>>Eric Schmidt: You spent a tremendous amount
in China, and I want to ask you about China
and then also the situation you see with women
and girls.
But you must be the most interesting expert
in the world on Deng Xiaoping because you
negotiated with him for years, and you were
recently at a remembrance for him and his
family and so forth.
And as we know, Deng Xiaoping is the architect
of modern China.
Tell us about that time.
Did you have any idea that China would become
what it is today?
>>President Jimmy Carter: Well, I don't think
either I or Deng Xiaoping knew what was going
to happen in the future, although he had dreams
of it.
The same week that we both announced that
we would normalize relations after 30 years
of estrangement, Deng Xiaoping announced reform
and opening up, and that's brought about incredible
changes in the life of 1.4 billion people
now all for the better, I think.
But Deng Xiaoping was a remarkable reformist,
and when he said reform and open it up, he
meant it.
So I go to China about once a year.
And this year happened to be the 65th year
of my first visit to China.
I was a young submarine officer in 1949 and
went up and down the coast just before the
communists took over, and it's also the 65th
year of the founding of the People's Republic
of China which happened on my 25th birthday.
So I'm 25 years older than the People's Republic
of China.
And it's the 110th anniversary of his birth,
and my 90th birthday, so we have a lot to
celebrate this time when go over there.
But Deng Xiaoping, when he became the leader
of China, which happened actually during the
year we were negotiating, 1978, he wanted
to bring about a lot of changes.
And he has totally transformed China internally
because it was completely oppressive then.
Nobody in China had liberty to go from one
village to another, nobody had a job, nobody
could keep a single dollar of outside income
except what the government gave them, and
now it's one of the thriving economies on
earth.
And at the final banquet that we had at the
White House, he said, "Mr. President, you've
done a lot with China.
What can I do for you?"
And when I was a little boy, the number one
heroes on earth were the Baptist missionaries
in China.
I gave five cents a week to build hospitals
and schools for little Chinese children.
And so I said, "Okay, you're a communist country.
You believe in atheism.
You don't permit religion at all.
You don't permit Bibles to be distributed.
You don't permit missionaries to come in.
I want you to change those three things."
And he was kind of taken aback.
And he said, "I'll have to let you know later
about that."
[ Laughter ]
So at this point he said, okay, we'll change
the law of China to permit freedom of worship,
and we'll permit Bibles to be distributed
this year.
I won't let missionaries come back in.
So he did that, and now China has the largest
Bible publishing company on earth.
It's the fastest growing Christian nation
in the world, it's now the third largest Christian
society on earth.
Soon it will be the second largest.
And of course China has now become a thriving
economy as well.
The third thing he asked me to do on a big
scale was to supervise the elections of village
leaders.
There are 650,000 villages in China, and about
two-thirds of the total people that lived
in China during the 12 years that they did
that live in little villages.
So we initiated and then revised so that all
of those little villages now for -- ever since
1982, have had absolutely free and fair and
open democratic elections.
Everybody in the village is registered to
vote when they're 18, they're expected to
vote, men and women.
They have a chance to serve for three years.
They don't have to be a communist.
They have absolutely secret ballot, and they
can run for reelection if they want to.
So the Carter Center had that major responsibility
for 12 years.
So I have seen good things happen in China,
although I know that there are many problems
now.
>>Eric Schmidt: So it's interesting that in
your post presidency, you focused on at least
two significant initiatives.
One is the question of honest elections.
>>President Jimmy Carter: Yes.
>>Eric Schmidt: And you have personally gone
to countries to watch and actually watch polling.
And again, we see from our earlier panels
some of the terrible things that happen to
people without honest brokers.
You have been an honest broker.
You've worked very, very hard to eradicate
Guinea worm from Africa and we're this close.
And what I would like to do is ask people
to get to the mics and start getting questions
from the audience, so could people go to this
mic and that mic.
But while they're gathering -- So the spotlight
is on.
While they're gathering, the question I would
ask you is you've now said, and said very
publicly, that you're going to devote the
rest of your life for the terrible -- address
the terrible things that you see happening
with women, women and girls in the world.
What was it that caused you to take this road?
You've always been a humanist.
You've always cared about this.
Was there some event?
Was there some new opportunity?
