Gender Equality

In Bangladesh, a single mother of five small children is denied the right to own the land on which she farms to provide for her family and extended community. She is unable to determine the most productive, sustainable crops which lead to the highest yield.

Women and girls living in the makeshift tent communities of a still-ravaged Haiti are helpless victims of robbery and rape. Their status as a persecuted gender prevents them from driving the rehabilitation of their destroyed country.

In rural Somalia, a female child’s access to education is severely limited. As a result she will have virtually no opportunities for economic advancement and will likely perpetuate the cycle of poverty she inherited from her mother and grandmother.

These are all examples of the negative impact that female inequality has upon sustainable development. Discrimination against women is more than a matter of basic human rights - it has economic ramifications on both sexes and consequences at an international level. Gender equality is recognized as a vital component for achieving social justice, physical well-being and environmental soundness. In 2002, the United Nations Millennium Project was convened in order to address the world’s escalating poverty, hunger and disease rates, and to realize the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Goal number three is the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women.

In the developing world, women are the primary providers for the family unit, yet they are hardly in control of the means to do so. When they are given authority over agriculture, and opportunities for running small local businesses such as microfinance enterprises, their productivity is returned to their communities, benefiting both women and men. Countries with governments where women are better represented have lower incidences of violent crimes against them, leading to more stable societies and greater security. When women have access to education, they tend to have fewer children later in life, leading to a more economically manageable domestic domain and less impact upon the environment. They also have greater access to health care and maternal medicine.

Women and girls constitute 60 percent of the world's impoverished population. This is owed in large part to the disparity of the female status in many societies. If this inequality can be corrected, many other equities will be within reach.

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/

http://www.unfpa.org/gender/

http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/index.htm