分类： 新闻动态

05.APR.2020 . 5 MIN READ

Every day, four farmers in India take their own lives. According to data released from the National Crime Record Bureau, 10,655 people working in agriculture committed suicide in India in 2017. According to the same report, the largest causes of these suicides include stresses caused by failed crops and crippling debts. This is the result of a deeply complex crisis occurring in the agriculture industry.

In India, over 70 percent of the population depends on agriculture for income; yet farming there is an incredibly risky and potentially dangerous business. Farmers are unable to reliably produce profitable crops due to outdated farming practices and fluctuating prices. Most suicides in India are committed by farmers who produce cash crops like cotton and sugarcane, which are high risk and “not based on [the] principle of sustained and resilient high yield." In addition, farmers are often forced to take on crippling debt. The costs of being a farmer in India have been increasing since the 1990s, but farmer income has plateaued or even decreased in that time period. The government continues to attempt to solve this agrarian crisis, but no solution has yet been successful in creating sustainable profitability for the agriculture sector.

Arable land in India has become gradually less productive, due to soil degradation and unsustainable farming techniques. BKP Sinha, a journalist for The Pioneer, writes, “Besides a host of other factors, the main factor being attributed to a large number of such suicides is sickness of our soil, steep decline in groundwater table, deteriorating discharge of rivers and flooding due to mismanagement of land in the catchment and riparian areas.” In India, 53 percent of land is estimated to be affected by soil erosion and land degradation and 83 percent is affected by water and wind erosion. Unless there is something done to fix the environmental effects of current farming practices, it is estimated that within 20 years, one third of arable land will be lost. This, along with the economic difficulties facing farmers, creates a crippling agrarian crisis.

India's Response

In order to stimulate the economy in the long run, the Indian government plans on moving farmers into manufacturing and other industries in residential and urban areas, overtime replacing the farming industry with larger, international corporations. However, this solution fails in many ways. Firstly, there are not enough jobs available in urban areas to provide income for displaced farmers moved into the city. Secondly, handing farming over to large, international organizations does not guarantee any solution to the negative environmental impact and unsustainable techniques currently taking place. Sinha notes, “Increasing quantity of outputs with continuously decreasing uncertain output and risk due to climate change in the rained areas makes agriculture less resilient and more risk prone.”

To solve the problem of fluctuating prices in the market, the government has been working to moderate production surpluses. The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) says they are ready to buy more than five million bales of cotton from farmers in the 2019-2020 season, which is the highest amount produced in five years. This has the potential to keep the price of raw cotton and a profitable price for farmers, but is incredibly costly to the government and a difficult long-term solution.

Currently, the government has been offering loan waivers in an attempt to decrease the debilitating debt facing many farmers. This has been ineffective as the waivers unintentionally ruin farmers’ credit and weaken the banking system in India. Additionally, they decrease the incentives for farmers to pay off their loans because they often choose to just wait for the next waiver. Worst of all, despite this costly program, indebtedness remains high because farmers often rent farmland from money lenders, who could be accurately described as loan sharks. These money lenders do not abide by loan waivers, so there is no benefit in this program for farmers that owe debt to money lenders.

The government has also implemented the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme which gives 6,000 rupees to every land-owning farm family. However, the majority of families facing the worst levels of indebtedness do not own the land they farm and thus this program is limited in its ability to help the most poverty-stricken farmers. Furthermore, the central government provides a long list of initiatives to assist farmers, including PM-Kisan, fertilizer subsidy, crop insurance, farmer pension, food subsidy, and more. Nevertheless, all of these plans have been unsuccessful at curbing the crisis.

Other Solutions

On March 11, 2018, thousands of farmers arrived in Mumbai to protest the government policies and inaction that has negatively affected their community. Among other pleas, such as debt waivers, protesters called for the implementation of India’s Forest Rights Act of 2006, which gives land to peasants of indigenous tribal communities who traditionally cultivate forest acres and makes that land legally available to them. This policy, if implemented as it was designed, could provide land to many farmers that currently are in debt from renting land to cultivate. Providing farmers with their traditional farmland could ease the long-term financial burden on families and secure lasting profit for local farmers.

Currently, one reason farming is so risky is because 52 percent of India’s cultivable farmland is reliant on rainwater, which can be unpredictable. The government could invest in infrastructure to support farming, specifically irrigation canals. Another reason farmers are losing profits is because they are unable to save their produce before selling it. This forces them to sell at the market price, without being able to wait for a better price and time their sales. If the government in India built or subsidized warehouse facilities farmers would be able to store their produce and sell it when they could make the greatest profit.

As previously discussed, the current governmental programs of farm-loan waiver has been ineffective and costly. For example, the central government spends the equivalent of over US$11 billion on fertilizer subsidies alone. Not only have these policies been ineffective, but fertilizer subsidies, and other subsidies like it, have depleted the soil and the farm output, which increases demand for sustainable agriculture.

One of the reasons the Indian government has been so interested in the potential of large agricultural corporations is because they have the capital to implement modern farming methods, which are far more efficient and can decrease costs and increase profits in India’s agriculture sector. However, it is possible to implement these methods while allowing current farmers to continue their current agriculture jobs with increased profitability. Independent farmers and small farming practices would be able to hire precision farming equipment, “even sensors, drones, satellite support apart from tractors, harvesters and planters.” Instead of investing in the capital to own these technologies, farmers could rent them for a season.  Instead of subsidizing fertilizer and other farming methods that are taxing on the environment and less effective than modern technology, the government could subsidize precision farming technology and equipment. This method of farming would result in a greater quantity and quality of output and more sustainable farming practices.

Regardless of which solutions are tried and implemented, this issue will be difficult to address. It has created strong welfare, economic, and environmental concerns for the region to weather. Without some sort of changes, the agrarian crisis, and more importantly the needless loss of life through suicides, may remain unchanged.

06.MAY.2020 . 7 MIN READ

Argentina’s Misiones province has a bit of a problem. As several local newspapers have reported, thefts of the province’s main agricultural commodity, often referred to simply as “the green leaf” or “green gold,” have risen, and authorities, despite making several arrests, are at a loss.

Misiones is not a hotbed of the coca trade, but rather a center of production for one of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay’s most beloved commodities: yerba mate, the leaves used to prepare a herbal infusion called mate (pronounced mah-tay, with two syllables). As a Paraguayan villager told Harvard’s ReVista, drinking mate “is such an intrinsic part of us that you really don’t think about it until somebody else points it out.” However, unlike other caffeinated drinks like Italian coffees and Chinese teas, mate has not largely made it past the Southern Cone and into the United States’ globalized drink palate, likely because it is an acquired taste: one self-described “reluctant” mate drinker described it as a mix of “green tea and coffee, with hints of tobacco and oak.”

Yet mate’s global popularity has finally started to increase in the last decade or so. Entrepreneurs have started to tap into the growing American market for alternative teas—and into Gen Z’s preference for more ecologically and socially conscious products—with shade-grown yerba mate. Since mate production provides an economic incentive to reforest the Atlantic rainforest in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, these emerging companies demonstrate how ecological restoration and profit can go hand in hand.

The Ecology of Mate Production

Yerba mate has been around a long time. Sixteenth-century Spanish colonizers in Paraguay marvelled at how the indigenous Guaraní people who imbibed the infusion could work longer and harder than them. After the Guaraní ignored a 1616 ban of the green leaf, Jesuit missionaries noticed its value to their indigenous laborers and planted it alongside other agricultural commodities at their missions; it soon became a valuable export commodity for the missionaries, who could claim a tax exemption to the chagrin of profit-seeking Paraguayan merchants. After Spanish monarch Carlos III, who wanted to reduce the church’s influence in the Spanish realms, expelled the Jesuits, they abandoned their plantations, although Paraguayans still harvested the natural stands that grew in the Atlantic rainforest.

Large-scale plantation agriculture did not return until the 1890s, when a massive influx of European immigrants—German, Ukrainian, Polish, and others—arrived in Argentina and Brazil’s yerba mate belt. German colonists in the area astutely noticed that they would have to adopt crops already adapted to the soil and climatic conditions in order to survive, and mate fit the bill perfectly. By 1915, the plantation system had become widespread in Misiones, and Argentina overtook Brazil and Paraguay as the largest producer of mate. After all, plantation agriculture had double the yields of solely exploiting the native forests.

While plantation agriculture increases production, it also has an ecological cost. As with other deforested ecosystems, yerba mate plantations are more exposed to soil erosion and degradation, which poor soil management practices exacerbate. Unsurprisingly, abandoned mate plantations have lower levels of nitrogen and phosphorus than the virgin ecosystem.

Such an extractive model, though, is unsustainable. As a result, yerba mate planters have gradually started adopting an agroforestry model, which involves growing other trees  alongside the mate trees. While this model decreases the productivity of plantations when viewed alone, the ecosystem as a whole benefits because the other trees provide shade for the mate trees that helps the leaves to retain more nutrients and flavor, additional organic material which improve soil moisture, and another root system to prevent erosion. Intercropping with Paraná pine, for instance, reduced soil erosion and moisture loss while improving soil fertility. When managed sustainably, such intercropping can also help farmers diversify their plots with another source of income—primarily timber and fruit—and contribute to the reforestation of the Atlantic rainforest.

Putting Trees in “Paper Parks”

That rainforest, largely coexistent with the mate belt, has seen better days: across Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, it has lost more than 93 percent of its land cover. While mate plantations have certainly contributed to deforestation, other culprits have emerged in the past ten years: soybean production and cattle ranching. Argentina and Paraguay both rank within the top five soybean exporters by value, and rising demand for both products has driven rapid expansion into the Atlantic rainforest. In Paraguay alone, soybeans and beef exports comprise 90 percent of combined exports, meaning that the country is dependent on just a few commodities—commodities that also drive deforestation.

To combat this deforestation, international NGOs have seized upon agroforestry as a sustainable and income-generating solution, and shade-grown yerba mate is a primary example. For instance, the World Wildlife Fund started a program in 2001 to create forest corridors that linked previously fragmented forest areas by using yerba mate to secure the buy-in of local communities and funding local female-owned cooperatives such as La Hoja Completa. Around the same time, local cooperative Titrayju sprung up to benefit the indigenous community with organic and eco-friendly production practices. Guyra Paraguay, meanwhile, bought 7,000 hectares of land within San Rafael National Park, regarded as a “paper park” within the country, to develop shade-grown mate agriculture alongside several indigenous communities. Finally, Fundación Moisés Bertoni seeded 856 hectares with around 1.3 million mate seedlings as part of a broader World Bank project to reforest the Paraná rainforest.

These programs have largely succeeded in preserving existing forest habitat because they reduce the economic incentives for deforestation; destroying a forest that already has an income-generating activity makes little economic sense. At the same time, agroforestry projects that plant trees can slowly yet surely reforest areas that were once exclusively yerba mate plantations and add new habitat for local wildlife. Whether farmers plant mate plants in previously existing forests or new trees to augment previous mate plantations, both options create new carbon sinks as well, since mate and shade trees both take carbon out of the atmosphere. And of course, the projects generated income for the local community, especially women and indigenous people.

A New Way to Caffeinate

Even while yerba mate is increasingly becoming the solution to an ecological crisis in the mate belt, its demand abroad has started to increase. That ecological role, in turn, plays a central role in an increasingly savvy marketing campaign by companies espousing principles of “market-driven regeneration.” Profit is definitely on these companies’ minds, but ultimately, the story of yerba mate shows how profit and environmentalism are not mutually incompatible.

A group of five Californian friends founded Guayaki, widely recognized as the pioneer of this model, in 1996. Having founded the company right out of college, Guayaki’s founders quickly seized on college students, with their insatiable desire for caffeine, as a key market by using the tried-and-true technique of collegiate brand ambassadors. Beyond marketing its triple bottom line of social, environmental, and financial performance, the company touts mate’s benefits, especially when compared to coffee or other energy drinks: a more balanced stimulant effect with more natural antioxidants than coffee and fewer artificial chemicals than energy drinks. It also helps that its products are not straight yerba mate, but sparkling beverages with mate as a key ingredient instead.

That marketing campaign has paid off, especially as the markets for organic products, healthy beverages, and “exotic” flavors have started to expand. Campus papers at the University of California-San Diego and Occidental College reported that mate had become a staple at dining halls and off-campus convenience stores. As one Occidental student said, “Every day I will see someone in class with a drink.” Guayaki now makes more than US$40 million a year in sales, and the company reported that it had sold 390,000 cans across 171 universities in 2017 and 2018.

The company’s two other bottom lines have prospered as well. It has stewarded more than 81,000 acres of rainforest, planted 8,800 native trees, and created 670 jobs that paid a living wage of around 2.3 million guaranís (US$357) per month since organic, shade-grown mate can fetch two to three times the yield per pound than plantation-grown mate. These increased wages are critical in a region where the average farmer makes far less than that.

Other companies have emulated Guayaki’s sustainable business model and have started to compete with it. Mi Mate, founded by students at UCSD, follows it almost to the letter, purchasing its mate from an independent farm that pays its workers a living wage and has contributed to the construction of local schools. Eco Teas also specializes in organic mate, and Clean Cause uses 50 percent of its profits to support teens recovering from drug addiction. Others have seized upon the product but not necessarily the mission: teaRIOT has incorporated a mate flavor into one of its drinks, German brand Club-Mate has developed a mate-based soft drink, and even Pepsi has its own mate brand. Yerba mate is “green gold” for more than just Argentines.

That status has attracted some criticism, which highlights the neoliberalism inherent in “exotic” marketing and the dubious ethics of white men profiting off an indigenous commodity. These arguments certainly make a valid point, given the long history of U.S. companies profiting off Latin American commodities. However, they also ignore the lengths companies like Guayaki and Mi Mate have gone to consult the indigenous communities involved, fund projects of actual interest to the community, and pay far more than market price for mate. Indeed, both Argentine and indigenous growers alike appreciate the company’s focus on environmental consciousness and the extra income the mate provides.

The Future of Yerba Mate

With international companies getting on the mate bandwagon, yerba mate looks destined for a future more oriented towards the Global North than the Global South. Overall, it seems that this commodity—previously limited by its small geographic range only in the Southern Cone—will become yet another local taste adapted for a global audience. Two trends will likely continue as mate continues its path of globalization. First, young people will lead the craze as they search for new and exciting beverages that still have social and environmental benefits. Second, straight yerba mate will not be the bestseller; rather, mixed beverages with mate as a component will succeed, since consumers generally dislike its otherwise strong taste.

This increasing global demand for mate will have local benefits, but only if more companies adopt the agroforestry model that Guayakí has adopted and pay attention to local and indigenous concerns. It will be a slow battle—after all, neither shade trees nor mate trees spring up overnight. But with the Atlantic rainforest and local livelihoods at stake, it is a battle worth fighting.

Cover photo by Miguel Mendez, CC-SA-3.0, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

技术变革一直是发达国家与发展中国家之间最大的鸿沟之一。科学领域的重量级人物通常都包括经济实力最强的国家。据世界银行统计，美国、德国和日本每年在研发 上的投入均占GDP的 2.8% 以上。然而，21 世纪的全球经济发展刺激了全球对研发的投资增加，因为科学技术在全球经济中的重要性日益提升。非洲大陆也开始参与到这个不断发展的领域，与此同时，新的教育基础设施造就了一支有前途的年轻科学劳动力队伍。学术界和工业界的领袖们现在试图动员这些聪明的年轻人，共同发出一个口号：“用非洲解决方案解决非洲问题。”

众所周知，非洲的经济和教育体系面临着历史性的劣势。殖民主义在政治和经济上的衰落使大多数非洲新独立国家陷入剧烈的政治动荡和严重的资源匮乏，几乎无法实现稳定与发展。在 21 世纪，整个非洲大陆的非洲人正在改变这一现状。当代南非艺术家玛丽·西班德、周游世界的尼日利亚演说家兼小说家奇玛曼达·恩戈齐·阿迪奇和百万富翁、苏丹裔英国慈善家穆·易卜拉欣都通过成为众人瞩目的焦点为非洲参与者开辟了空间。这种新的“自己动手”战略无疑在经济和政治上统一了非洲大陆。“非洲问题，非洲方案”最初是与非洲联盟密切相关的口号，现在也适用于科学，在职业发展和教育投资的浪潮中将产业、学术界和政治思想家联系起来。

许多学术界和工业界的领导人采取了国际和集体的方式，力求动员新一代决策者、科学家和工程师解决非洲的问题，从失业和教育不足到迫在眉睫的气候变化和可持续发展危机。几十年来，许多机构和倡议一直致力于非洲大陆科学家和研究人员的培训和专业发展，其中包括撒哈拉以南非洲的非洲科学技术机构网络。非洲大陆的其他此类网络，包括非洲数学科学研究所和非洲基础物理及其应用学院，在非洲各地选拔和培训小班非洲学生，进一步推动了非洲科学资产的集体化。

然而，由于主要期刊读者集中在美国和类似国家，这些新机构的非洲研究人员的工作很少得到全球关注。在这个行业中，专利和出版物不仅使研究领域合法化，而且可以成就或毁掉职业生涯，因此不为人知是职业发展的一大障碍。经济和政治机会最终迫使许多受过培训的人才移民，导致大规模人才流失。