Was there some change in your view on how
society is willing to now engage on these
issues and address these horrific things?
>>President Jimmy Carter: You mentioned monitoring
elections.
The Carter Center started that initiatives.
We were the first ones that did that and now
a lot of other people do it.
But we've had programs in 80 countries in
the world, and Rose and I go to those countries.
35 of them are in Africa, and we work with
the poorest people and the most needy people
on earth.
And as we went from one country to another
and saw the plight of the poorest people,
we saw vividly and repeatedly that the ones
who suffer most are the women and girls.
And in Muslim countries, in Christian countries,
it doesn't matter what the religion is, there
is a persecution of women and girls.
If a family is poor, the boys get the privileges.
The boys get best things to eat.
The boys go to school.
The girls stay at home and that sort of thing.
And there's a horrible oppression that's not
unknown in this country and around the world,
and a lot of people deny it.
At this moment, there's 160 million girls
missing from the face of the earth.
Mostly from China and from -- and from India.
This is four times as many people as died
in the second world war.
160 million girls have been strangled by their
own parents at birth, or they have been aborted.
Now with the advent sonograms, when the parents
know this baby is going to be a girl, she's
aborted.
So that's going on.
That's the worst thing.
But the other thing is in countries that have
already been mentioned here is the genital
mutilation.
In Egypt and Sudan and so forth.
For instance, in Egypt, the mutilation of
girls' genitals is illegal, but in Egypt,
90% of all the living females have had their
genitals mutilated.
And in some countries, 97 or 98%.
In about third of the African countries, more
than 80%.
And another thing is the child marriage deal.
You've already heard about that.
I need not repeat it.
And honor killings is another thing, where
girls who are raped or girls who marry someone
who their fathers don't endorse are treated
as infidels and they're killed by their own
families.
And it's not just in this country -- It's
not just in other countries.
It's in this country as well.
For instance, Atlanta, Georgia, has the largest
and most busy airport on earth.
We have between 200 and 300 girls every month
who come into Atlanta and are sold into slavery,
mostly sexual slavery.
And the reason that happens in Atlanta is
we that have a lot of girls who come in whose
skin is brown or black from the southern hemisphere,
more than come in to Boston or New York or
Chicago or San Francisco.
And so a brothel owner can buy a girl with
brown skin or black skin for about a thousand
dollars.
And in Atlanta, Georgia, the New York Times
reported last March that the total income
from the sex business in Atlanta is $275 million
a year, which is more than twice as much as
the total drug income.
And every brothel, every whorehouse in America
is known by the public officials.
There's no police officer that walks up and
down the road or street and doesn't know that's
a brothel.
So he's either bribed or gets sexual favors.
Or his boss, and therefore the mayor and city
council, say let's don't rock the boat.
So sexual slavery is really bad in this country.
The Congress passed a law recently that told
the State Department every year you have to
make a full report on slavery around the world,
and the State Department estimates at this
moment, 60,000 people living in the United
States of America are living in slavery.
And this is -- And the other thing I'll mention,
just to be as brief as possible, is sexual
assaults.
And the two most precious institutions I would
say in America are our great university system
and our military.
And those are the two focal points for sexual
assault.
One girl out of five that goes to a university
is sexually assaulted or raped.
And very few of the deans or presidents of
universities want to admit that's happened
so it's covered up.
They don't want to admit it.
In fact, 41% of all the universities in America
have not reported a sexual assault case on
a campus in the last five years.
And it's even worse in the military.
There were revelations earlier this year by
the Congress that 24 million people suffer
in the military the year before last, that's
2012, from sexual assault.
And of those, only 3,000 were ever brought
to any kind of accusation or charge.
And that's about 1%.
So those things happen in America and around
the world and people don't want to admit it,
and I think it's the single worst unaddressed
human rights problem on earth.
And, yes, I'm going to spend the rest of my
time is the Carter center is going to Congress
straight on this as well as other human right
abuses.
>>Eric Schmidt: For good reason.
[ Applause ]
Rob, you want to go ahead?
Have our first question.
>>> Thanks, Eric.
Mr. President, Rob Glaser.
It's an honor to see you again.
You look great.
It's lovely to see you in such great shape.
