She's pretty in pink as she stands among the trees and bushes, getting her picture taken. With a open smile that lights up her eyes and a soft pink scarf swirling around her, she seems to embody the carefree spirit of an 11-year-old girl dancing at the edge of childhood.

But in the next photo, she is subdued with her hands held together, standing behind a group of seated men and boys. And in the final photo, with the pink scarf wrapped around her looking more like a burial shroud, fear has frozen the features of her face.

Looking sideways at a much older man seated next to her, at age 11 she is a child bride.

Ghulam Haider of Damarda Village in Afghanistan is just one of the many young girls featured in the video The Bride Price by award-winning photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair. Traveling through Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nepal, she captured images that are often difficult to witness, such as the 15-year-old girl who broke the family's TV and - fearing her husband's reaction - set herself on fire.

Here in the U.S., many of us were unsettled by the recent story of the Texas polygamy sect and its child brides. Most disturbing was our inability to help these girls. But we can help in the movement to end child marriage outside the U.S. The International Center for Research on Women explains how:

These child brides often live in extreme poverty with little recourse to education or basic rights, and remain invisible to the international development agenda.

By watching the 6-minute video The Bride Price and adding it as a favorite, people can help ICRW and its partners raise awareness among members of the U.S. Congress and media that ending child marriage – which is linked to persistent poverty, girls’ poor nutrition, and high infant and mortality rates – should be a global priority....

A congressional briefing is scheduled May 19 to discuss child marriage and its consequences....Current legislation before both the House (H.R. 3175) and Senate (S. 1998) would help support efforts to reduce child marriage and improve U.S. development aid effectiveness, but action is still pending.

...[S]pread the word about the devastating social, economic and health consequences of child marriage on girls and their communities. Over the next decade, more than 25,000 girls are expected to marry each day. Working together in partnership with advocates and organizations fighting to end child marriage around the globe, we will be able to put an end to this harmful traditional practice and give millions of girls brighter opportunities in life.

The ICRW has a web page outlining specific actions you can take to help end child marriage.

Related article: Ten Facts About Child Brides and Child Marriage

There's no justice for prostitutes. I've said it before and I'm saying it again after hearing about a Canadian prostitute who was murdered. Her killer? A St. Catharines, Ontario man who frequented sex workers and had previously used drugs.

Wayne Ryczak, 55, admitted to killing 29-year-old Stephine Beck, but claimed it was in self-defense. After finding the woman inside his trailer, a struggle ensued that resulted in Beck's death. Ryczak then dumped her partly nude body in the snow on the side of a country road. After pleading guilty to manslaughter on Wednesday, he was released from jail the day after his sentencing.

According to the St. Catharines Standard, Beck's mother was stunned by the verdict:

“She had a heart of gold. Her lifestyle, to me right now, this whole thing has judged her on her lifestyle, not as a human being.”...

The judge emphasized the sentence was not a measure of the value of Beck’s life, but was determined based on the circumstances of the case.

But Deb Nanson, founder of a city sex-trade task force, gasped audibly when the sentence was read in court.

The sentence “just opened the door to murdering our most vulnerable population,” she said outside the courtroom.

Related articles:

• Prostitution and Sex Workers
• Judgment, Not Justice, For Prostitute Who is Raped
• Prostitution Statistics, Sex Worker Abuse, and the Case of Aileen Wuornos

I'm not writing very much about Hillary these days, because is there anything fresh and new and interesting to say?

Yes, there is. And Libby Copeland, a staff writer at the Washington Post, has found it in her commentary "Belittled Woman" in today's edition:

There is something about that woman -- that woman! -- that refuses to bend, and something about a large portion of this country that despises her for it. The person who once conjured a vast right-wing conspiracy now refuses to exit a race she's almost surely lost, and it Drives. People. Crazy.

"Poor Hillary" is their response, an attempt at death by condescension. "Poor Hillary" means Clinton finally is being brought low (she is forever being brought low, isn't she?), the know-everything who tries so hard but never gets enough votes to be class president.

When I was in school, I was smart and a hard worker too. But I never dared run for class president (or any office beyond class secretary freshman year) because after losing once, I was too afraid to try again.

