week, the question of what it means to be an "equaliser" was front and center. In the video, five learners [from Khayelitsha] from Equal Education's Social Activism and Documentary Filmmaking workshop reflect on their experiences as equalisers. This was also their first time producing, filming and editing interviews. [The learners were trained by students from The New School—Palika Makam, Jordan Clark and Carlos Cagin—who are in South Africa for two months supervised by AIAC's Sean Jacobs.]

July 4. U.S. Day of Independence. What’s more 'American’ than … Chevron Corporation? It’s pretty much always in the top 5 of U.S. based corporations. It’s deeply involved with everything having anything to do with energy or power. Oil, gas, geothermal. You name it, Chevron’s there, but not like a good neighbor. It’s got history, well over a century of environmental 'intrusions’. And its corporate logo is red, white and blue. If Africa’s a country, the USA is a red white and blue multinational corporation. So, let’s celebrate Chevron. Or better, let’s celebrate the Nigerian women who shut it down for a couple weeks, ten years ago, July 2002. At that time, a few hundred unarmed Itsekiri women, mostly mothers and grandmothers, occupied the Chevron Oil Tank Farm in Escravos. Their weapon? Their threat? Nudity. That threat of stripping themselves naked shut down the multi-billion dollar plant for eleven days. As Sokari Ekine explained, “The mere threat of it would send people running. These are mature women and for mothers and grandmothers to threaten to strip is the most powerful thing they can do. It's a very, very strong weapon. Chevron is American, but they have Nigerian men working for them, and women are held in particular esteem in Nigeria – and if a woman of 40 or 70 takes her clothes off a man is just going to freeze." The men froze. And so did the oil for a while. And then there were 'negotiations’. Emem Okon is a feminist activist organizer in the Niger Delta, who has consistently pushed and prodded Chevron. She founded the Kebetkache Women & Development Centre, in Nigeria, and is a key member in the global True Cost of Chevron network. She is more than a thorn in the side of Chevron. She’s a bomb in the lap and a stake through the heart. Emem Okon is the feminist face of petro-sexual emancipatory politics. Here’s how Emem Okon sees the 'negotiations’ that followed:

There were negotiations. But the reason the women took over the oil tank farm was that Chevron and other oil companies is fond of negotiating with only the men, because the community leadership comprises of only the men and the male youths. So because Chevron was not listening to the women and not paying attention to the concerns and interests of the women, the women decided to mobilize and organize, and took over the oil tank farm, because they wanted to get the attention of Chevron. They stopped production on the oil tank farm for 11 days, and they insisted that Chevron management staff should come down to Burutu community to discuss with them. But by the time Chevron decided to come and discuss and negotiate with the women, the process was taken over by the men. The state government sent representatives, the traditional rulers sent representatives, and it was only two women that was part of the negotiation.

Chevron makes it a policy of not listening to the women, and in particular not listening to strong activist women, like Emem Okon. In May 2010, Okon, as a legal proxy holder, tried to attend the Chevron’s shareholders meeting in Houston. She wanted to speak to the shareholders Chevron’s devastating environmental impact in the Delta. She was barred. So were sixteen other community representatives from around the world. Five members of the True Cost of Chevron coalition were arrested. This year, Chevron let Emem Okon speak – for a whole two minutes. In two minutes, Emem Okon had enough time to state the obvious. Chevron lies in its reports from the Niger Delta. Chevron’s activities in the Niger Delta – poisoning the water, ruining the land, devastating the local economies – directly attack women: women as fisher-folk and as farmers, women as mothers, women as community members, women as women: “The women of the Niger Delta call on Chevron and every other oil company to leave the Niger Delta oil under the ground. Stop destroying our environment. Let our oil be." The women of the Niger Delta are calling. They have had enough of Chevron’s charity, violence, exploitation and duplicity. Want to celebrate independence this year? Support Emem Okon and the women of the Niger Delta. * Photo Credit: Jonathan McIntosh

