Women make up half of the world's population and yet represent a staggering 70% of the world's poor. For the millions of women living in poverty, their lives are a litany of injustice, discrimination and obstacles that get in the way of achieving their basic needs of good health, safe childbirth, education and employment. Overcoming these inequalities and ensuring that women benefit from development requires that the needs and desires of women are not only taken into account, but be put front and centre.
We live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death. From poor education to poor nutrition to vulnerable and low pay employment, the sequence of discrimination that a woman may suffer during her entire life is unacceptable but all too common. What does this look like throughout a woman's life?
As a baby born into poverty, she might be abandoned and left to die, through the practice of female infanticide. Worldwide, there are 32 million 'missing women'. During her childhood, her proper feeding and nutrition may be neglected out of family favouring of male children.
As a girl or woman she may be a victim of female genital mutilation and cutting. 100 to 140 million girls and women around the world have undergone genital mutilation, including 6.5 million in Western countries. Embedded in cultural norms, this act is often carried out with the consent of mothers, in conditions that lead to lifelong pain, infection and premature death. As an adolescent she may be required to have an early marriage.. and young pregnancy puts girls at risk of maternal deaths.
"a mother dies every minute"
At child-bearing age, she could die from haemorrhaging during childbirth, one of the most common causes of maternal mortality for anaemic or undernourished pregnant women. Of the 500,000 women who die in childbirth every year, 99% live in developing countries. In other words, in developing countries, a girl or a woman dies every minute in giving birth.
At working age, she does not have the same job opportunities and receives less pay for the same work.
Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, but earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than one percent of the world's property. On average, women earn half of what men earn.
Informal employment is a greater source of employment for women than for men. The reality of the informal economy for women is more stark. While it can offer life-changing opportunities to earn money, the low pay and lack of social protection makes women vulnerable and open to exploitation.
Over her lifetime, she may suffer unimaginable violence and neglect, often in silence. Three million women die each year because of gender-based violence, and four million girls and women a year are sold into prostitution. One woman in five is a victim of rape or attempted rape during her lifetime. Gender-based violence takes more of a toll on women's health than that of traffic accidents and malaria combined.
As a woman living in poverty, she represents the majority of the world's poor. Women make up 70% of the world's one billion poorest people.
These stark inequalities happen everyday, everywhere around the world, yet despite the clear message that figures send, progress towards gender equity in development is deplorably slow and the obstacles of political indifference are nearly overwhelming. In the 2005 Massey Lectures, speaking on his role as UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis argued that,
"The atmosphere of benign neglect, compounded by the rooted gender inequality, all adds up to a death sentence for countless millions of women in the developing world. For whatever reason, we can't break the monolith of indifference and paralysis."
In many societies, women struggle with exercising their human rights, fulfilling their basic needs and participating in decision-making. Such disadvantage is both ubiquitous and historical amongst the world's poor. Modern societies have developed on unequal foundations of legal frameworks and economic structures that undervalue women, label them as 'caregivers' and fail to recognize them as fundamental participants of a healthy society. The efforts in recent decades to address these inequities have been met by astonishing lack of support, to the point at which Lewis has also argued that,
"There is no greater emblem of international hypocrisy than the promise of women's rights."
The education of girls has been shown enhance maternal and child nutrition and lower mortality rates, inhibit the spread of fatal diseases like HIV/AIDS, and reduce birth rates. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, girls do not attend school because of reasons as simple as lack of decent sanitation facilities or the need to spend hours each day collecting water.
Women and the MDGs
Gender issues are addressed specifically in three MDGs, designed and adhered to by the United Nations and UNIFEM:
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger.
Target: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women.
MDG 3: Promote gender equality + empower women
Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, by 2015.
MDG 5: Improve maternal health.
Target: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
Target: Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health."
Gender inequality has a much greater impact than these explicit MDGs. Gender dynamics underpin all of the MDGs, and to make progress, we need specific gender-sensitive policies and action across the entire project.
Women deserve equal opportunities, equal access to resources and services, and equal voice in decisions that affect them.
Yet not only is this a human rights issue. Societies that discriminate on the basis of gender pay the cost of greater poverty, slower economic growth, weaker governance, and a lower living standard of their people. It is crucial to address women's poverty and inequality because of the potential role women can play in turning poverty on its head.
Girls can change the world
The video looks at the social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society. They argue that adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in the developing world, but are often invisible to their societies and to our media. Check it out.
Yet despite this inspirational insight into the realities of poverty and development, the Girl Effect's youtube video is littered with calls of "the girl effect is sexist" and "far-fetched" and comments like "This video is wrong. No one can give it to them. If women want it, let them? take it." It is a chilling demonstration of the callous ignorance of the state of women in the developed world.
What can we do?
Educate girls
Currently, 50 million of the 72 million children currently not enrolled in primary school are girls, and two thirds of the nearly 800 million adults who lack basic literacy skills are women. The impact of educating girls is much greater than the individual. It enables women to have a greater impact on reducing poverty in their communities, as within most communities, women are responsible for providing food, health care and education of their families.
Educating girls creates a mutually reinforcing effect of multiple benefits, such as:
• Reducing women's fertility rates: educated girls have fewer children.
• Lowering infant and child mortality rates: educated girls are better able to care for their children.
• Lowering maternal mortality rates: educated girls have better access to health care and information
• Protecting against HIV/AIDS infection: educated girls practice safer sex.
• Increasing women's labor force participation rates and earnings: educated girls have better access to jobs.
• Creating intergenerational education benefits: educated girls are more likely to send their children to school.
Micro-credit and income generation
For many women, micro credit loans represent their first opportunity to handle money. In Bangladesh, researchers have found that having access to small loans has increased women's mobility, ability to make financial decision and political and legal awareness. Of the 100 million poorest clients of microfinance programs, over 80% are women.
Gender mainstreaming
This is about thinking about women (as well as men) at every step. If you build a community centre, are there suitable toilets for women? If you hold a meeting, is it at a time women can attend? If you invest in infrastructure, does it address the specific needs of women? For every dollar that is spent, how much of it benefits women? Due to the bias towards men in development programming, if gender issues are not addressed specifically, they tend to be left by the wayside by default.
Real change is possible when women are supported with the resources and political committment that has been promised to them by the international community for decades. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan argues that:
“there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, or to reduce infant and maternal mortality. No other policy is as sure to improve nutrition and promote health - including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as powerful in increasing the chances of education for the next generation. And I would also venture that no policy is more important in preventing conflict, or in achieving reconciliation after a conflict has ended.”
Achievements
Girls’ enrolment ratios in primary and secondary schools have significantly increased in recent years. One of the most noticeable improvements in women’s enrolment can be seen at the tertiary level, where men’s dominance has been reversed globally and gender disparities now favour women, except in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern and Western Asia.
Microfinance programs have provided women around the world with income-generating opportunities. Enhancing women's access, control and ownership of resources increases their participation in decision-making at the household and community levels and strengthens their social and political leadership opportunities.
With the help of quotas and special measures, women are slowly gaining more political power. Between 1995 and 2010, the share of women in parliament, on a global level, increased from 11 per cent to 19 per cent. However, this percentage still falls far short of gender parity.
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger.
MDG 3: Promote gender equality + empower women