I wanted to ask about another difficult topic,
the Middle East.
Clearly what President Obama is dealing with
is a wrenching decision on what to do specifically
in the horrible areas of the intersection
of Iraq and Syria and those butchers who call
themselves ISIS.
I'm curious if you have a perspective on what
you think the President should do that's either
similar to what he recently announced or in
a different direction.
>>President Jimmy Carter: Well, when President
Obama came into office, I was very pleased
because he went to -- as you know, he went
to Cairo and made a speech, and he made another
statement that the basis for peace in Israel,
and with Israel's neighbors, was the basic
things that all the countries in the world
agree to except Israel at that point, and
that is to withdraw to the 1967 borders with
minor modifications mutually negotiated.
And one of the primary goals in my life for
the last 35 years, and I would say the thing
that I have prayed most about in international
affairs is to bring peace to Israel.
And you have to do that, bring peace to the
neighbors of Israel, including the Palestinians
and others.
I was able to bring peace within Israel and
Egypt while I was in office, but the rest
of it has not been done.
And now we've kind of backed away from that,
and now it's in a stalemate and I'm afraid
it's going to stay that way for a while.
So I think the root cause of -- most of the
animosity against Americans among Islamic
countries or Arab countries is the Palestinian
problem which has to be resolved.
So the Carter Center doesn't get involved
in areas where the President is making a strong
move or where the United Nations is there,
but we have a full-time office in Jerusalem
and Ramallah and also in Gaza.
So we try to bring the people together and
work on that.
As far as ISIS is concerned, I think that
we have to address this issue strongly.
And I have been in favor of what President
Obama has said in recent months.
Unfortunately, I believe that President Obama
has a lot of persuasion to do to convince
the Arab countries and Islamic countries that
he is sincere about what he says.
And as you know, we don't have a single Arab
country at this point to say they're willing
to take a leadership role in dealing with
ISIS.
And that's because of the complex nature of
it and nobody wants to put boots on the ground,
so-called.
And also, a lot of the Muslims in Iraq and
other places look on ISIS as maybe better
than the treatment that they got from the
government of Iraq.
So I would say for us to reach out to our
neighbors and friends, to induce Saudi Arabia
and Qatar and others to support us and go
ahead and carry out President Obama's present
statement.
>>> Thank you.
>>Eric Schmidt: Thank you.
Go ahead.
>>> Good afternoon, President Carter.
You know about the save trade that's happening
here, so --
>>President Jimmy Carter: Yes.
>>> -- and you're a former president.
That means everybody should know about it.
Were are we going around to other countries
and trying to tell them what to do and we
have this happening in our own backyard and
we're acting like it doesn't happen.
The second part of my question, you're a former
farmer.
What is your take on GMOs?
>>President Jimmy Carter: My take on what?
>>Eric Schmidt: On GMOs.
>>> GMOS.
>>Eric Schmidt: Genetically modified organisms.
>>President Jimmy Carter: Slavery, which is
now called human trafficking, is greater at
this point in the world than slavery was in
the 17th and 18th and early 19th century.
The number -- The amount of money that's traded
back and forth now for human trafficking is
greater than it ever was in history.
And I've already mentioned that our country
is also guilty of being involved in slavery
trade.
And about 80% of all the people sold into
slavery against their will are women who wind
up in sexual slavery.
And so that's a very serious problem that
the world is trying to address.
But it's very difficult to get the U.S. Congress
to take on that issue and admit that we have
a problem in this country.
And the only thing that's been done so far
is that the Congress has mandated the State
Department to make a statement.
And now the State Department of the United
States grades every country on how much they're
doing to resolve or take care of the slavery
trade.
And I would say it's very slight.
Other countries --
>>> (Off microphone).
>>President Jimmy Carter: Like what?
>>> Ain't that like the wolf guarding the
hen house?
>>President Jimmy Carter: We're not by far
the worst country on earth, but we set an
example and if we don't take care of it here,
other countries say we can get away with it
as well.
But there's an international law on this that
gives teeth to a country that condemns it.
And we have not been willing yet at the Congress
level to pass the law that would give us an
ability to put economic sanctions and pressure
on countries that are still conducting the
slavery trade.
And the other question you had was what?
