Goal for greater gender equality unlikely to be met: World Bank

SINGAPORE : The World Bank says the Millennium Development Goal for greater gender equality is unlikely to be met, even as more women across Asia migrate in search of work.

Across the region, female literacy and employment are on the way up, and World Bank studies also show that more women are migrating from rural areas to seek work in the cities.

In Vietnam for example, 1 million people migrate from rural to urban areas every year, and more than half of them are women.

Gillian Brown, Senior Gender Specialist, World Bank, said, "When men migrate, they tend to go in groups into construction industries. When women migrate, they tend to go into domestic service, or into the informal sector which is service provision. And they get very vulnerable, they are isolated, they're alone, …they are vulnerable to abuse, there are no labour contracts and things in that sector.

"Human trafficking is also very closely linked to labour migration...particularly if policies aren't in place, the traffickers...that gives them a huge area of scope to come in and provide service, and then from there it goes into nastier forms of trafficking, including children and into the sex industry."

The World Bank says it is working with governments to set policies that will create greater protection for women workers.

But the challenge is not just to fight gender discrimination in the economic sphere.

Ms Brown said, "The opportunities for young women are actually greater than for young men, leading to a lot of disenfranchised young men, and that can be a cause for some of the violence that is occurring against women. There have been studies which show that women who are breadwinners in their families might actually be more vulnerable to domestic violence."

Women's participation in politics, which the World Bank uses as one of the indicators of gender equality, has also been dismal in Asia.

Since the early 1990s, there has only been a 1.6 percent increase in the number of women sitting on national elected bodies and the World Bank says that more affirmative action ought to be considered by countries.

The promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women was made one of eight Millennia Development Goals by the UN General Assembly in 2000.

Some of the targets to be met include the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.

The targets were set after discussions with various bodies, including the World Bank and other international non-profit organisations (NGOs).

The World Bank says the Millennia Development Goal for gender equality is not likely to be met.

Hence, a new Gender Action Plan has been drafted and will be submitted to the World Bank Board for approval during the September meetings. 

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