WUNRN
WOMEN & WATER - IMBALANCE OF
POWER, RIGHTS, EQUALITY
Women collecting water in
The grim reality of the global water crisis is that it disproportionately impacts on women. Primarily, it is women who manage water in the household; it is women who tend to crops, and it is women who have the main responsibility for raising children. Lack of access to water substantially increases the burden of their responsibilities.
The relatively low status of women in many societies and their lack of economic and cultural power may help to explain why issues of water access and sanitation do not enjoy the global profile that they deserve.
Women have often suffered disproportionately from the push to privatise water in the developing world. In many cases however they have also been at the forefront of successfully fighting back and developing workable, public approaches to meeting their communities' water and sanitation needs. It is time that international decision makers recognised that women as experts must be at the heart of developing and delivering solutions tothe global water crisis. ___________________________________________________
UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE RIGHT TO SAFE DRINKING WATER & SANITATION
Website: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/SRWaterIndex.aspx
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Direct Link to Full 66-Page 2012
UNICEF-WHO Report: