UNESCO-L’Oreal Awardee Program to Empower African Women in Research Rashika El Ridi, Ph.D., D.Sc. Faculty of Science, Cairo University Awardee of L’Oreal-Unesco Prize for Women in Science, Representing Africa and the Middle East, 2010

1- Circumcision of Females Not only the most atrocious violence against females, as it is irreparable and irreversible. Not only Genital mutilation. Not only indecent assault on a minor. In Its core, it involves degradation of girls to the level of an animal. Girls (70%-90% of girls in Egypt) so treated are left without excuse, explanation, counseling, or any kind of support.

Such savage procedures should fall under the flag of Crimes against Humanity. Laws against crimes against humanity should be enforced and such crimes should not be subject to statute of limitations. It is impossible to wait to get rid of poverty, illiteracy, gender discrimination before implementing laws prohibiting widespread Crimes against Humanity. Do not ask or expect from a woman degraded to the level of an animal to produce any science, as mere survival is a miracle by itself.

2- Poverty Every national and international effort should be implemented to reduce poverty in African countries, in order to allow all young girls of every county and social class to access decent shelter, decent food and decent education; otherwise, they will grow handicapped and will never be able to do any scientific research.

3- Disease There definitely are sound, efficacious, safe, and cost-effective, ground-breaking formulations and discoveries of drugs and, more importantly, vaccines against diseases plaguing African Countries, often produced by African scientists, and yet, totally ignored, disregarded, and prevented from any chance or financial support for trials in independent laboratories, pre-clinical or clinical trials.

Discovery of drug and vaccine against schistosomiasis mansoni and haematobium at the Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt, North Africa is an outstanding example. The same does apply in African Countries and worldwide, regarding vaccines against filariasis, leishmaniasis, malaria, tuberculosis. We should not count but on ourselves in African Countries to implement efficacious drugs and, most importantly, vaccines to eradicate transmission of microbial and parasitic infections from the entire African Continent. A high level scientific community should dig out such discoveries. If African countries unite, their modest resources will not be additive, but synergistic, and implementation we may, we can, we must, do it.

No one may ask girls and women under the burden of PREVENTABLE life-threatening diseases to produce any science.

4- Anti-Discriminatory Laws Laws prohibiting discrimination against women should be implemented in every school, university, scientific institution or laboratory.

5- Standing Up Girls who have not, during childhood and young age, been mutilated and degraded to the level of an animal; who have not been deprived of acceptable levels of commodities and education; who have not suffered maiming and handicapping preventable diseases; living in countries where anti-gender discrimination and anti-harassment laws are implemented; WELL, they will be able to STAND UP for any millennium-old discrimination and every stress and produce excellent science, so much needed as we have now to count on ourselves for resolving problems related to widespread poverty and diseases in Africa.