The Locus Effect Analysis

The Locus Effect, by Gary Haugan and Victor Boutros, discusses the many ways violence manifest itself in developing countries and the impact it has on families trying to get out of poverty. Haugan and Boutros described the “Locus” as the destroyer, as it destroys food, farm work, and any effort for one to build a life free from violence, abuse, and inequities. There are many things Haugan and Boutros highlighted that we have spoken about in this class, including how violence destroys efforts for girls to get educated, and how violence, in terms of food security, starts wars and continues cycles of poverty.
Haugan and Boutros touched based on how violence takes away opportunities for girls to receive an education. In some developing countries, girls are fearful of leaving their homes because they are threatened by the violence surrounding them, where they face being raped, and having acid thrown at their faces. In some places, their tradition doesn’t allow for girls to receive an education, which stops many women from challenging the systems that fuels violence.
In “Secretary of
State, Clinton Goes the Distance for Women,” Hilary Clinton discusses how it is important that women get educated, as women are the key to achieve world peace. Political systems that allow women to participate produce more effective institutions and have greater economic prosperity, security, and peacefulness. Women are innately drawn to confronting injustices and fighting for the equality and peace of others. Ultimately, women seek to improve the lives of their loved ones and their living conditions. This is evident in many revolutions, such as the 2nd Civil Rights Movement in Liberia, where Leymah Gobee united Christian and Muslim women to force President Charles Taylor and the rebel forces to put an end to the war. Many of the victims of the war were women and their children, and Goboee was tired of the violence that their loved ones had to endure. In the end, these women brought great prosperity to their country as they put an end to the war, elected their first women president, and familiarized people with principals of peace and conflict. Along with this, Haugan and Boutros discussed the Maslow of Hierarchy relative to food security, where the locus effect destroys food and food work.
These food crises create poverty and hardship in developing countries and have even started wars. Clinton highlights how food security is human security. In fact, the ones most affected by food shortages are the farmers behind these markets. In “Now Our Children Will Eat,” Oxfam discusses how farmers struggle the most in food crises because they are heavily dependent on their farms to live. Their farms feed their families and provide the money for them to receive health care. Food crises such as with low crop yields or devastation to their crops threaten their security to live at peace. In these developing countries, farmers and their families are abused in this way and the locus effect insures that they remain impoverished and
undernourished.