The women of Sudan have had enough. On the evening of June 16, 2012, women dormitory residents at the University of Khartoum said, Enough is Enough. Girifna. We are disgusted; we have had enough. In response to an announcement of astronomically increased meal and transportation prices, the women students staged a protest. A few male students joined in, and together they moved off-campus. Then the police attacked the students, raided the dorms, and, reportedly, beat and harassed women dorm residents. News spread, and the campus exploded. And the police again invaded. And then…something happened. Something that feels different. Some say these are anti-austerity protests or food protests or anti-regime protests. But those have happened before. Others however call them Sudan Revolts or Sudan Spring. Some dare call them the Sudanese Revolution. Whatever they are, just remember, they began with 200 young women getting up, walking out, and chanting, Enough is enough. Ya basta! And now, ten days later, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is described as 'defiant.’ That’s quite a statement, when the head of State, with all his armed forces and 'informal’ security forces is mighty enough to stand up, defiant, against women and girls who, as happened in Bahri last Thursday, have gone to the intersections of town, opened up folding chairs, sat down, and chanted for lower prices, more dignity, and a better government. Defiant, indeed. What started as a protest by a small group of women escalated, by the following Friday, into a sandstorm, which has continued to today. That includes protests, crackdowns, arrests and disappearances, State violence. And the women keep on keeping on. As Fatma Emam notes, as she shares a photo [above] of women in Bahri blocking the road:

women do not make sandwiches women make revolutions women make dreams come true

Whatever you call it, this wave of protests, this revolt, this revolution, this sandstorm, women, young women, set the spark.

Starting on April 1, South Africa's public TV channel SABC3 has been running a weekly series called "I am Woman."  Every week, the show tries to follow the arc of a woman’s journey, the ways in which she comes to understand herself and the world by creating herself as the world and the world as herself. Imagine doing that without over-weaning ego or impossible humility, and you get the picture. The leap of faith is ultimately each woman’s discovery and invention of her own amazing and ordinary kind of humanity. Her discovery, and ours. If you don't live in South Africa, you can also view the series online. Last week’s episode followed Diana Motsisi and Themba Nkosi. Diana Motsisi is a nurse working and living in Johannesburg. She is proud to report, and has the picture on her mantle to prove, that she touched Madiba when he came out of prison and went into hospital. She cared for Madiba, and this makes her happy, in a wry, amused sort of way. She had three sons and wanted, more than anything, a daughter. And then … Mbali came along. Motsisi was as happy as happy could be. Now she could finally “share the feminine” with someone, with her daughter. We learn quickly that Diana Motsisi’s journey is Mbali’s journey. From childhood, Mbali doesn’t 'conform’ to the norm, doesn’t want to share the feminine, doesn’t want to be a girl, isn’t a girl. As Mbali grows older, she transitions, at first on her own and then with family and therapeutic assistance, into Themba. Themba Nkosi, gender activist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7dEhdc9PtQ And that’s where the real story is. Transition. Learning. Transformation. Revolutionizing not only expectations but also material conditions. Community. Loss. Caring. Freedom. Love. Touching. Sound familiar? It is. On one hand, it is the story of thousands upon thousands, millions, of individuals and their loved ones’ journeys through gender transformation and gender choice. The timeliness of this particular broadcast last week is that May 17 was International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO). May 17 was chosen because, on May 17, 1990, the General Assembly of the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. This week, The New York Times reported that Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, the 'father’ of modern American psychiatry, at 80 years of age, has just -- or is it finally -- apologized to the gay community for his work in establishing a so-called gay 'cure’. Of course, the long 'science’ of criminalizing homosexual and transsexual people, communities, cultures is never invoked when horror is expressed, from distant shores, at “corrective rape” committed in townships -- but where was the horror at the equivalent violence committed in clinics and hospital wards 'at home’? It is also the story of Joyce Banda, the President of Malawi, who in her first State of the Union address, announced her intention to overturn laws that criminalize same-sex relations. But it is fundamentally the story of South Africa, a story too often overlooked by the international press, perhaps because it is too 'soft’. Too sentimental. Too human. Diana Motsisi comes to realize that she has taken a kind of maternal and parental and human Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. Not doing harm means doing right, doing justice. It means she must, in her own words, “walk with him”. And so she does. In shopping malls, in schools, in public as well as private venues. Everywhere. It means she must ask, critically, “Have I done damage to my child?” It means she must take responsibility not only for her actions but also for her dreams and for the future. And it means they must share laughter, love, pain, regret, truth, wisdom and more. That too is the story of South Africa.

In October 2011, the Ugandan government sent Ingrid Turinawe to the infamous Luzira Prison--Uganda’s Guantánamo--for the treasonable act of walking to work. This week, the State, again, attacked Turinawe and other women activists for the “crime” of standing, speaking out, driving, and generally being. Big mistake.

