HOME

REMAINING GAPS AND CHALLENGES PRESENTED AT THE 10^TH COMMEMORATION OF THE 4TH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN, BEIJING, CHINA

Women and Decision Making

Progress has been slow and uneven across countries and regions.  Women continue to be underrepresented at every level of government, especially in ministerial and other executive and legislative bodies, which is not conducive to reflect the needs of women and supporting their rights.

More attention needs also to be paid to ensure that women members of parliaments have an impact on policy decisions.  Women are often found at the bottom of legislative hierarchies or assigned to “soft” areas, including family, welfare and culture.

While almost all countries in the world now grant to both women and men the right to vote and be elected, women continue to experience difficulties in exercising this right.

While there remain legal obstacles to women’s access to and participation in power an decision making, in many instances, customs, traditions and stereotypes, embedded in daily routines or codified in laws, constitute the major source of resistance.  The promotion of women’s full participation therefore requires not only improving access mechanisms, but also complementary measures to change people’s perceptions on women’s roles as leaders.

Coverage and public awareness of women’s issues and the activities of female leaders need to be improved.

There is a need to improve transparency, accountability and monitoring to ensure gender balance and equal participation in decision-making and management.

More research is needed on the socio-economic factors that hinder women’s participation in decision-making and management, including poverty, limited access to education, the dual burden of domestic and productive labor.

Women and Economic Empowerment

While many actions are taken to ensure women’s equal access to employment and to support women entrepreneurs, less attention is paid to women’s participation in economic policy and decision-making.  Gender stereotypes still prevent women from reaching senior positions in the private sector and government.

Despite the increases of women in labor force participation and share in paid employment, women are still over represented among the poor and the poorest in both developing and developed countries.   In many countries of the world, “Decent Work” – work undertaken in conditions of freedom, equity and human dignity – is in short supply and this disproportionately affects women. 

Women lag behind men with regard to access to quality employment and income, as well as representation through workers’ organizations.

Globalization has created new opportunities for growth and employment but also challenges and problems such as job displacement and job loss.  From a gender perspective the impact of globalization on employment patterns is rather complex.  Enterprises move around the world, relocating their production sites, seeking cheaper and more efficient suppliers, and frequently outsourcing work outside home countries, typically from industrialized to developing countries.  This can improve or depress the level of working conditions.

An important impact of globalization on women’s employment is the increasing number of migrant women.  Whereas men migrate for a variety of jobs, women are disproportionately concentrated in a limited number of occupations which are frequently associated with traditional gender roles and/or with low-skills, low-pay, less-security and higher vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.

Women’s greater access to jobs has not led to a significant reduction of the gender gap in earnings.  Traditional discrimination against women’s access to wage employment may have been replaced in some instances by an active preference for women.  But this preference is usually based on women’s acceptance of unskilled jobs, low pay and their perceived docility and lack of defending their rights.

An Analysis of employment by three indicators – status, sector and wage/learnings- shows that women are less likely than men to be in regular wage and salaried employment, and that the female contribution to household work exceeds the male contribution in almost all economies where data are available.  Additionally, women are more likely to earn less than men for the same type of work, even in so-called traditionally female occupations.  Women are also more likely to be found working in the informal economy than men with less social security.

The critical role of unpaid work, largely done by women, continues to go unrecognized.  Macro-economic indicators consistently fail to capture the “care economy” as fundamental to economic outcomes.  This lack of recognition of the contribution of household work to national economic outcomes has resulted in little change in the corresponding economic and social policies for care work being promoted.

In a nutshell, certain categories of women are especially vulnerable to inequalities in the world of work.  Amongst these are rural women, those working in the informal economy, migrant women, the young, the elderly, and the disabled.  At both ends of the spectrum, the young and the elderly face particular disadvantages. Girls are more likely than boys to be victims of the worst forms of child labor.  Young women tend to have higher unemployment rates than their male counterparts.  The HIV/AIDS pandemic and situations of crisis have also increased women’s vulnerability to poverty given their limited access to social protection and economic security.  Older women, particularly in developing countries, face continued discrimination in the world of work and often have to assume care-giving responsibilities within their families in addition to their work outside the home.

Women and Poverty Eradication

Data, gender analysis and gender mainstreaming

There is a need fro a more systematic integration of gender perspectives into national poverty reduction policy frameworks and more effective implementation.

The absence of timely, reliable, sex disaggregated data that capture the multidimensional nature of poverty and deprivation continues to hamper gender analysis, gender-sensitive policy formulation and monitoring.

Financial constraints and capacity gaps related to the production/dissemination of gender disaggregated data and the conduct of gender analysis and gender mainstreaming need to be addressed.

Gender equality and women’s economic empowerment

Despite progress, women continue to face discrimination in the labor market, including the persistent gender wage gaps well as unequal access to productive resources, capital and training.

Progress in legislative and institutional changes regarding women’s access to land as well as inheritance and ownership rights is slow.  Improving rural women’s access to and control over land, especially agricultural land, remains a key challenge for poverty reduction in many countries.

In many countries, there is a significant gap between the recognition of gender equality in national constitutions/laws/regulations and actual practices which continue to be influenced by customary laws, traditional social and cultural attitudes and norms.