为了阻止训练有素的人才外流，科学界的领导人正在通过行动和言论来推广非洲解决方案。《科学非洲》是一本泛非洲同行评议期刊，于 2018 年推出，旨在传播、推广和突出非洲大陆和世界各地的非洲研究。该杂志由非洲数学科学研究所 (AIMS) 发起的下一个爱因斯坦论坛 (NEF) 出版，该论坛致力于将非洲科学和政策与全球科学界联系起来，特别是通过赋予年轻人权力。最近，该组织协调了非洲科学周，以团结非洲大陆追求科学发展。这些努力继续代表着非洲大陆科学复兴日益增长的能量。用 NEF 的话来说：“我们相信下一个爱因斯坦将是非洲人。”

除了倡导组织，各个领域的专家也谈到了尚未开发的潜力。在 2019 年关于 IPCC 最新全球变暖预测报告的一次采访中，法国国家发展研究所高级研究主任 Arona Diedhiou 指出：“长期以来，国际层面提出的可持续发展方案与非洲当地的现实之间存在着差距……现在是时候进行范式转变，以便提出由非洲人制定的、针对非洲的解决方案。”在描述未来几年非洲大陆面临的气候挑战时，Diedhiou 还强调了教育和激励年轻人的可能性。

虽然这些机构、组织和领导者在专业发展方面发挥了重要作用，但必须考虑它们的缺点。通过延续“最优秀人才”的选拔和提升，这些系统有可能加剧地方人才流失。如果没有同等重要的支持团队、实验室设施和金融投资，训练有素的科学家就无法取得进步；他们可以轻松地搬迁到有这些资源的地方。但并非一切都失去了。在加强研发基础设施方面，非洲科学界有几个意想不到的优势：渴望教育和就业的年轻人群体迅速增长，气候变化的压力需要创新解决方案。

不管世界其他国家怎么看，随着 21 世纪的到来，非洲的科学抱负只会越来越大。尽管非洲大陆的历史中存在着政治和经济上的困难，但非洲领导人正在翻开新的一页。非洲复兴就在眼前。它将带来一个多么奇妙的世界。

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“这是为了她们好……如果这些可怜的女孩骨瘦如柴、令人厌恶，她们怎么找到丈夫呢？”

艾尔哈森以强迫女孩进食为生，她对自己的工作感到自豪。“我很严厉……我会打女孩，或者用棍子夹住她们的脚趾折磨她们。我会把她们隔离起来，告诉她们瘦女人低人一等，”她说。这种虐待儿童的行为是毛里塔尼亚审美标准的可怕产物，该标准将肥胖的身体理想化。据艾尔哈森说，女人的工作是“生孩子，成为丈夫的柔软、丰满的床”。强迫进食者甚至因妊娠纹而获得额外报酬，妊娠纹被认为是任何试图增重的毛里塔尼亚女性的最高成就。

这种强制喂食的做法被称为“leblouh”或“gavage”，这是一个法语术语，指“把鹅养肥以生产鹅肝的过程”。这种对女孩和妇女的非人化行为远远超出了语义范围。从历史上看，毛里塔尼亚的摩尔人占该国 310 万人口的三分之二，他们将女性肥胖视为地位的象征，而瘦弱则表明丈夫无力养活她。因此，为了显示财富，高收入的女孩会被用牛奶喂肥，以使她们在潜在追求者眼中更有吸引力。摩尔人的一句谚语就说明了肥胖和吸引力之间的关系，它断言“女人在男人心里占据的位置，就像她在男人床上占据的位置一样”。通过将体重与吸引力直接联系起来，这种审美标准鼓励了极端行为。

强制喂食和少女早婚

这种极端行为在像埃尔哈森这样的强制喂食者虐待年轻女孩的案例中表现得最为明显。年仅五岁的女孩被送到“育肥场”，大吃高热量食物，如小米和骆驼奶。强制喂食也可能在家里进行，通常由女孩的母亲监督。活动家 Lemrabott Brahim描述了这种母女关系如何延续勒布鲁，并解释说这种做法“深深植根于毛里塔尼亚母亲的思想和心中，尤其是在偏远地区。”在母亲或强制喂食者的管教下，女孩每天可能被强制喂食多达 16,000 卡路里的食物，其中包括多达五加仑的牛奶。实施勒布鲁的年长女性强制喂食者或亲属使用残酷的手段让女孩继续进食。例如，“zayar”技术包括将女孩的脚趾放在两根棍子之间，当她拒绝勒布鲁时，就捏她的脚趾。主管还可能“拉她的耳朵、捏她的大腿内侧、向后弯曲她的手指或强迫她喝下自己的呕吐物”，如果女孩们不吃完食物，还会受到殴打的威胁。2013年的一项研究使用了 2000 年的调查数据，发现“超过 61% 的经历过管饲的人报告称在过程中遭到殴打，近三分之一 (29%) 的人报告称，为了鼓励他们参与，他们的手指被打断。”除了这些极度痛苦的伤害之外，联合国人口基金会的 Mar Jubero Capdeferro指出，勒布鲁越来越危险，因为一些强制喂食者已经从使用骆驼奶转变为用“用于养肥动物的化学药品”强制喂食年轻女孩。

在 2018 年《未报道的世界》的一部纪录片中，记者萨哈尔·赞德亲眼目睹了这种残忍行为，并与毛里塔尼亚妇女进行了交流，以更多地了解勒布鲁。她描述了在食物更加充足的雨季，女孩们是如何被养肥的，目标体重增加 7 公斤。据赞德说，大约 25% 的毛里塔尼亚女性遭受勒布鲁，但在农村社区，这一比例可能高达 75%，因为“没有干扰，也没有简单的逃脱方法”。赞德关注了一个特殊的农村游牧民群体，其中有两个女孩正在遭受勒布鲁。她们每人需要两个小时吃完 3,000 卡路里的早餐，然后是 4,000 卡路里的午餐和 2,000 卡路里的晚餐。到喂养季节结束时，女孩们每天将摄入 16,000 卡路里的热量。赞德尝试了勒布鲁节食法——午饭后，她无法继续，但小女孩们被迫继续进食。“这太可怕了，”她描述道。一位强制喂食者声称强迫她的女儿吃勒布鲁节食法是一种爱的表现。为了解释母亲们怎么能给自己的女儿带来如此“痛苦和折磨”，赞德总结道：“在这个社会里，女人最大的力量就是美丽，而要美丽，就必须胖。”

赞德本可以很容易地将这句话改写为：“在这个社会中，女人最大的权力就是结婚，而要想结婚，你就必须很胖。” 2013 年的研究将童婚对勒布鲁的核心影响分解为“这些被强迫喂食的女孩的体型很大，给人一种错觉，以为自己身体已经成熟，可以结婚了。” 在创造这种错觉的过程中，勒布鲁抑制了女孩的结婚年龄，导致童婚危机长期存在。 从法律上讲，毛里塔尼亚女性必须年满 18 岁才能结婚，但事实上，年轻的新娘很常见； 2015 年的一项研究得出结论：“近三分之一的 15 至 19 岁女孩结婚。”根据2019 年的数据，37% 的毛里塔尼亚女孩在 18 岁之前结婚。 这些年轻女孩通常会嫁给年龄较大的男性。一名 29 岁的童婚受害者从四岁开始接受勒布鲁，12 岁结婚，13 岁“月经初潮后”就怀孕了。这些童婚和怀孕严重危害了毛里塔尼亚女性的身心健康。

Leblouh 的长期健康影响

即使结婚后，女性仍需承受极高的美容期望。穆罕默德·乌尔德·马德内医生回忆起一位患者：“她只有 14 岁，但体型却非常庞大，以至于心脏几乎因压力而崩溃。”他担心女性患上与体重相关的健康问题的风险，如糖尿病和心脏病。肥胖的其他长期影响包括高血压、高胆固醇、中风、骨关节炎、心理健康不佳、行动能力下降、睡眠呼吸暂停和癌症。由于 leblouh，这些国家健康问题对女性的影响尤为严重：截至 2016 年，毛里塔尼亚女性肥胖率为 18.5%，而男性肥胖率仅为 6.6%。