>>Eric Schmidt: Your opinion about genetically
modified -- basically genetically modified
food.
>>President Jimmy Carter: I've read a lot
of op ed pieces in my life.
The most controversial op ed piece I ever
read was about genetically modified organisms,
and I think that's one of the best things
that happened to the world, is the development
of genetically modified organisms.
I still am a farmer, by the way.
We have about 3200 acres of land.
About 1800 acres of that is in trees, but
the rest of it is cultivated.
And every crop planted on our farm is genetically
modified to make sure that it can be more
productive and that we don't have to use as
many poisons to kill the insects.
For instance, we used to poison our cotton
20 times during the growth of a cotton crop
with the most virulent poison permitted by
the Department of Agriculture.
And now the GMO cotton seed have built into
it a repellent to the boll worms and boll
weevils so we don't have to poison them anymore.
So now we grow cotton without poison at all.
And as you know, there's another thing that
lets you control weeds in crops, and we don't
have to plow peanuts like we used to because
we can spray the peanuts and then they don't
die.
So these are the kind of things that are done.
And I think the sense that the world is facing
a problem with increased production of food
to match the increased growth in population,
I think the GMOs should be permitted all over
the world and not discouraged.
But anything that's grown with GMOs ought
to be clearly labeled so that people who are
against GMOs can buy food that's not genetically
modified.
>>Eric Schmidt: Let's have our next question.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>>> Well, first off, my grandfather is actually
a farmer, and he would be applauding.
Unfortunately, he passed but he would be very
grateful for the comment about GMO.
I'm from the global south where without them,
people would be -- there would be starvation
would be a lot more prevalent in certain areas.
>>President Jimmy Carter: Right.
>>> I'm here to ask you about election monitoring.
And specifically, in 2004, you came to Venezuela,
where I'm from, to monitor the election.
You left within 24 hours of the election results
having been given.
It was a disaster for Venezuela.
We've lived with the fact that you called
it the most -- the best electoral system in
the world.
Since then, the government, which can only
be called dictatorial, has pointed to that
electoral system every time and said, "President
Carter called it the best in the world."
And with that, they have justified what now
has been, since then, ten years of a country
with no rule of law, lack of civil liberties,
more dead from crime than had been in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict since '48, yet
it's not a big issue.
What do you have to say to those of us who
put our trust in you and yet in that election
you left within 24 hours.
I understand it was Mrs. Carter's birthday,
but it was a disaster for us.
%%%Jen5start.
>>President Jimmy Carter: Well, The Carter
Center has been in the leadership role in
developing the techniques and systems for
monitoring elections, and we are still in
the leadership role in that on a worldwide
basis.
The Carter Center has now faced -- monitoring
very closely 98 different elections, and four
of them were in Venezuela.
I have been there for three of those.
And in my opinion, all four of those accurately
represented the will of the people who voted.
Let me go further.
Venezuela does have the best electoral system
on earth as far as the voting procedure is
concerned.
Everybody goes in, you touch a screen, and
you vote automatically.
And then in addition to that, you fill out
a paper ballot and you put the paper ballot
after you make sure it is the same as the
screen in the box.
And then those paper ballots can be counted
later on, and they are counted in Venezuela,
to make sure that a representative sample
match the screen.
So that the voting procedure in Venezuela
is very good.
But there are some very serious problems with
the Venezuela election, which we point out
very clearly.
One is that the incumbent government always
uses the power of the government for their
own advantage.
The last two elections, Venezuela has not
let The Carter Center come in.
They have refused to let us come in and monitor
the elections.
So I don't think there is any doubt that what
we have reported on every election that we've
monitored in Venezuela has been 100% correct.
>>> (Speaker off microphone.)
-- subject, sir.
>>President Jimmy Carter: I understand that.
>>> A good technical analysis of it has shown
different.
What we do ask is if you -- in March, you
declared that you may be coming back to Venezuela.
Many of us will respectfully ask you not to
come.
>>President Jimmy Carter: Well, If I get ready
to go to Venezuela, I'll go.
[ Applause ]
>>Eric Schmidt: Okay.
I think the audience -- Mr. President, the
audience has spoken on this, and I think you
should go.
Let's have you have the final question, and
I will have a summary.