Globalization, liberalization and privatization

While globalization has brought greater economic opportunities and autonomy to some women, many others have been marginalized and deprived of the benefits of this process, owing to deepening inequalities among and within countries.

In many countries, globalization has intensified the problem of women’s unpaid work in the caring economy and undermined the livelihoods of poor rural and urban women, including migrant and disabled women.

Promoting women’s access to decent jobs remains an important challenge for poverty reduction.  Much of women’s work in the global chains is excluded from the scope of social protection and fair remuneration.

Rural women, especially in developing countries, continue to be disproportionately affected by the privatization of resources and services, trade liberalization, and commercialization of agriculture.

There is a need to further acknowledge, assess and monitor the impacts of globalization/trade liberalization and privatization policies, on the feminization of poverty, in particular, on women’s health and employment.

Cuts in government spending on basic social services have had a negative impact on the effort to eliminate poverty.

Financial constraints

In many poor countries, especially the least developed countries; efforts to address the needs and efforts of women in poverty are severely undermined due to their dependence on external assistance and debt cancellation.  Public expenditure on debt servicing is often much higher than expenditure for social services.

Women’s Human Rights and the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Social and cultural patterns of behavior limit women and girls’ access to their rights and perpetuate stereotypical views on women, placing them in positions inferior to men.  For example, social stigma makes women reluctant to report violence.

There is a lack of specific legislation on VAW as well as enforcement and implementation of existing laws due to gender-biased law enforcement systems.

Women’s subordinate role to men, including economic and financial dependence on their male partners, is a challenge for effective eradication of domestic violence.

The compounding effect of multiple factors such as race, ethnicity, religion, ability, age, sexual orientation and violence perpetuated discrimination against women and hindered their equal access to education, employment, health care and justice.  Limited financial, human and technical; resources are further constraints to the realization of equality.

There is a lack of reliable and comparable sex disaggregated statistical data and information, compounded by insufficient research and studies.

Implementation and monitoring mechanisms at national and local levels are not sufficient to track the protection of women and girls’ human rights.

Women and HIV/AIDS

The epidemic affects men and women in different ways.  AIDS responses that focus on changing behavior do not always work for women and many even place them at greater risks to HIV infection.

Most women do not knowingly take risks.  They are vulnerable to HIV largely due to the behavior of others.  Women may be forced into sex through peer pressure, by sexually experienced older men, or because they have no alternative means of supporting themselves.  Because of their lack of social and economic power, and the widespread sexual violence, many women and girls are unable to negotiate relationships based on abstinence and faithfulness.  Abstaining from sex until marriage and being faithful only works if both partners follow the same principles.   Marriage is, thus, no guarantee against HIV.  Inadequate access to information about HIV and prevention and treatment services further accentuate women’s vulnerability to HIV.

Lack of resources and access to care are some of the key challenges in the response to HIV/AIDS among women.  Other obstacles include harmful traditional practices, stigma, women’s illiteracy, poverty and dependence, mass movement of people and substance abuse.

In order to address the challenges associated with the special vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS, a number of key actions are needed:

Prevention: Ensure that adolescent girls and women have the knowledge and means to prevent HIV infection.

            Treatment: Ensure equal and universal access to treatment

Care giving: Recognize and support home-based caregivers of AIDS patients and orphans

            Education: Promote girls’ primary and secondary education and women’s literacy

Violence: Promote zero tolerance of all forms of violence against women and girls

            Women’s Rights: Promote and protect the human rights of women and girls

            Empowerment: Support positive women and their organizations and networks

Women and Sustainable Development

There are gender biases in the attitudes and behavior of teachers, parents and society at large as well as stereotyping in textbooks and curricula.

The unequal allocation of resources, work and opportunities and unequal decision-making power at various levels including the family, enduring stereotypes, the global HIV/AIDS scourge, armed conflict, child labor and hidden domestic labor as well as various forms of disability all play a part in curtailing girl’s right to education.

            Environment

Despite improvement of environment quality, women are severely affected by environmental degradation, particularly chemical contamination, water and fuel scarcity, and indoor air pollution.  Women are most vulnerable to natural disasters.

Women’s role as managers or problem solvers was overlooked and policy solutions consider them as passive beneficiaries.  Often, women were not involved in the analysis of the problem, or in its solution.

Despite progress, women still remain largely absent at all levels of policy formulation and decision-making in natural resource and environmental management, conservation, protection and rehabilitation.

It remains a challenge to control infections diseases, specifically tuberculosis and malaria.

Other major obstacles noted were lack of political will and commitment: lack of gender specialist resources; lack of research on gender and environment; lack of financial resources for environmental issues in general and gender-sensitive activities in particular; and lack of sex-disaggregated data in areas such as water, energy and natural resources management.

Health

In sufficient sex-disaggregated data, incomplete or non-existent health statistics, lack of gender indicators were regarded as a main challenge.

It was reported that there was a tendency to limit women’s health policies to their reproductive roles and to neglect other priority issues for women’s health.

Insufficient funding constraints both health services for women and gender sensitive health policies. 

Early Marriage, lack of information, poor reproductive health education and the absence of policies on adolescent reproductive health keep teenage pregnancy rates high.

Difference within countries in access to maternal health care, malnutrition among women, various environmental health challenges, and the health needs of vulnerable groups remain gaps in the achievement of women’s health.