UNICEF Calls for Greater Investment in Women’s Equality

Dec. 11, 2006—“Healthy, educated and empowered women” are the key to improving children’s lives and advancing development, writes UNICEF in its annual State of the World’s Children Report, released Dec. 11.

Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence that investing in women and girls pays huge dividends for the well-being of families and nations, “gender discrimination remains pervasive in every region of the world,” the study details.

Women and girls face tremendous barriers throughout their lives because of discrimination that extends from birth until old age:

• A cultural preference for sons over daughters, most notably in China and India, leads to infanticide of girls.

• Girls are the majority of school-aged children not in primary school. Only 43 percent of girls in the developing world attend secondary school

• Violence against women and girls is widespread. Female genital mutilation/cutting has been inflicted on more than 130 million women and girls, mostly in certain communities of Africa and the Middle East.

• An estimated 14 million adolescents between 15 and 19 give birth each year due to child marriage and other reasons, increasing maternal and child mortality.

• Nearly half of the 39 million people living with HIV are women. In some countries of Africa and the Caribbean, young women are up to six times more likely to be infected than young men.

• Women are roughly 40 percent of the world’s paid workforce, but their earned income lags behind men’s. Women’s earnings are 30 percent of men’s in the Middle East and North Africa, 40 percent in Latin America and South Asia, 50 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 60 percent in industrialized nations including the United States.

  About 1 out of 5 girls does not finish her primary education in developing countries

• Women hold just under 17 percent of parliamentary seats worldwide. At the current rate of increase, women would not achieve 50 percent representation until the year 2068.

Efforts to combat these disparities “will produce a double dividend,” according to UNICEF, “fulfilling the rights of women and going a long way towards realizing those of children as well.”

Despite the enormous challenges, solutions are within reach. UNICEF argues that successful efforts should include programs, policies and funding that:

• Ensure that girls and boys have equal educational opportunities;

• Focus additional resources specifically on achieving gender equality;

• Level the playing field in national legislation and encourage women’s participation in politics;

• Foster women’s organizations and leadership; and

• Engage men and boys.

“For women, men and for children, the time to refocus our efforts in now,” the report states.

Learn more about CEDPA’s efforts to advance the lives of women and girls to strengthen families, communities and nations.

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