tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight a conversation whicith sheryl wudunn along with her husband. she is the author of a book about the plight of women all over the world called "half the sky." we are glad you have joined us. a conversation about "half the sky" with sheryl wudunn coming up. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

tavis: sheryl wudunn is a best- selling author who became the first nation american norman twin region -- woman to win the pulitzer prize. an exhibition based on her book is showing in l.a. is through may 20 with a two-part pbs special coming in october. >> the challenge women and girls face around the world is not an easy topic to talk about, but we think it is the moral challenge.

>> you rescue girls from brothels. how does that work? >> we have the same life. >> to get someone to say this is wrong, it takes a special person to do that. >> you are going to take your own money. >> this is not a problem that is so unsolvable we have to invent something new. this is not rocket science. it just takes political will. >> no child should ever be told, you are born at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you did not get educated. >> crazy vegetation where anyone can hide, 17 miles by herself. >> a lot of familiar faces in that piece.

i will ask about it in just a second. i heard you say this is the moral issue of our time. what you mean by that? >> we thought about what it means to say such by huge statement. i think a lot of it was seeing the people and women go through the challenges and frustrations but also the brutality they did. at the same time, although it is anecdotal and very personal, we also found there were numbers that if you could amass the individual stories, they accumulate into these figures. 60 million missing in females. that is the low end. there have been demographers who have examined the world population, and they have

discovered there a between 60,000,100 million missing females in the population, -- 60 million and 100 million missing females in the populace. these are hard core demographers who have come up with the figures, but it is the one statistic, that is the size of germany. can you imagine if all these women, if they had kept their lives, if you could have that potential, you would have almost the size of germany, and think about what that would mean for the economy, for the economic progress of the countries they live in, so we discovered it really was a global problem. it was not just isolated pockets. if you look at its holistic

play, you could say this was the result of a certain -- if you look at it now holistically, you could say it is the result of certain attitudes. tavis: what kind of attitude? >> part of it is lack of willingness to look at it the right way. it is not just men. it is the absorption of social values that look at women as just a drain on resources or victims of this and that, rather than untapped potential. they can harness potential intelligence, potential contribution, that they really could help transform society. >> when you say missing, what do you mean? and now they disappeared? they were sex trafficked?

>> lot has to do with the sonogram, so places like china and india, there are huge numbers of girls not been born because they are aborted before they are born, but the result is entirely skewed. in china, 118 ways for every 100 girls -- 118 boys for every 100 girls. india, because of the size of the population, you also have lots of girls not been born. the other thing is often when a girl is being born in a place like india, sometimes she is not now taken to get vaccinated. if she gets sick, the parents say, let's see how she is doing tomorrow, and she might die, so girls between the ages of 1 and five have 50% higher mortality rate than boys.

you see growth dying. you see women because they die in childbirth in africa. here in the u.s. we love the birth of a new baby. it is something to celebrate. one in seven women have the probability of dying sometime in their lives during childbirth, so childbirth is a scary thing because they do not know if they are going to make it through common and if is not because they do not have a particular technology. it is because there is no access to health care, and they tend to use traditional practices that are not very hygienic. tavis: i love your husband, because he is very courageous, and he uses the platform in "the new york times" to raise issues.

he went after a particular company that was invested in the internet where women were being trafficked. i raise that to ask how much of the missing have to do with sex traffic. >> that is a great question. there are not great statistics. it would be interesting to know how many have died as a result. in cambodia there is a woman who runs a center that tries to help women escaped from brothels. so doef them have a meanids, that count in the 60 million? it probably does, because they were looking at overall statistics, but aids were

contracted while she was at the brothel, so if they were not in a brothel, they could have maybe have a life of their own. we also know of women who had been in the brothel and were brought out and have escaped, and it is not easy, but you can set them on the right path, and one of them is running her own stall in the market, and she is doing fabulously well, so you can see that some of these women can be trained and develop skills to go out into the world and find their own livelihood. tavis: there are a number of success stories. tell me about the pbs special. i recognized some pretty famous faces. tell me what viewers are going to get a chance to see when this

errors. >> -- when this airs. >> we know book reading is not america's favorite pastime. we wanted to do something with tv, so we are doing a documentary that is being aired on october 1 of october 2. we know this is a tough subject, and it is hard to shine a spotlight without some help, so we work with the number of celebrities who traveled with nick to some of these places at the end of the earth, and they saw some of these challenges we are talking about, and they met when and -- met women facing troubles with childbirth, and women who were victims of sex trafficking, and we can see this as a real thing in golfing a lot of women -- engulfing a lot of

women. tavis: tell me about the exhibition. >> this was something they could take to heart to create a performance art, so they have developed a modern version of how to discuss this topic and how to create expression but also leads to action, so you go to the exhibit, and it is pretty dramatic. it has people's wishes hanging from the ceiling, and they are allowing people to write to their congress people, so there are a number of steps. we are doing a social media game that is meant to engage people again as a way to engage people,

so we are trying to reach people in the platform they are most likely to absorb these issues, but we are also looking into doing something in a sustainable way, because one thing to educate people in a way that they can really feel it, so for instance, products. when we buy products we forget there is another person who often helped make the product. we are trying to figure out how to create a sustainable enterprise where we can link omen whoo the whe produce them. tavis: talking about poverty, i know that is not a sexy

