公众人物毕业演讲第33期:比尔盖茨夫妇于斯坦福大学(14)

 　　I knew that those sex workers I had met in the morning

　　我知道 白天我碰到的那些性工作者

　　could be the woman that I carried upstairs later that evening,

　　以后很有可能就会变成那天晚上我扶上楼的那位女性

　　unless we found a way to defy the stigma¹ that hung over their lives.

　　除非我们能够找到办法 为她们洗脱身上无法摆脱的污名

　　Over the past ten years, our Foundation has helped sex workers build support groups

　　过去十年来 我们基金会帮助性工作者建立起很多支持小组

　　so they could empower one another to speak up

　　让她们有能力相互鼓励 发出声音

　　and demand safe sex and that their clients use condoms.

　　要求安全的性交易 要求客人使用安全套

　　Their brave efforts have helped to keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers

　　她们的努力让性工作者的艾滋病发病率保持较低水平

　　and a lot of studies show

　　很多研究显示

　　that's the big reason why the AIDS epidemic² has not exploded in India.

　　这也正是艾滋病没有在印度大范围暴发的重要原因

　　When these sex workers gather together to help stop AIDS transmission,

　　性工作者们聚在一起帮助阻止艾滋病传播的同时

　　something unexpected and wonderful happened.

　　又发生了一件令人意想不到的奇妙事情

　　The community they formed became a platform for everything.

　　她们组成的群体为自身权益的伸张筑起了平台

　　Police and others who raped³ and robbed them

　　强奸 抢劫她们的警察和其他人

　　couldn't get away with it anymore.

　　不能再逍遥法外

　　The women set up systems to encourage savings⁴ for one another

　　这些女性组织起了一个鼓励大家存钱的体系

　　and with those savings, they were able to leave sex work.

　　通过这些存款 不少人得以脱离性工作

　　This was all done by people that society considered the lowest of the low.

　　这些都是被社会认为最下等的人们所做到的

1 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

2 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

3 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

4 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。