Say what you will about Clinton, but 'afraid' is not a word that seems to exist in the dictionary that defines her life.

No matter what you think about Clinton, read Copeland's commentary. See why what Hillary's doing may only be a gesture at this point, but an important one nonetheless. For her...and for the rest of us.

Photo © Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Today is housecleaning day, not a task I particularly love. And then there's those bathroom chores: scrubbing the sink, tub, and the ubiquitous toilet.

But I have nothing to complain about compared to the women in India callled 'manual scavengers' who clean out public toilets. Public dry toilets. No water to flush the excrement.

These unfortunate women have only a broom and a tin plate to gather up human feces which they pile into baskets and carry on their heads for distances up to 2 miles. Often the contents drip into their hair, faces, and bodies.

It's worse than disgusting. The work puts them at risk for viral and bacterial infections of the skin, eyes, limbs, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, not to mention tuberculosis.

Published yesterday, a Women's News Network article, "A Nation’s Lowest Women Work Under Severe Degradation," explains that although the work is illegal, many poor urban and rural parts of India still rely on manual scavengers:

“I remember the first time I had to carry a basketful on my head. I slipped and fell into the gutter. No one would come to pick me up because the basket was so dirty and I was covered with filth,” said manual scavenger Safai Karmachari Andolan.... “I sat there, howling, until another woman scavenger arrived....She hosed me down and took me home. But that day, I felt like the most unfortunate child in the whole world.”

Making up 98 percent of the majority of manual scavenging workers, these women, also known as “Valmikis,” come from the very lowest castes in India.

Loopholes in the law allow this to continue. The country's Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation had set a deadline of 2007 to end the practice of manual scavenging in India. But that date has come and gone and nothing has changed, as WNN reports:

Placed on the bottom of the list in India’s legislation, women manual scavengers are trapped by Indian society and caste discrimination, as they endlessly bound in cycles of poverty, inequality and lost opportunity....

Women working in the “night-soil” industry are often caught in an endless bind of indebtedness to the upper-caste neighbor households they serve. As they accept loans from employers for their “illegal” work, the women are trapped in an ongoing cycle of debt. These “impossible” loans, coming with a standard 10 percent finance charge, often leave the women workers in a state of perpetual obligation, servitude and bondage.

Unable to pay back any loan, with very little money, many women reach a point of great personal crisis. “Their poverty is so acute that, in desperation, some...resort to separating out non-digested wheat from buffalo dung.”...

Beyond India's borders, efforts are being made to increase awareness of the impossible situations these women face. The United Nations General Assembly will hear the life stories of two dozen manual scavengers the first week in July. It's part of the UN Human Rights Commission's ongoing attempts to pressure India to end this dangerous and desperate practice.

Here's the latest word on issues surrounding the tax stimulus checks that may be of specific interest to women: Foreign-born spouses can complicate the situation. If a spouse does not have a Social Security number and the couple has filed jointly, neither spouse is eligible.

This is of particular concern to many highly-skilled immigrants in the U.S. on work visas who are married to foreigners, and to U.S. service personnel. In BusinessWeek.com, an AP article highlights the problems:

Many of the couples snagged by this provision weren't aware that filing taxes using the foreign spouse's IRS-issued Taxpayer Identification Number instead of a Social Security number would cut them out. On April 14, the day before the tax deadline, the IRS clarified the situation on its Web site....

Sheila Reed, who works at Command Navy Region Europe in Naples, Italy, said she filed taxes together with her husband, who still uses the IRS Taxpayer Identification Number.

"I don't feel this is fair because I pay taxes like any other U.S. citizen," she told Stars and Stripes, a newspaper published for the U.S. military and other Department of Defense personnel. "It's not right. I have three kids."

When my 'computer graphics geek' daughter went off to her first tech camp last summer, we expected the ratio of boys to girls would be off-putting to her. But she was less bothered by gender concerns than by social ones. Everyone around her lived and breathed videogames. And with nothing more current than an antiquated Nintendo GameCube in the house, she felt completely out of it.