在疫情全球大流行的背景下，这些数据尤其令人担忧，肥胖人群因感染新冠肺炎“住院、进入重症监护室、进行侵入性机械通气和死亡的风险”更高。考虑到毛里塔尼亚的医疗服务障碍（该国每 1000 名公民只有0.18 名医生，而美国有2.59 名医生），肥胖的毛里塔尼亚成年人特别容易受到冠状病毒并发症的感染。这种额外的风险凸显了这样一个事实，即严格的美容标准严重限制了女性的健康和生活方式机会。一名 26 岁的女性描述了这种困境：“我总是很累，走路时会喘息。我想变得更苗条，这样我就可以更有活力……我很想能穿牛仔裤和高跟鞋。我想节食，但我害怕男人不再喜欢我。”她的话语体现了女性面临极大压力，不得不牺牲自己的身心健康来满足男性的目光，这种做法在新冠肺炎疫情期间尤其有害。

药物滥用和黑市毒品

然而，肥胖并不是唯一的威胁，许多女性滥用药物，服用黑市药物以加快肥胖。这些药物包括避孕药、可的松，甚至还有牲畜药物，例如“用于喂养骆驼和鸡的激素”。一位 26 岁的女性，据说她的丈夫“不喜欢和一袋骨头一起睡觉”，她不得不服用过敏药物，这些药物会间接增加体重，但可能会引发其他并发症。“我买这个是因为药剂师告诉我它危险性最小，”她解释道。这些药物很容易购买，而且监管不严格，据一位药剂师说，这可以部分归因于黑市药物销售​​给渴望的女性市场的利润。当 Sahar Zand访问毛里塔尼亚首都努瓦克肖特时，她注意到这些药物销售的公开性和显眼性，并评论说：“这太容易了。他们甚至没有试图隐藏它。”这样的市场充斥着为女儿购买药物的喂食者，以及为自己购买药物的老年妇女。Zand 甚至遇到过一个家庭，他们的女儿因服用增重类固醇而死亡，而另一个女儿仍在服用同一种类固醇。Madene 博士的话有效地概括了这场危机：毛里塔尼亚的审美标准是“公共卫生的严重问题”。

2008 年军事政变后倒退

最近的政治事件让我们对这场危机有了些许了解。到 2007 年，人们对肥胖的痴迷似乎有所改善——毛里塔尼亚政府试图加强国家公共卫生，提高人们对肥胖危害的认识。《纽约时报》甚至 开玩笑说：“直到最近，穿慢跑鞋的毛里塔尼亚女性就像穿细高跟鞋的骆驼一样常见。”审美标准在不断发展，人们越来越注重健康。然而，2007 年基地组织杀害法国游客事件导致前往毛里塔尼亚的外国游客减少，在 2008 年军事政变推翻民主政权后，新上台的军政府在穆罕默德·乌尔德·阿卜杜拉齐兹将军的领导下开始恢复传统价值观。活动组织“女户主”的领导人阿米内图·莫克塔尔痛恨地评论道：“当局希望女性回归传统角色——做饭、呆在家里，保持肥胖以取悦男人。”同一组织的成员 Aminetou Mint Ely 也表达了类似的观点：

“我们倒退了。我们有一个妇女事务部。我们已实现 20% 的议会席位配额。我们有女性外交官和女性州长。军方使我们倒退了几十年，让我们回到了传统的角色。我们甚至不再有一个可以交谈的部门。”

政府破坏文化进步有助于解释为什么毛里塔尼亚法律仍然无法追究“勒布鲁”的实施者的责任。儿童权利律师法蒂玛塔·姆巴耶 (Fatimata M'baye)哀叹道：“我从来没有成功为被强制喂食的儿童提起过诉讼。政客们害怕质疑自己的传统。”因此，政府积极延续对女孩实施“勒布鲁”的残酷迫害、童婚以及不断施加压力让她们增肥。

进步之路

然而，在这种倒退中，也有进步的希望。政变前宣传活动的成功表明，毛里塔尼亚女性愿意优先考虑健康，放松对美丽标准的限制。自 2003 年政府开始教育公民如何以道德的方式对待儿童和身体健康后，勒布鲁的发生率开始下降。在努瓦克肖特一家女性专用健身房工作的 Kajwan Zuhour 发现，到 2009 年，顾客越来越多：“女性不想再胖了，她们想变瘦，”她说。这种观念的改变源于 Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud 等女性的工作，她们参与了政府信息项目。她描述了有多少女性不知道勒布鲁的极端健康风险：“这里的饮食非常丰富——她们吃蒸粗麦粉、纯猪油……[而且]不知道这些食物会使人发胖，所以我们向这些女性解释每天要吃什么，这样她们就不会发胖，并且可以保护自己免受疾病的侵害。”这一观察表明，未来的信息宣传活动必须是多方面的，以覆盖不同的人群；一些女性故意喂食增肥的食物——并强迫年轻女孩吃——以增加体重，而其他女性则在不知情的情况下食用类似的食物。也许，这种差异可以部分地用城乡差距来解释，农村女性更熟悉勒布鲁和最容易导致体重增加的食物。尽管这种差异强调需要开展更多专门的信息宣传活动，但全国范围内的广泛努力以提高人们对勒布鲁不利健康影响的认识仍然是值得的。女户主协会的阿米内图·明特·埃利 (Aminetou Mint Ely)表示，“政府甚至创作了谴责肥胖的民谣”，展现了政府努力的创造性。

自从新军政府开始拆除和推翻这些政府计划以来，私营部门组织的作用变得越来越重要。例如，May Mint Haidy成立了一个非政府组织，以促进毛里塔尼亚妇女养成更健康的习惯：“我们开展了一项运动，说服这些妇女放弃强制喂食的习惯。我们作为一个非政府组织试图传播这一信息的原因是，这种强制喂食可能导致心脏病、血液病等危险的疾病。”这些信息对于确保成年女性不会危及自己或年幼女儿的健康非常重要。怀着这一使命，非政府组织可以恢复和巩固以前政府运动的工作，抵制美化肥胖的传统言论。他们还应该努力“在经济和政治上赋予妇女权力，特别是在农村地区，并……减少文盲”，这将进一步促进身心健康。勒布鲁和服用增重药物的主要动机是早婚和男性认可。如果女性感到自己有安全感，有能力，她们就不会为了他人而牺牲自己的健康。赋权和提高识字率还可以打击童婚，帮助女性对抗政府的歧视女性言论，使她们能够追求事业，帮助她们不仅避免自我毁灭的行为，而且积极掌控自己的福祉。

为了确保这些努力能够惠及农村妇女（Aminetou Mint Ely、May Mint Haidy和Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud都指出了这个问题） ，大型非政府组织可能需要与当地社区团体和“传统信息来源”合作。2007 年政变前夕，Haidy告诉《纽约时报》，只有约 25% 的毛里塔尼亚妇女看电视，收听广播节目的妇女就更少了；由于这一统计数据综合了全国所有妇女，因此农村妇女的媒体消费率甚至更低。鉴于这些限制，非政府组织还应考虑与宗教领袖建立联系，扩大清真寺的作用，使其既涵盖礼拜，也涵盖教育。

毕竟，许多伊玛目已经通过现有的媒体渠道展示了他们致力于提升妇女和儿童地位的承诺。例如，萨赫勒妇女赋权和人口红利项目（SWEDD）——横跨毛里塔尼亚、马里和尼日尔等多个非洲国家——通过广播打击童婚并提升妇女地位。如果参与此类工作的伊玛目能够将这些积极信息传播到农村清真寺，最好与当地宗教领袖合作，那么无法收听广播的妇女也可以获得赋权。毛里塔尼亚首都努瓦克肖特的伊玛目、SWEDD 成员哈德米纳·萨莱克·埃利有力地表达了伊斯兰教对伤害妇女行为的道德谴责：“伊斯兰教是一种尊重人类的宗教。因此，任何伤害个人身心健康的行为都是被禁止的。”有了这种支持，当地社区宗教领袖可能在确保有关勒布鲁危害的信息传达给毛里塔尼亚各地妇女的斗争中发挥关键作用。

毛里塔尼亚的美丽标准（体现在对年轻女孩的强制喂食、童婚和滥用增重药物）已有数百年历史。然而，它们并非无法改变。关于健康习惯、强制喂食的诸多危害以及儿童权益的宣传运动是取得进步的有希望的途径，特别是在宗教领袖的帮助下，在农村地区传播积极的信息。赋予妇女权力和提高识字率的其他举措将有助于消除父权制的性别关系并促进女性独立。Aminetou Mint Ely 和 May Mint Haidy 等女性的不懈倡导证明，这些解决方案完全可行。在她们的帮助下，毛里塔尼亚女性的健康和美丽将不再相互排斥。

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Force-Feeding and Drug Abuse: The Steep Price of Beauty in Mauritania

“It’s for their own good…How will these poor girls find a husband if they’re bony and revolting?”

