FOR WOMEN FUTURE PROBLEMS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 108, 8 May 1943, Page 3

FOR WOMEN FUTURE PROBLEMS

CONGRESS OF WOMEN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW A series of conferences convened by the International Women's Organisation of London, and made up of representatives of 11 big international women's organisations, has been able to give expression to the views and desires of the women of the world. One of the speakers said that prewar Norway had the lowest infant mortality in the world, that all education was free, and that it was the first country to guarantee free dental treatment to all children. She mentioned the problem which few people have as yet had the courage to mention, that is, what is to become of the children of German fathers when the occupied countries are cleared of the invaders. A Frenchwoman quoted Hitler's saying, "I make the masses apathetic," and insisted that therein lay one of the great difficulties of the future. In so many countries the masses were being ground into apathy. The hope of salvation lay in the peoples of the free countries. A Polish medical woman opened the discussion with a masterly summary of the position. The joy bells of peace, she said, would be the mobilisation order for the new army to go into action against the invisible enemies that followed every war—epidemics, ■ malnutrition and misery- Poland would be economically and biologically exhausted by the German occupation. In that country disease was everywhere increasing, and it was urgently necessary to have the right kind of help ready directly hostilities ceased. ■ Women in the Allied countries should be training now for the medical, nursing and social services that would be required after the war. The speaker, recently arrived from Greece, said that her motherland was groaning under an inhuman slavery that murdered women and children and stole out of their very hands food sent to them through the Red Cross. Throughout the countryside one found heaps of rubble with this notice: "Here was a village. The inhabitants did not obey the Germans." A Czech professor said her country had had some bad experiences in the past, for many teachers in the German-speaking part of the country had been infected with and had propagated Fascism. They did not want schools that prepared for a military career, but schools that prepared for life. Post-war democracy must continue to be not only political, but also social and economic. The present position called especially on women to be prepared to shoulder the responsibilities of reconstruction.