Moms of girls worry about whether or not to have Barbie in the house. Moms of boys (and many girls too) worry about the violence and misogyny in most action-oriented videogames.

In the news recently, two items of interest in the world of gaming that will spur the debate:

• The killer franchise of the videogame industry, Grand Theft Auto, breaks all previous computer games sales records with its latest release, GTA IV.
• Columnist Susan Estrich goes head to head with Rockstar, the company behind Grand Theft Auto, and explains her side of the story in very personal terms.

The timing of this has personal meaning for me. Because as I write this on my laptop, there's also a browser window open on an eBay auction for a used Xbox 360. Yep, I've been considering one for my daughter so she wouldn't feel so out of place in her second year at computer camp.

But after reading Estrich's column, I'm tempted to close out that window and work harder at finding other ways for her to feel connected to her peers.

Follow women's issues over time and your radar subconsciously picks up anything that shows gender bias. Civil Liberties Guide Tom Head is About.com's touchstone for all things potentially racist.

Throughout the spring, Tom's been grumbling about certain racial insensitivities in the Clinton campaign. This morning he noted that others are coming to the same conclusion, as evidenced by the opening sketch with Amy Poehler playing Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live this weekend:

Given SNL's consistently positive portrayals of Clinton, satire of media coverage of the Clinton-Obama race, and Poehler's off-screen support of Clinton in interviews, SNL has gotten a reputation for being very pro-Clinton--to the point where she quoted SNL skits on the stump and in at least one debate. Now, the day after Clinton's infamous "hardworking white Americans" remark, SNL and Poehler both let loose.

SNL sketches have frequently caused a buzz this campaign season. Tom's reference to "positive portrayals of Clinton" include the now-famous "bitch is the new black" segment done by Poehler and returning SNL alum Tina Fey earlier this year.

NBC has the clip of the segment. What do you think? Is this just political parody, or have they changed their tune about Clinton?

Happy Mother's Day!

Although your family is honoring you today, you're equally important the other 364 days of the year to advertisers and businesses that recognize what you and other moms are collectively worth - a whopping $1.6 trillion dollars.

No, that's not a typo. I'll say it again. One point six trillion dollars.

Didn't realize you were so valuable? Then you need to learn about word-of-mom.

And no, it's not an ultimatum to "clean up your room or else...."

_{Photo of Hillary Clinton's mouth © Joe Raedle/Getty Images}

The tax stimulus checks are coming! The tax stimulus checks are coming!

How are women spending their checks? No, this isn't the set-up for a joke about Manolo Blahnik shoes. And yes, there is a gender difference in how the money is being handled.

Even with the new Sex and the City movie coming out May 30th - spurring some Carrie Bradshaw wannabes to shop - most of us are being practical as always.

Photo of Manolo Blahnik shoes © Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images

Voter registration drives are such an essential aspect of a democratic society that I hesitate to share this story.

But in recent days and weeks, the advocacy group Women's Voices, Women Vote has been bombarded by accusations that it was behind a series of 'robocalls' (automated calls) received by African Americans in North Carolina in the days preceding the primary.

Messin' With Their Heads

No big deal, you're thinking? Many were told confusing information that suggested they weren't registered to vote, which many were. They were also told that forms would be sent in the mail. Yet it was already past the deadline for mail-in registrations.

No group was identified in the calls which seemed to originate locally. But it appears that Women's Voices, Women Vote, a non-profit group based in Washington, D.C. that promotes voter registration among unmarried women, was responsible for the calls.

Possible Widespread Tampering

There's a lot of finger-pointing, and evidence unearthed by the Institute for Southern Studies strongly suggests North Carolina is not the only state in which WVWV has done some shady stuff.

Barely Legal

Anyone who follows political campaigns knows that a phalanx of lawyers are always involved, and that every time some new scheme or plan is considered by campaign operatives, lawyers give the final ruling as to whether or not it violates existing campaign laws. Candidates and political parties come as close to the edge as they can, and in some cases, these activities border on the unsavory. But it's a part of the political process that doesn't get front page coverage every day.

Did Women's Voices, Women Vote cross the line? See what you think.