Elhacen, who force-feeds young girls for a living, takes pride in her work. “I’m very strict…I beat the girls, or torture them by squeezing a stick between their toes. I isolate them and tell them that thin women are inferior,” she says. This child cruelty is the horrific product of Mauritanian beauty standards, which idealize obese bodies. According to Elhacen, a woman’s job is “to make babies and be a soft, fleshy bed for her husband to lie on.” The force feeder even enjoys additional payments for stretch marks, hailed as a crowning achievement for any Mauritanian woman trying to gain weight.

This force-feeding practice is called “leblouh” or “gavage,” a French term that refers to “the process of fattening up geese to produce foie gras.” This dehumanization of girls and women extends far beyond semantics. Historically, Mauritania’s Moor population, which makes up two thirds of the country’s 3.1 million people, has viewed female obesity as a status symbol, with thinness being a sign that a woman’s husband could not afford to feed her. As a result, in order to display wealth, higher-income girls were fattened with milk to make them more desirable to potential suitors. Exemplifying this relationship between obesity and attractiveness, a Moor proverb asserts that “the woman occupies in her man’s heart the space she occupies in his bed.” By creating a direct relationship between weight and desirability, this beauty standard encourages extreme behavior.

Force-Feeding and Early Marriage of Young Girls

This extremity is evident in the abuse of young girls at the hands of force-feeders like Elhacen. Girls as young as five are sent to “fattening farms” to gorge on calorie-dense foods such as millet and camel milk. Force-feeding can also occur at home, often supervised by a girl’s mother. Activist Lemrabott Brahim describes how this mother-daughter dynamic perpetuates leblouh, explaining that the practice is “deeply-rooted in the minds and hearts of Mauritanian mothers, particularly in the remote areas.” Disciplined by their mothers or force-feeders, girls may be force-fed up to 16,000 calories daily, which can include up to five gallons of milk. Older female force-feeders or relatives who conduct the leblouh employ brutal tactics to keep their girls eating. For example, the “zayar” technique involves positioning a girl’s toe between two sticks and pinching it when she resists leblouh. The supervisor may also “pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit,” and girls are further threatened with beatings if they do not finish their food. A 2013 study using survey data from 2000 found that “over 61% of those who had experienced gavage reported being beaten during the process and almost one-third (29%) reported having their fingers broken to encourage participation." In addition to these excruciating injuries, Mar Jubero Capdeferro of the U.N. Population Fund notes that leblouh is increasingly dangerous because some force-feeders have transitioned from using camel’s milk to force-feeding young girls “with chemicals used to fatten animals.”

In a 2018 Unreported World documentary, reporter Sahar Zand witnessed this cruelty firsthand, interacting with Mauritanian women to learn more about leblouh. She describes how girls are fattened during the rainy season, when food is more plentiful, gaining a targeted seven kilograms. According to Zand, about 25 percent of Mauritanian women endure leblouh, but the percentage could be as high as 75 percent in rural communities where women are especially vulnerable “because there are no distractions and no easy ways to escape.” Zand focuses on one particular group of rural nomads with two young girls undergoing leblouh. It takes them each two hours to finish a 3,000-calorie breakfast, followed by a 4,000-calorie lunch and a 2,000-calorie dinner. By the end of the feeding season, the girls will consume 16,000 calories every day. Zand tried the leblouh diet—after lunch, she could not continue, but the little girls were forced to keep eating. “It’s horrible,” she describes. A force feeder claimed that pushing her daughter through leblouh is an act of love. Trying to explain how mothers could inflict such “pain and torture” on their own daughters, Zand concludes: “This is a society where a woman’s biggest power is to be beautiful, and to be beautiful, you have to be fat.”

Zand could have easily re-phrased this statement as: “This is a society where a woman’s biggest power is to marry, and to marry, you have to be fat.” The 2013 study breaks down the centrality of child marriage to leblouh, for “the large size of these force-fed girls creates an illusion that they are physically mature and ready for marriage.” In creating this illusion, leblouh suppresses the marrying age of girls, perpetuating a child marriage crisis. Legally, Mauritanian women must be 18 years old to marry, but de facto, younger brides are common; a 2015 study concluded that “nearly one out of three girls aged between 15 and 19 gets married.” According to 2019 data, 37 percent of Mauritanian girls marry before age 18. Often, these young girls marry older men. One 29-year-old victim of child marriage began leblouh at age four, married at 12, and got pregnant at 13 “right after [her] first period.” These child marriages and pregnancies severely jeopardize the physical and mental health of the female Mauritanian population.

Long-Term Health Consequences of Leblouh

Even after marriage, women continue to suffer from extreme beauty expectations. Dr. Mohammed Ould Madene recalled a patient: “She was only 14, but so huge that her heart almost collapsed under the strain.” He worries about women’s risk of weight-related health problems such as diabetes and heart disease. Other long-term effects of obesity include hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, osteoarthritis, poor mental health, decreased mobility, sleep apnea, and cancer. Due to leblouh, these national health concerns disproportionately impact women: as of 2016, 18.5 percent of Mauritanian women were obese, compared to only 6.6 percent of men.

These statistics are particularly alarming in the context of a global pandemic, for which obese individuals have higher “risks of hospitalization, intensive care unit admission admission, invasive mechanical ventilation, and death” from COVID-19. Considering barriers to healthcare access in Mauritania (the country has only 0.18 physicians for every 1000 citizens, compared to 2.59 physicians in the United States), obese Mauritanian adults are especially vulnerable to complications from the coronavirus. This additional risk underscores the fact that exacting beauty standards are severely limiting women’s health and lifestyle opportunities. One 26-year-old woman describes this dilemma: “I’m always tired, and I wheeze when I walk. I want to be slimmer so I can be more dynamic…I’d love to be able to wear jeans and high heels. I want to diet, but I’m scared men won’t like me anymore.” Her words exemplify the extreme pressures on women to sacrifice their mental and physical health to appease the male gaze, a practice especially detrimental during the COVID-19 crisis.

Medication Abuse and Black Market Drugs

However, obesity is not the only threat, for many women abuse medications and take black market drugs to become obese more quickly. These drugs include birth control, cortisone, and even livestock medications, such as “hormones used to fatten camels and chickens.” One 26-year-old woman, whose husband reportedly “didn’t like sleeping with a bag of bones,” has resorted to allergy drugs that peripherally boost weight gain at the risk of other complications. “I bought this one because the pharmacist told me it was the least dangerous,” she explained. These drugs are easy to purchase and not heavily regulated, which can—according to one pharmacist—be partially attributed to the profitability of black market drug sales to an eager female market. When Sahar Zand visited the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, she noted the openness and conspicuousness of these drug sales, remarking, “That was too easy. They weren’t even trying to hide it.” Such markets teem with feeders buying drugs for their girls and older women buying for themselves. Zand even met a family whose daughter died from taking weight-gain steroids, yet another daughter continues to take the same steroid. Dr. Madene’s words effectively summarize the crisis: Mauritania’s beauty standards are “a grave matter of public health.”

Backsliding After the 2008 Military Coup

Recent political events offer some insight into this crisis. By 2007, the obesity obsession appeared to be improving—the Mauritanian government was trying to bolster national public health and raise awareness surrounding the dangers of obesity. The New York Times even joked: “Until lately, a Mauritanian woman in jogging shoes was about as common as a camel in stiletto heels.” Beauty standards were evolving, and increasingly health-conscious. However, the murder of French tourists by al-Qaeda in 2007 resulted in fewer foreign visitors to Mauritania, and after a military coup in 2008 that ousted the democratic regime, the incoming junta began to revive traditional values under the leadership of General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. Aminetou Moctar, leader of the activist group Women Heads of Households, bitterly remarked, “The authorities want women to return to their traditional roles—cooking, staying indoors, and staying fat to keep men happy.” Aminetou Mint Ely, a member of the same organization, expressed similar sentiments:

"We have gone backwards. We had a Ministry of Women's Affairs. We had achieved a parliamentary quota of 20 percent of seats. We had female diplomats and governors. The military [has] set us back by decades, sending us back to our traditional roles. We no longer even have a ministry to talk to."

The government’s unraveling of cultural progress helps explain why Mauritanian law still fails to hold the perpetrators of leblouh accountable. Fatimata M’baye, a lawyer for children’s rights, laments: “I have never managed to bring a case in [defense] of a force-fed child. The politicians are scared of questioning their own traditions.” Therefore, the government actively perpetuates the brutal subjection of girls to leblouh, child marriages, and continuous pressures to fatten themselves.