In her first order of business since being inaugurated as Malawi’s new president on Saturday, Joyce Banda fired the country’s top policeman. No reason was given for the firing, but the BBC reports that the police chief, Peter Mukhito, was in charge last year during anti-government protests over the worsening economy.

Malawi is fed up with Madonna and her school daze, with the singer’s refusal to consult and her autocratic ways. Given the autocratic politics of the Mutharika regime, that’s both quite a statement and none at all. Madonna’s foundation, Raising Malawi (a telling name), has reportedly spent $3.8 million on a state-of-the-art school for girls outside of the Lilongwe. What’s there to show for that? Nothing. But the bigger picture is that Malawi is fed up, and not only the Mutharika government with Madonna. Women are fed up with the ways in which the State has failed to respond to HIV and AIDS, and in particular to the ways in which HIV+ women live. For example, Bhatupe Mhango, gospel singer, activist, Malawian, is fed up with the injunction to keep silent about her HIV+ status. She is fed up with being fed up as well. Along with so many others, she is fed up with being told that she must not even whisper about her 'condition'. She is fed up with State blaming everyone, including 'the Chinese’, while the illness spreads. And so she is singing out, speaking out, writing out, and organizing. It’s what women organizing do every day, in Malawi as everywhere. As Hope Chigudu, Ugandan-born Zimbabwe-based feminist organizer in Malawi has explained the process, women gather together, speak, listen, tell stories, listen, share, create and support safe spaces for sharing, demystify the body, attend to new and older forms of leadership, attend to new and older leaders, work at keeping the processes open and sustaining, generate knowledge, cross the line. Women cross the line all the time. What does that mean? It means that when discussions of girls’ education in Malawi must be conducted by Malawian women and girls. What comes first? Is it private, safe, secure and clean toilets? Is it daycare for girl students’ children? Questions that cannot be asked or answered from London or Tokyo or Washington, DC. And so, the women of Malawi are fed up. Over the weekend, the government held a Women of Distinction ceremony, at the 'magnificent’ State House. Only problem was too many women showed up. So, when the women retired to the restrooms and found that the women’s toilets was actually the woman’s toilet, they 'invaded’ the men’s restrooms. More like … occupied, liberated, socialized and demystified. The distinctive and distinguished women of Malawi said no to the architecture of patriarchy and yes to themselves. They said, “Yes, yes we can go in there, for we are many.” And they did.

March 8, 2012. It’s International Women’s Day, and so how to celebrate? Over the weekend, The Independent on Sunday ran a piece entitled, “Revealed: The best and worst places to be a woman.” 20 categories of “surprising results”. Here’s one you might find interesting: Best place to read and write: Lesotho. Lesotho? Literacy rates among women in Lesotho far exceed those of men. 95% of women can read and write, 83% of men. Boys drop out of a school at a higher rate than girls. The boys leave school to search for work, usually elsewhere. Much of the high literacy levels are a result of government decisions to actually invest in education. That’s all to the good, and of course nothing of it is actually in the article. Is that it for Lesotho? Its one shot at International Women’s Day newsworthiness? When do the women of Lesotho become newsworthy and noteworthy? You know the grim news already. Lesotho is a hard place to be, whether one is reading or not. The annual per capita is $1000, which means over half, maybe as high as 70 some percent, of the population is living in poverty. Speaking of money, all the banking assets of Lesotho are owned by foreign banks. The economy is allegedly shifting to an industrial base, which thus far has meant Chinese and Taiwanese owned garment and textile plants, where women work. Men largely continue to work in South Africa, especially in the mines. Currently, 33,000 Basotho men work in South African mines, which helps explain the high incidence of HIV and AIDS as well as tuberculosis. Lesotho still has one of the highest rates of HIV and AIDS in the world. Maternal mortality rates: also high. No guaranteed paid maternity leave, as in Swaziland, Papua New Guinea, oh yeah, and the United States of America. Unemployment is around 40%, life expectancy is around 40 years. This is part of the context in which Basotho women currently live and organize. They are in labor movements, in local and national government, in protests and actions around big dams, around food prices, around … everything, including exclusionary practices. Senate Masupha is the first-born child of David Masupha, the principal chief of Ha-‘Mamathe, Thupakubu and Jorotane. When he died, his wife ‘Masenate, who is Senate’s mother, became chief. When she died, everything thickened. Brothers insisted that Basotho tradition precluded the daughter from assuming the chieftaincy. Senate shot back that that is a violation of her constitutionally guaranteed rights. She also argued it’s nonsense. The Court decision is still pending. Whatever the outcome, Senate Masupha is not going away, and that, hopefully, is a lesson for International Women’s Day 2012. Instead of 'being surprised' by decontextualized so-called data from development think tanks (and worse), celebrate the difficult, everyday accomplishments of extraordinary, everyday women. Celebrate Senate Masupha.

