Over a billion people worldwide live on less than $1 a day, and the majority
of them are women. Consider these facts:
Women are the engines of the global economy:
- Women’s share of the labor force is increasing in almost all regions of
the world. Women comprise over 40% of the labor force in East and South-East
Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean, nearly a third of the labor force
in Central America, and nearly two-fifths of the labor force in South America.
About 250 million young women will enter the labor force worldwide between
2003 and 2015.
- Women farmers are responsible for half of the world’s food production and
produce 60 and 80 percent of the food in most developing countries.
- Women workers dominate several sectors of the global economy, most
prominently textiles and apparel. Women’s share of the textile and apparel
workforce is 89 percent in Cambodia, 82 percent in Sri Lanka, 73 percent in
Mauritius, and 50 percent in Nepal and Guatemala.
- Despite their contributions, women in developing countries face serious
challenges in just providing for basic necessities such as food and shelter
for themselves and their families.
- Nearly two thirds of the illiterate people around the world are women.
Girls account for nearly three-quarters of the 121 million children not
enrolled in primary school worldwide. Of those girls who do begin primary
school, only one in four is still in school four years later.
- One in three women worldwide will suffer from violence sometime in her
life: not only at home but also often at work.
- Almost half of the adults living with HIV and AIDS today are women. Over
the past two years, the number of women and girls infected with HIV has
increased in every region of the world, with rates rising particularly rapidly
in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America. In sub-Saharan Africa, women and
girls already make up almost 60% of adults living with HIV.
- Although African women produce 80 to 90 per cent of all food consumed by
their families and comprise 60 per cent of the agricultural labor force, they
receive less than 1 per cent of the total credit available to agriculture.
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