Paths for Progress

However, amidst this regression, there is hope for progress. The success of pre-coup awareness campaigns indicates that Mauritanian women are open to prioritizing health and loosening the hold of beauty standards. After the government began to educate citizens about ethical treatment of children and physical health in 2003, rates of leblouh began to decline. Kajwan Zuhour, who worked in a female-only gym in Nouakchott, noticed more and more customers by 2009: “Women don't want to be fat anymore, they want to be thin,” she said. This changed outlook emerged from the work of women like Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud, who was involved in government information programs. She described how many women were unaware of leblouh’s extreme health risks: “The diet here is very rich—they eat couscous, pure lard…[and] don't know this food is fattening, so we explain to the women what to eat every day, so they don't put on weight and they can protect themselves from diseases.'' This observation indicates that future information campaigns must be multifaceted to cover various demographics; some women deliberately feed themselves—and force-feed young girls—fattening food to gain weight, while other women unknowingly consume similar foods. Perhaps, this difference can be partially explained by an urban-rural divide, in which rural women are more familiar with leblouh and the foods most conducive to weight gain. Although this variation underscores the need for additional specialized information campaigns, sweeping, nation-wide efforts to boost awareness of leblouh’s adverse health effects are still worthwhile. Aminetou Mint Ely of the Association of Women Heads of Households remarked that “the government even commissioned ballads condemning fattening,” demonstrating the creative extent of its efforts.

Since the new military junta began dismantling and reversing these governmental programs, the role of private sector organizations has become increasingly important. For example, May Mint Haidy founded an NGO to promote healthier habits among Mauritanian women: “We have carried out a campaign to convince these women to give up the habit of forced feeding. The reason we as an NGO are trying to spread the message is because this forced feeding can lead to dangerous diseases like heart attacks, blood diseases.” These messages are important to ensure adult women do not jeopardize their own health or that of their young daughters. With this mission in mind, NGOs can revive and build upon the work of prior governmental campaigns, counteracting traditional rhetoric glorifying obesity. They should also work to “empower women economically and politically, especially in rural areas, and…reduce illiteracy,” which would further promote physical and mental health. The primary motivations for leblouh and the consumption of weight-gain drugs are early marriage and male validation. If women feel secure and capable in their own right, they would be less likely to sacrifice their health for others. Empowerment and improved literacy would also battle child marriage, arm women against misogynistic government rhetoric, enable them to pursue careers, and help them not only avoid self-destructive practices, but actively take charge of their well-being.

In order to ensure that such efforts reach women in rural areas—a problem noted by Aminetou Mint Ely, May Mint Haidy, and Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud—larger NGOs will likely need to partner with local community groups and “traditional information sources.” Immediately before the coup in 2007, Haidy told the New York Times that only about 25 percent of Mauritanian women watched TV and even fewer tuned into radio programs; since this statistic aggregated all women across the country, it suggests that the rate of media consumption is even lower for women in rural areas. Given these limitations, NGOs should also consider forging connections with religious leaders, expanding the role of mosques to encompass both worship and education.

After all, many imams have already demonstrated their commitment to uplifting women and children through existing media channels. For example, the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend project (SWEDD)—which spans multiple African nations including Mauritania, Mali, and Niger—combats child marriage and uplifts women through radio. If imams involved in such efforts could spread these positive messages to rural mosques, ideally partnering with local religious leaders, women without access to radio could be empowered as well. Hademine Saleck Ely, an imam in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott and a member of SWEDD, powerfully articulates Islam’s moral repudiation of practices that harm women: “Islam is a religion that honours human beings. Any action that harms an individual's physical or mental health is therefore forbidden.” Given this support, local community religious leaders may be critical in the fight to ensure messages about the dangers of leblouh reach women across Mauritania.

Mauritania’s beauty standards—manifesting in the force-feeding of young girls, child marriage, and the abuse of weight gain medications—are centuries-old. However, they are not immune to change. Information campaigns about healthy habits, the many dangers of force-feeding, and child advocacy are promising avenues for progress, especially with the assistance of religious leaders to spread positive messages in rural areas. Additional initiatives to empower women and increase literacy would help dismantle patriarchal gender relations and foster female independence. The tenacious advocacy of women such as Aminetou Mint Ely and May Mint Haidy prove that such solutions are entirely possible. With their help, the health and beauty of Mauritanian women can cease to be mutually exclusive.

无人谈论的贸易战

在美国与中国接触的喧嚣中，日本和韩国最近也卷入了贸易战。今年 7 月 4 日，当美国人正在庆祝自己的独立和自由时，韩国人却想起了自己的殖民历史，因为他们的邻国和前殖民者日本开始实施新的贸易制裁。最初是韩国最高法院的一项裁决，现在已经升级为一场严重的经济战，威胁到亚洲和世界的一个关键技术来源。  

虽然这场争端才刚刚持续几个月，但殖民主义的根源却始于 1910 年，当时日本帝国入侵并占领了整个朝鲜半岛。在接下来的几十年里，日本帝国不断扩张，控制了东南亚大部分地区，甚至中国部分地区，直到第二次世界大战结束时才最终灭亡。在日本占领朝鲜期间，三菱和新日铁等日本公司经常征召韩国男女进行无偿强迫劳动。

然而，最近，韩国最高法院于 2018 年 10 月和 11 月裁定日本公司必须为这些历史不公做出赔偿。随后，7 月 4 日，日本政府采取报复措施，对韩国制造微芯片和技术产品所必需的材料贸易实施限制。由于韩国缺乏回应，日本将韩国从其“白名单”中除名，以此强化其信息，其影响超出了技术行业。韩国则将日本从其同等的顶级优先贸易伙伴名单中除名。在这种深度制裁的回应中，韩国和日本卷入了一场激烈且充满政治色彩的贸易战。虽然许多贸易战都被理解为对不平等贸易条件的回应，但日本和韩国的贸易战似乎特别带有政治动机，因为其动机是为了与日本的殖民历史和解。

而且，目前似乎看不到明确的结束迹象。两国的公众舆论都高度支持各自政府的政策，因此首尔和东京都有政治动机继续其政策，甚至升级政策。由于两国明年都将举行联邦选举，因此两国都承受不起违背公众舆论的后果。

此外，与朝鲜核威胁等其他争端不同，没有任何外国愿意帮助缓解紧张局势并在这两个邻国之间进行调解。美国传统上一直扮演调解人的角色，但由于与中国的贸易问题，华盛顿无暇顾及日本和韩国。此外，美国历史上与日本和韩国都是盟友，因此它几乎没有动机介入，否则会危及与这两个国家的关系。

事实上，迅速解决这一冲突符合世界上几乎每个国家的利益。世界依赖韩国的科技产品，从微芯片到全加工的智能手机。韩国科技产业甚至对苹果和戴尔等西方巨头来说也是必需品。韩国供应着全球 60% 的 DRAM 内存芯片。然而，韩国科技产业却依赖日本的化学品，如氟化聚酰胺，作为制造半导体和计算机芯片的中间产品。  

鉴于事关重大，必须尽快解决这场经济战。这场贸易战高度政治化，影响了政客们的理性判断。这是有害的，尤其是当涉及数百万日本和韩国公民的经济前景以及全球科技产业时。对中美贸易战的关注与对日韩贸易战的关注之间没有平衡。两国在全球经济中都发挥着至关重要的作用，影响着数十亿人的日常生活。随着亚洲一些最大的经济体陷入经济战，国际社会的忽视可能会对整个世界产生影响。

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The Trade War That No One Is Talking About

Amid the noise of the United States' engagement with China, Japan and South Korea have recently engaged in their own trade war. On July 4 of this year, while Americans were celebrating their own independence and freedom, South Koreans were reminded of their own colonial history as their neighbor and former colonizer, Japan, began to impose new trade sanctions. What started off as a South Korean Supreme Court ruling has now escalated into a crippling economic war that threatens a key source of technology for Asia and the world.

Photo by Andre Benz / Unsplash

Although this particular dispute is now only a few months old, the roots of colonialism began in 1910 when the Japanese Empire invaded and occupied the entirety of the Korean peninsula. Over the course of the next few decades, the Japanese Empire would aggressively expand and control most of South-East Asia and even parts of China, until its ultimate demise at the end of the Second World War. During Japanese occupation of Korea, Japanese companies, such as Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel, often times conscripted Korean men and women for forced unpaid labor.

Recently, however, the South Korean Supreme Court ruled in October and November of 2018 that Japanese companies must pay reparations for these historical injustices. Consequently, on July fourth, the Japanese government retaliated by imposing limitations on the trade of materials essential to the construction of microchips and technological products in South Korea. Incensed by South Korea’s lack of response, Japan reinforced its message by taking South Korea off its “white-list” of favored trading partners, leading to ramifications beyond the technology industry. South Korea reacted by removing Japan from their equivalent top tier of preferred trading partners. In this deep spiral of sanctions in response, South Korea and Japan have interlocked in a vicious and politically charged trade war. While many trade wars are understood as responses to unequal terms of trade, Japan and South Korea's trade war seems to be particularly coded in political motives, given that its impetus was about reconciling with Japan's colonial past.

