WUNRN
The Guardian
March 7, 2008
·
Systematic
discrimination to blame, says ActionAid.
· Inequality
will prevent UN hitting development goals.
Systematic
discrimination against girls and women in the world's poorest countries will prevent
the United Nations meeting its goals to reduce poverty, according to a report
published today by the charity network ActionAid. The report says gender
inequality must be put at the heart of the development agenda if those aims are
to be met.
ActionAid
said girls and women were more likely to be poor, hungry, illiterate or sick
than boys and men, and called on Britain and other governments to tackle the
disparities. Amid growing concern that the millennium development goals set by
the UN for 2015 will not be met, the charity said a focus on women was vital to
put the international community back on track.
Laura
Turquet, the Women's Rights Policy Officer of ActionAid, said: "Gordon
Brown announced that 2008 would be the year of action on world poverty. But
progress can only be accelerated if the world's governments tackle the real
reasons why women are being left behind."
The report
found that women and girls formed the majority of the poor and hungry, and, in
south Asia, women are getting a shrinking share of income as the economy
continues to grow. Ten million more girls than boys miss out on primary school,
while African women accounted for 75% of all young people living with HIV/Aids.
ActionAid
said the aim of universal primary education was being hampered in Africa by the
40bn hours spent by women and children collecting water each year -equivalent
to a year's labour for the entire workforce of France.
While it
praised Brown for putting development at the top of the political agenda, it
said the "critical link" between gender equality and poverty had been
lost, and leadership had been missing. "The prime minister's pledge to
help accelerate progress towards universal education will not be possible
unless the obstacles to girls' attendance are addressed. No 10's new
International Health Partnership can only be deemed successful if it has an
impact on the scandalous rates of maternal mortality and provides women with
access to the safe sexual and reproductive health services they are entitled
to."
Brown has
issued a "call for action" in 2008 to ensure the UN meets its 2015
goals of halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day,
cutting infant mortality by two-thirds, cutting maternal mortality by
three-quarters and putting every child in school.
A special
session of the UN will be held in September to discuss ways of making speedier
progress, with discussions centred on four areas: health and education; climate
change and the environment; the role of business; and trade and growth.
ActionAid
said discussions at the UN and at this year's meeting of the G8 industrial
nations in Japan would only succeed if they started with the recognition that
the "development emergency is first and foremost an emergency for women
and girls".
The report
added: "The disproportionate impact of poverty on girls is not an
accident, but the result of systematic discrimination." On current trends,
the goal of halving hunger would not be met until 2035, 40 countries would not
have equal enrolments for boys and girls until after 2025 and current progress
in cutting maternal mortality rates was less than one-fifth of what was needed
to meet the goal.
The total
number of HIV/Aids infections in 2007 was 33 million - the highest ever.
Turquet
said: "Getting the goals back on track is about more than governments
saving face. Fundamentally it is about women realising their basic human
rights. As the lack of progress on maternal health shows, people's lives are at
stake."
================================================================
To leave the list, send your request by email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com.
Thank you.