>>> As the granddaughter of the person who
founded the organic movement in America, I
would like to ask you about GMOs.
But I'm not going to ask you that.
What I really want to know is, you know, violence
against women is such a global problem.
What do you think is the root cause of it?
>>President Jimmy Carter: The title of my
book has the four things that are listed:
Religion, violence -- women, religion, violence,
and power.
And I would say one of the basic causes of
the violence against women is the misinterpretation
of the holy scriptures by Christians and also
by Islamic faith, Muslims.
And the fact is that the -- I'm a Christian.
The fact is that Jesus Christ -- I believe
there is not a single verse in the Bible out
of 34 000 verses that would insinuate that
Jesus didn't treat women at least as good
as men and sometimes in an exalted position.
But you can go through the Bible, and you
can find elements in Genesis where Eve was
the one who tempted her husband.
And she's looked upon as inferior to her husband
and so forth.
And the misinterpretation of the scriptures
is a very serious problem.
Paul said that in the eyes of God, there is
no difference between a slave and a master.
There's no difference between a Jew and a
Gentile.
There is no difference between a man and woman.
All are equal in the eyes of God.
In the 16th chapter of Romans, Paul wrote
-- 16th chapter of Acts, Paul wrote and listed
25 people who had been heros in the early
church.
About half of them are women.
So there is no doubt in my mind that in the
Christian faith, women should be treated equally.
But the Southern Baptist Convention, for instance,
from which I withdrew in 2000, 14 years ago,
they ordained that a woman was not equal to
men, that a woman couldn't serve as a deacon
or a pastor or a chaplain and a woman couldn't
teach a classroom of students if there was
a man -- a boy in the classroom among the
students.
So Rose and I withdrew from the Southern Baptist
Convention.
And I have also criticized the Catholic church
in this area because the Catholic church also
ordains that a woman can't be a deacon, can't
be a priest.
I think women ought to be treated completely
equal in all faiths.
And in Islamic faith, I would say it has a
lot -- overwhelmingly, the Koran equates men
and women and very consistently.
And one of our best allies in this entire
global effort now is the Grand Imam of al-Azhar.
He is the leading Muslim in the world philosophically
and theologically.
And he's also the president of al-Azhar University
that has 120,000 students.
And he works very closely to us to point out
that the Koran endorses equality between men
and women.
So that's one of the problems.
Another one is violence, and we don't -- the
laws of the United States and the laws around
the world don't punish men who take advantage
of women in various ways of life.
I don't have time to enumerate all of them,
but spousal abuse and things of that kind.
And I would say power -- women are deprived
of a right to have equal roles in government
and in business and commerce.
Of fortune 500, for instance, 22 of those
500 have a woman chief executive officer and
they are paid a lot less than the chief executive
officers of the rest of them.
And in the United States, on average a woman
who does the same job and the same number
of hours as a man gets paid 23% less than
a man does.
And so here you have this same problem all
over the world.
So in almost every aspect of power and violence
and religion, women are denigrated and treated
as secondary citizens.
And this brings about horrendous punishment
for women.
In fact, the reason that the parents strangle
their baby girls is because in India and in
China they ordain one is best, two is most.
And, otherwise, the parents are very poor
in other countries and they don't want to
have girl babies if they can only support
a couple of babies.
They just want boys.
I think that they are making a mistake.
I think in their old age, because they don't
have Social Security, they will be much better
off to have a daughter --
[ Laughter ]
-- caring for them than a man particularly
if the daughter is given a right to get education
when she's young.
And that's another area that's going to take
a long time.
I hope The Carter Center and all of you here
and the Congress of the United States and
the United Nations will join in this fight
to make darn sure that we stop the horrible,
unspeakable, unacknowledged -- unaddressed
abuse of women and girls.
I think it is the most serious problem the
world faces.
>>Eric Schmidt: Each of you -- each of you
has a copy of the President's book.
This book is remarkable.
The case is so profoundly clear.
The numbers are here.
The facts are clear.
What I particularly like about you as sort
of a great American is that you have maintained
your personal values, the values that you
grew up with, literally plains Georgia, all
the way through the presidency, all the way
across the globe, and even here on the stage.
You are a truly great American, Mr. President.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