subjects. why you think that is? if women make up so much of the population and companies cannot survive if women do not buy their products, why is it so difficult to get attention? >> part of the reason is because it is so ugly. they want to be happy, so they do not want to feel they are mired in a world of ugliness, and if people can recognize that they can change the ugliness, they will feel better about themselves as well, and that creates some happiness. it is very hard to change your setpoint for happiness, but one way to do that is to contribute to something larger than yourself, so we see this as an issue that is larger than yourself, so if you contribute in some way, you will develop eurozone and nonself interested benefit as well as hopefully

contribute to some of the changing issues, but poverty is hard. people want to escape poverty, and if they have escaped they do not even want to go back to a because it is so painful, but i think there is a catharsis because you have gone through the pain and suffering, and you appreciate happiness on the other end. >> i wonder about the fact that the middle class is disappearing falling in poverty because of political greed and political indifference. i wonder if more women find themselves having to endure the indignities of having to be porouor. >> i think that is absolutely

true. i think the more people who knows someone who has suffered, it will raise awareness, but i also think the way you can change the conversation is to focus on solutions, to focus on how you can change these situations, the same way in business you focus on how to make more sales. i think we need to turn every one of these victims into a salesperson. we need to give them the tools so they can create a better life for themselves. they did not want to be held all the time. they want their own livelihood -- to be helped all the time. they want their own livelihood, so we need to create solution so they can defend -- they can fend for themselves. nick is not just charity. i think charity is really important, but it is important

to die people to the economy -- it is important to hire people to the economy -- tie people to the economy. >> tammy about michael. >> it is micro finance. micro's savings is really important because it teaches people to focus on saves. goo it is a lust country, but it is very poor. they have traditional customs, so when she leaves the property she has to get money from her husband. when they have to go to the marketplace, she carries a bag

and throws with her husband to the marketplace. he pays, and she put a stop in her bag and carried it home. one day her mother in law said we have to get to the village because there is a micro savings program, so she asked for permission to leave the property. she ends up sneaking out. and what happens is everyone brings the equivalent of a dime. it took $2.50, and she invested in potatoes. the crop did really well, and she was able to make back $700. she paid off the loan, and she made some profit. she had to figure out what to invest in. bernard, there was one thing he really loves. he loved banana beer.

he goes three times a week to drink with his friends, so she decided to make a banana beer. she was not allowed to drink from the produce. when bernard contracted malaria, guests who paid the bill -- guess who paid the bill. women tend to figure out which businesses to invest in, particularly in a more successful fashion than men, and the same way they can pay back their loans more systematically, and that is why they tend to have most of their loans made to women here again we just go to the bank and take out a loan. they have to have social

pressure, and you feel like you have let your friends down if you do not pay back your loans. tavis: when i hear a story like that it makes you wonder what it does to empower women when they get a chance to exercise their own agency. >> they have to have skills, and not every woman is a miracle businesswoman. there have been studies were they gave money, and only a third could become entrepreneurs, and the others there was no way they would become entrepreneurs. it is like the u.s., but if you could harness two-thirds of people, that is a huge step forward. if you looked at the way the

asian countries develop, they focused on charity. now it was focused on education and hiring people to the economy. what is really encouraging is there were stalls everywhere of people selling things. they are tied to the marketplace, and that is what is critical. >> you and i have discussed this before. i know your thoughts about what china is doing right were education of women and girls is concerned, but how much has to do with education? we talked about the link between poverty and education. i suspect that is true across the globe. >> i think education is the key. it is not the only condition,

because you need to have jobs created. without education, you cannot function. how can you protect yourself from being swindled? you do not even know how to add or subtract or multiplied. you do not need a ph.d. if you could have a nation of people who have graduated from middle school or high school, you have the basis for a decent factory of industry, and that is what is needed in places like africa and other developing countries where there is not even have fundamental basis for education. even in haiti there is not a fundamental educated labor force. >> china is famously run by men, but even girls are being pushed. >> one of the main reasons and

who now work is that mao said women and men can dress alike and look-alike and even go to school. i think that focus on education was mainly picked up after he passed away from the scene, and the communist said everybody should be educated, even girls, so that men and boys and girls were in the classroom side-by- side. the girls did not go as far, but they say, now we have six years, now nine years, now 12 years of mandatory education, so girls started to become agitated and of to get factory jobs, and that was -- became educated enough to get factory jobs.

forget the issue of -- i say that sweat shops, that is just way of saying there is exploitation, and there is, but that does not mean to throw everything out and not have factories. factories are a vital component to creating industry. the men tended to what women because their fingers can to be more flexible. they are cheaper, and they work harder, but that is ok because in the beginning it was great could get jobs.men if you are a family, you were from the rice fields but never bring home a paycheck. here was a woman for a home a paycheck, and that made a huge difference. tavis: poverty is growing around the world and still a major

challenge. what is your hope that it will not always be such an issue? >> there is a lot more focus on development and how to do development. there is a huge conversation about how do we create programs that work so it is not just charity. people recognize you do not just continued to give charity. aid needs to be rethought because people realize you do need intervention. for example, schools. it is hard to build a country school by school through private donations. you can create special schools but will create an elite group of educated people, which is great, but on a nationwide level, you need intervention, but i think there are new tools being developed because we have been testing and learning from failures, so i think there is a

lot to be learned from the field of development that can be learned in the u.s. as well. tavis: the new book from nicholas christoph and sheryl wudunn. the book is called "half the skirball center has a wonderful exhibition as well. you can download our new app. thanks for watching, and keep the faith. >> for >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org.

tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with michael sandel. that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more. pbs. pbs.