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His Grace Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Statement for the Women, Faith, and Development Alliance's Breakthrough Summit on April 13, 2008 at Washington National Cathedral.

Archbishop Desmon Tutu Hello everyone. I am Desmond Tutu and I send fervent greetings and blessings to all of you. I thank my dear friends at Washington National Cathedral, my fellow Breakthrough Co-Chairs, and the Women, Faith, and Development Alliance for this opportunity to speak to you.

Women and girls around the world face great challenges. In Africa, my home continent, and in many other places, our sisters make up 70% of the nearly 2.5 billion poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. They bear an unjust burden and this must change for the benefit of all humanity.

We have come together as the new Women, Faith, and Development Alliance because new solutions and energy are needed to empower women and end poverty. Fully recognizing the potential of the interfaith community for moral leadership for gender justice, I must also humbly challenge us people of faith to consider where we have failed to do right by women.

Despite its global leadership on human rights and humanitarian aid, the faith community has failed to champion gender justice and the cause of women and girls. Religion has too often been used as a tool to oppress women, and we must bear responsibility for contributing to the unjust burden borne by women. Too often we have not named, and condemned roundly, culturally and traditionally rooted discriminatory practices like child marriages, genital mutilation, and violence against women and children.

For the Women, Faith, and Development Alliance to be successful at this critical time, we need courageous faith leadership rooted in our common understanding of the dignity and value of each human person. We must come together as people of faith and stand up for women and girls by addressing these issues from every pulpit and platform in the synagogues, mosques, churches and other places of worship. The interfaith community must join with leaders in other sectors to press for more resources so that women and girls can change their own lives and those of their families and their communities

The Women, Faith, and Development Alliance is so important because it is an unprecedented coming together. We can no longer allow ourselves to be so deeply separated by our differences over issues like sexual behavior and reproductive rights that we ignore our common call, commanded by every religion - to address the deep injustice of extreme poverty borne so heavily by women and girls. Our opportunity now, as leaders, is to come together in areas where we do agree and apply those lessons about reconciliation we have all learned in the teachings of our religions.

But reconciliation is only the first step. We must act with common purpose and speak with one voice to change global policies and global wills so that gender justice and an end to poverty can be achieved.

Above all, we must remember why we are taking on this challenge. This leads me to the other core piece of the Gospel - love. As people of faith, love and compassion are required of us. We can all draw on blessed memories or simply look into the eyes of our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters to know that supporting women benefits families, communities, and all of humanity.

Love and blessings to all of you.