I recently read a remarkable book titled, All That Is Bitter & Sweet, by Ashley Judd. Although part of the book deals with the daunting challenges she faced throughout her childhood and well into adult life, she is far more concerned with the horrendous injustices and unspeakable, inhumane conditions suffered by millions of abused women and children living in impoverished countries. 

Traveling throughout many struggling countries, she courageously experienced appalling human rights abuses firsthand by directly interacting with victims of HIV/AIDS, sex-trafficked women and children, innocent young women forced into brothels, girls and women who were raped and mutilated (genitally), starving and abused children, rampant gender inequalities, and on and on. 

To better understand the horrid injustices she witnessed, below are a few excerpts from her book... 

While visiting a squalid, displaced Persons Camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where refugees live in makeshift huts and sleep on dirt floors, she discovers that women are gang-raped by soldiers on a regular basis. She then says...

"I spot a young, sweaty child named Durika, wearing a piece of black garbage bag. She extends her arms to me, and I scoop her up. She is limp and frail. I rock her and sing to her, pour water in my hand and wipe her face; she is blazing hot."

In Nairobi, Kenya, where half the people live in poverty, she tells us...

"I heard of one housing complex where fifteen hundred people shared a single toilet. Open sewers ran along rutted roads past pockets of rubble and trash. The air stank of human waste mixed with the sickly sweet smell of vegetables and meat left out in the heat."

When she visited a brothel in Thailand, she described a women who...

"told us that she was a very young girl when she was first brought to the brothel. They sold her virginity to a German Tourist who had taken Viagra to prolong his erection. In a chilling monotone, she described how he raped her so many times that her vagina was torn apart and she had to be hospitalized..."

While still in Thailand, she went to a hospice that provides health services to HIV/AIDS patients where no doctors were on staff...just caring volunteers. She spent time with the sick and dying and actually provided  hands on care for them. She then went to visit with a man that would not live longer...

"I climbed on to a bed with a very sick and emaciated man, whose head was quite swollen, put my arm around him, and kissed him on the cheek..."  

The kind of love and empathy that Ashley Judd showed, side-by-side with other volunteers who unselfishly reach out to help the oppressed, the sick, and the dying, serves as a good example for all of us to follow.

The presence of abused women and children in the world is totally unacceptable...but not by accident. One of the important reasons they are here is to awaken feelings of compassion and caringness in all of us so that we might become greater and grander versions of who we really are.  

Helping others, as opposed to focusing on ourselves, is one of the Highest choices we can make in the universe. All the great souls who have come here to help awaken humanity or fight against injustices were always linked to some form of service...Jesus, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mildred Lisette Norman (the Peace Pilgrim), Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, Desmond Tutu, Malala Yousafza, and on and on they come, generation after generation, to serve as an example for humanity to follow. We must do the same in whatever way we can. 

Below are some of the organizations listed in Ashley Judd's book that are really making a difference in this world. Please visit them to see how you can fit in and contribute to this incredible network of people who care...   

Personal Services International (PSI) 

People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA)

Equality Now

Heal Africa

Avert (HIV/AIDS)

Human Rights Watch

United Nations Population Fund

Women For Women

The UN Refugee Agency

~ Contact    ~ Home