Talk about efficiency, how’s this for a developmental scheme. First, encourage, both directly and by 'principled non-engagement,' a civil war in a mineral rich area. Make sure thousands are displaced, especially the rural populations. Help to build so-called refugee camps which are located a great distance from everyone's homes and which are places in and around which women and girls become ever more vulnerable, ever more intensely vulnerable … in every way. Let that simmer for a while. Then convene a conference of experts and saviors, not to be confused with Ngugi’s feast of thieves and robbers. No, this will be a serious conference of 'people who care'. Be sure to invite everyone who’s anyone which means exclude anyone who’s nobody which means be very selective in whom you invite. Meet for a couple days, not in the country under discussion, of course. That would cloud your objectivity. You can care from faraway. Announce that this is an opportunity, that the natives must buck up and reform. Announce that the time has come to talk of cabbages and kings -- but definitely not queens or princesses of any sort. Then close the conference and declare that, this time, they got it right. Then, not twenty-four hours later, lead the dash to 'explore' for mineral wealth in the country under discussion. Hey, you’ve earned it. Sound familiar? Welcome to Somalia. And welcome, Somalia, to the world order, same as it ever was. This past weekend, a Very Important Conference was held in London, at Lancaster House, to 'address' the 'Somali situation'. Leading up to the conference, there was much talk -- well, there were a few articles here and there -- which argued for inclusion of the 'people'. Mary Robinson called for a focus on ordinary Somalis, and described Somali women struggling with structures of hunger and immiseration. Nobody at the conference paid attention. Before the Conference, Mary Harper noted that Somalis actually have better ideas than so-called experts, and definitely better ideas than so-called world leaders, about how to grow the Somali economy and how to improve Somalia’s political economies. She too was largely ignored. As Harper pointed out afterwards, the Conference's final communiqué, such as it is, is rife with, or better built on, contradictions. On one side, literally, the document speaks of Somali self-determination. On the other, again literally, it describes which areas of Somali will now be controlled by foreign governments and multinationals. As for Somali women at this conference, forget about it. Somali women were not 'forgotten', they were excluded. They were all excluded, from shopkeepers, like Faduma Aden Mohamud; Diaspora activists such as Rahma Ahmed, Amina Souleiman; Somali women community organizers of all stripes, such as Aydris Daar; prominent Somali women members of government, such as Dr. Mariam Aweis Jama and Malyun Sheik Heidar; and the list goes on and on. Women who survived the atrocities of the war and who have been crucial in both construction and reconstruction were literally not given seats at the table. That was Friday. On Sunday, The Observer reported that “Britain leads dash to explore for oil in war-torn Somalia.” So, it’s a story with a happy ending. Ask the women of the Niger Delta. They’ll tell you. Meanwhile, Somali women continue to organize while London's calling to the faraway towns. Now war is declared -- and battle come down.

The Guardian reports: “Cash payments help cut HIV infection rate in young women, study finds: Research in Malawi finds girls who receive regular payments are able to resist attentions of older men and avoid infection.” The headline pretty much says it all … or does it? The Guardian report is based on a study that appeared in The Lancet: “Effect of a cash transfer programme for schooling on prevalence of HIV and herpes simplex type 2 in Malawi: a cluster randomised trial.” It’s accompanied with an editorial, “Paying to prevent HIV infection in young women?” The study’s interpretation of the findings is the telltale heart of the matter:

Cash transfer programmes can reduce HIV and HSV-2 infections in adolescent schoolgirls in low-income settings. Structural interventions that do not directly target sexual behaviour change can be important components of HIV prevention strategies.

Pay to prevent HIV infection in young women? Yes. But the larger lesson is that women’s health and wellbeing is always part of the whole life of each woman and girl as well as of women and girls, more generally. HIV transmission is not 'simply' a consequence of sexual behavior, whatever that is. It emerges from the whole life. Paying to prevent HIV infection in young women is an investment in women’s education and in women’s autonomy, and that is a real investment in a better future and an improved present.