And, there seems to be no clear end in sight. Public opinion in both countries are highly supportive of their respective government’s policies, so both Seoul and Tokyo have political incentive to continue their policies or even escalate. With federal elections occurring within the next year for both countries, neither country can afford to buck against public opinion.

Moreover, unlike other disputes like the nuclear threat of North Korea, no foreign power is willing to aid in diffusing the tension and mediate between the two neighboring countries. The United States has traditionally adopted the role of the mediator but with its own trade worries with China, Washington has no attention that it can spare to Japan and South Korea. Furthermore, the US has historically allied with both Japan and South Korea, so it has little incentive to be involved, lest it risk its relationship with either country.

Indeed, almost every country in the world has a vested interest in the swift resolution of this conflict. The world relies on South Korea for its technology products, ranging from microchips to completely processed smartphones. The Korean technology industry is a necessity even for Western giants, such as Apple and Dell. Korea supplies 60 percent of the world’s DRAM memory chips. However, the Korean technology industry conversely relies on Japan for its chemicals, such as fluorinated polyamides, as an intermediary product for the making of semiconductors and computer chips.

With stakes this high, it is crucial that the economic war be resolved with urgency. The highly politicized nature of this particular trade war clouds rational judgement of politicians. This is detrimental, especially when the chips in play are the economic outlooks of millions of Japanese and Korean citizens, as well as the global technology industry. There is not a trade-off between attention paid to the US-China trade war and that of Japan and South Korea. Both play a crucial role in the global economy and affect billions of people’s day-to-day lives. As some of the biggest economic powers in Asia spiral into economic warfare, international neglect could have ramifications that affect the world at large.

哈佛国际评论学术写作竞赛（HIR）由久负盛名的《哈佛国际评论》主办，该杂志以其深度和广泛的国际事务评论而闻名。HIR竞赛为全球9-12年级高中生提供了一个展示学术写作能力的舞台，通过深度思考全球性问题，参赛者不仅能够丰富申请背景，还可在杂志上发表获奖作品，获得全球认可。本文将详细介绍HIR竞赛的时间安排、奖项设置、竞赛特点及提交要求，帮助学生充分准备这一高水平赛事。

一、2025赛季HIR竞赛时间安排

2025年 HIR春季赛

报名截止：2025年5月

提交截止：2025年5月

晋级者线上答辩：2025年6月

2025年 HIR夏季赛

报名截止：2025年7月

提交截止：2025年8月

晋级者线上答辩：2025年10月

2025年 HIR秋季赛/冬季赛

报名截止：2025年11月

提交截止：2026年1月

晋级者线上答辩：2026年2月

*注：比赛时间基于美东时间（EST），请考虑时差，避免错过截止日期。

二、HIR竞赛奖项设置

表彰奖

HIR证书

杰出写作内容/风格奖

HIR证书

铜牌

HIR证书+官网上列出获奖者姓名（全球前20%）

银牌

HIR证书+官网上列出获奖者姓名（全球前10%）

金牌

HIR证书+官网上列出获奖者姓名（全球前3%）

*决赛入围者可根据初步成绩和表现获得奖项，金奖和银奖还包括HIR期刊免费订阅权限。

三、HIR竞赛特点

严格的内容要求

HIR竞赛对文章内容、排布和格式规范提出高要求。参赛作品需理性且有理有据地阐述观点。

主题多样性

主题涵盖农业、商业、网络安全、教育、能源与环境等多个领域，参赛者可以选择自己擅长的主题进行深入研究和分析。

文章风格

文章应从平衡的角度呈现主题，经过充分研究并具备信息灵通性，风格上需正式且具文化敏感性。

AI政策

禁止使用ChatGPT，评委将通过多个人工智能检查器对文章进行检测，若AI生成分数过高则取消资格。

四、HIR竞赛提交要求

内容分析

提交内容应针对未被充分重视的全球主题提出分析支持的观点。

文化敏感性

文章需经过事实核查，具备文化敏感性和相互尊重的态度。

论文结构

应有明确的论点，但不应仅仅是事实的集合，需避免设定议程。

格式与风格

文章应有800-1200字，标注书籍和文献引用，图表和数据表不计入字数。

哈佛国际评论学术写作竞赛（HIR）通过其高要求和国际影响力，为学生提供了一个展示写作能力和思考深度的重要平台。通过参与HIR竞赛，学生不仅能够提升写作技巧，还能为未来的学术和职业发展打下坚实基础。

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HIR竞赛PDF版获奖作品集+亮点解析已整理好，扫码即可下载⇓

哈佛国际评论竞赛（Harvard International Review Competition, HAWC）由《哈佛国际评论》期刊主办，是一项面向全球9-12年级学生的学术写作比赛。该竞赛旨在鼓励学生关注国际事务，拓宽国际视野，理解全球问题的复杂性。通过参与竞赛，学生不仅能提高学术写作能力，还能在国际学术界建立信誉。本文将详细介绍HAWC的参赛要求、评分标准、奖项设置及其含金量。

一、HIR竞赛背景

《Harvard International Review》创刊于1979年，是一份权威的国际问题研究期刊，关注国际关系、全球事务及人文社科类研究。作为全球名校学生的必读刊物之一，每期发行量超过10万，广泛影响着全球学术界和政策制定者。

二、HIR竞赛适合学生

目标群体

适合9-12年级的高中生参加。尽管没有专业学术门槛，建议具备一定语言基础和文字表达能力，并对社会文化议题充满好奇心的学生参与。

写作要求

提交一篇800-1200字的文章，需标注书籍和文献引用。文章应使用英语和传统美式拼写，针对一个未被充分认识的全球话题提供分析支持的观点。

内容规范

不接受专栏文章或评论文章。内容需遵循AP Style的最新版本，具有文化敏感性、事实核查和尊重。今年新增了AI使用政策，禁止使用ChatGPT，文章将通过多个AI检查器检测。

三、HIR竞赛流程

注册与提交

注册并付款后可提交作品。参赛费用为1480元人民币/队（可单人或组队参加，每队不超过两人）。费用包括赛事注册费、评审费、配套课程、线上答辩、HIR期刊订阅、证书制作、提名认证服务。

评分与答辩

作品由哈佛国际评论的主编评分。被选为决赛选手的学生将被邀请参加HIR决赛答辩，进行15分钟的演讲和口头答辩。

四、HIR竞赛评分标准

内容与选题（30分）

包括选题、文章引入、结构与过渡、论据使用、论据分析、论证的整体连贯性，每小项5分。

风格与规范（25分）

包括文章语气与基调、拼写标点与语法、是否遵守《哈佛国际评论写作风格指引》、文献引用的规范性、是否易于阅读，每小项5分。

五、HIR竞赛奖项设置

结业证书

所有成功提交文章的参赛者将获得结业证书。

个人奖品

获得及格分数但未获得HIR答辩资格的参赛者将获得个人奖品。

金/银/铜牌

决赛入围者有资格获得金、银、铜牌，具体取决于答辩日的分数和表现。

六、HIR写作竞赛含金量

顶级大学背景加持

竞赛由哈佛大学背书，吸引了国际专业的学者、编辑和学生参与设计和评估，保证了比赛的含金量。

选题自由度高，文理科“通吃”

鼓励学生选择任意感兴趣的话题领域进行素材搜集，对学科限制较小，适合文科生和理科生。

提高综合学术能力

参与学术写作比赛，学生需完成选题、独立研究和文字写作，提升综合学术能力，提前体验本科阶段的学术任务。

哈佛国际评论竞赛不仅是展示学术写作能力的平台，也是拓宽国际视野、提升综合素质的绝佳机会。通过参与HAWC，学生能够在全球学术舞台上展示才华，为未来的学术和职业发展奠定坚实基础。HAWC是对国际事务感兴趣的学生的理想选择。

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HIR竞赛PDF版获奖作品集+亮点解析已整理好，扫码即可下载⇓

在当今快速变化和不稳定的世界中，理解和应对全球性挑战变得尤为重要。以下是关于在竞赛主题VUCA世界中的不平等和全球挑战与集体行动的主题拆解与分析，旨在提供深入的思考路径和潜在解决方案。

主题A：VUCA世界中的不平等

定义和背景

VUCA（易变性、不确定性、复杂性、模糊性）描述了现代世界的不稳定性和快速变化。这种环境带来了全球性的挑战，其中不平等问题尤为突出。在全球化、技术进步和政治动荡的背景下，贫富差距、教育机会不平等和医疗资源分配不均等问题愈加明显。

分析思路

VUCA世界与不平等的联系

不平等的加剧：VUCA环境中的变化（如疫情、气候变化、战争、技术革新等）加剧了某些国家、地区和群体在资源、机会和发展上的不平等。

科技与信息鸿沟：技术和信息的不平等分配加剧了全球南北差距和城乡差距。高收入国家能够更好地利用数字化和AI技术，而低收入国家可能陷入“数字鸿沟”。

教育与就业：教育资源分布不均和技术变革带来的新就业要求进一步扩大了社会不平等。

不平等的表现形式

经济不平等：发达国家与发展中国家在GDP和人均收入上存在巨大差异。

健康不平等：全球不同地区的公共卫生和医疗资源差异显著，例如COVID-19大流行期间疫苗分配不均。

性别和种族不平等：在某些地区，女性和少数族裔受到社会、文化和经济制度的限制。

解决方案与挑战

全球合作：通过强化全球治理机制和国际合作，推进公平的资源分配。

技术平衡：技术公司和政府应合作缩小数字鸿沟，确保全球人口享有平等的教育和就业机会。

政策调整：国家应制定政策缩小收入差距，提升弱势群体的社会保障和经济支持。

主题B：全球挑战和集体行动

定义和背景

全球挑战是指需要跨国合作和集体行动解决的重大问题，包括气候变化、贫困、不平等、全球健康、能源危机等。这些挑战通常超越单个国家的能力，解决这些问题需要全球各国和国际组织的共同努力。

分析思路

全球挑战的特点

跨国性：这些问题影响全球所有国家和人民，如气候变化和传染病。

复杂性：涉及政治、经济、社会等多个层面，解决需要多方合作和协调。

集体行动的必要性

全球气候变化：需要通过国际协议（如《巴黎气候协定》）协调全球减排努力。

全球健康问题：例如新冠疫情，暴露出全球公共卫生体系的脆弱性，跨国合作在疫苗研发和分配中至关重要。

难民和移民问题：国际社会需共同解决难民安置和资源分配问题。

集体行动的模式与挑战

国际组织的作用：如联合国和世界银行在协调全球行动和提供支持方面发挥关键作用。

国家间的合作：各国间的利益冲突和政治分歧常导致集体行动进展缓慢。

全球公民社会的参与：NGO和社会运动应积极参与解决全球挑战。

解决方案和前景

强化国际机制：加强国际合作机制，尤其是在气候变化和全球健康领域。

共同责任：各国需根据自身能力和责任作出贡献，发达国家应支持发展中国家。

提高全球治理效率：建立更高效、透明和公正的全球治理体系，提高国际合作效果。

通过深入理解VUCA世界中的不平等以及全球挑战和集体行动的复杂性，我们能够更好地识别问题根源，制定有效的应对策略，并推动全球社会的可持续发展。

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HIR竞赛PDF版获奖作品集+亮点解析已整理好，扫码即可下载⇓

哈佛国际评论学术写作竞赛（简称HIR或HAWC）由《哈佛国际评论》主办，面向全球9-12年级学生。该竞赛旨在鼓励学生深入思考国际事务，发展优秀的写作能力，以呈现对国际事务的深入分析。自2020年起，HIR写作大赛已成为鼓励和展示与国际事务相关主题优秀高中写作的舞台。

一、HIR秋季赛赛程

中国区报名截止：2024年11月30日

提交截止：2025年1月2日

线上答辩：2025年2月5日

二、HIR竞赛主题和要求

参赛者需选择以下主题之一撰写文章，并在提交内容顶部注明所选主题：

主题 A：VUCA 世界中的不平等

主题 B：全球挑战与集体行动

内容要求

主题范围：文章应涉及与国际事务相关的主题，如农业、商业、网络安全、国防、教育、就业和移民等。文章需从全球视角审视主题。

长度：英文撰写，800至1200字（不包括图表、数据表或作者声明）。

写作风格：文章需提出分析支持的观点，不接受专栏文章或评论文章。应遵循AP Style的最新版本，具备文化敏感性、经过事实核查且相互尊重。

AI政策

禁止使用ChatGPT。评委将使用多个人工智能检查器检测文章，若检测到高人工智能生成分数，将取消资格。

三、HIR竞赛评分标准

总分55分，分为内容与选题、风格与标准两大类。

内容与选题（30分）

选题（5分）

文章引入（5分）

结构与过渡（5分）

论据使用（5分）

论据分析（5分）

论证的整体连贯性（5分）

风格与规范（25分）

文章语气与基调（5分）

拼写、标点与语法（5分）

遵守《哈佛国际评论写作风格指引》（5分）

文献引用的规范性（5分）

易于阅读（5分）

四、HIR奖项设置

根据答辩日表现，决赛入围者可获得以下奖项：

铜奖（全球前20%）：HIR证书，姓名和作品刊登在官网。

银奖（全球前10%）：HIR证书，姓名和作品刊登在官网，并奖励1年的HIR纸质刊。

金奖（全球前3%）：HIR获奖证书，获奖作品及参赛者姓名公布于官网，奖励2年的HIR纸质刊。

哈佛国际评论学术写作竞赛为全球高中生提供了一个展示写作才能和国际事务理解的平台，鼓励学生通过写作表达对全球问题的深入思考和分析。

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HIR竞赛PDF版获奖作品集+亮点解析已整理好，扫码即可下载⇓

哈佛国际评论学术写作竞赛（HIR或HAWC）由哈佛国际评论期刊主办，其评委会由哈佛国际评论的编辑和哈佛学者组成，因此奖项含金量极高。竞赛不仅要求参赛者具备扎实的学术基础，还鼓励他们以新颖的视角探讨全球复杂问题，展现出色的洞察力和创造力。

一、HIR竞赛含金量与优势

丰富文书素材：

参与HIR竞赛为留学申请提供独特的素材和视角，通过竞赛积累的成长经历、团队合作能力以及对全球议题的见解，可以丰富申请文书，展现个人特质和全球视野。

荣誉加持：

竞赛评审团由顶尖学府教授和行业领袖组成，获奖作品的认可度非常高。

面试加分项：

参赛者在竞赛中深入阐述观点，展现对全球议题的深刻理解和持续关注，这能给招生官留下深刻印象。

二、HIR竞赛安排

1、HIR竞赛时间

适合学生：
美国9至12年级学生及国际9至12年级学生均可参赛，提交内容需为英语和美式拼写。

参赛时间：

2024年春季： 提交截止2024年5月31日，决赛答辩2024年6月29日

2024年夏季： 提交截止2024年8月31日，决赛答辩2024年10月5日

2024年秋季/冬季： 提交截止2025年1月2日，决赛答辩2025年2月5日

比赛形式：
参赛者提交一篇关于国际事务主题的文章，进入决赛的选手将参加网上答辩。

2、HIR竞赛主题

参赛者需从两个主题中选择一个进行写作：

Theme A: Inequalities in a VUCA World

Theme B: Global Challenges and Collective Actions

3、HIR竞赛流程

注册与付款：
参赛者需先注册并支付参赛费用。若为两人合作投稿，仅需一人填表缴费，投稿时需提供合作者姓名。

费用与服务：
参赛费用为1480元/队，包含赛事注册费、评审费、配套课程、线上答辩、HIR期刊订阅、证书制作及提名认证服务。若因个人原因无法按时提交稿件，已缴费用不退，但可申请延期一次交稿，总成绩将扣2分。

评分与晋级：
哈佛国际评论的主编们会对作品评分，初轮结果依据分数排名确定晋级名单。晋级选手需参加一对一答辩。

决赛与答辩：
被选为决赛选手的学生将参加HIR决赛答辩，向评委进行15分钟的演讲和口头答辩。

4、奖项设置

所有作品将获得《哈佛国际评论》的等级评定。评委会将评出金、银、铜奖及部分单项奖，颁发奖项证书。获奖者的姓名和作品题目将在官网公布。

金奖 Gold Medal： 全球前3%

银奖 Silver Medal： 全球前10%

铜奖 Bronze Medal： 全球前20%

高度赞扬奖 High Commendation Prize

杰出写作/风格奖 Outstanding Writing Content / Style Prize

赞扬奖 Commendation Prize

HIR竞赛不仅为学生提供了展示学术才能的舞台，也为他们的未来学术发展和申请名校提供了坚实的支持。通过参与HIR，学生可以提升写作能力，拓宽国际视野，增强学术竞争力。

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HIR竞赛PDF版获奖作品集+亮点解析已整理好，扫码即可下载⇓