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Despite progress, many challenges remain |
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On March 8, 2005 thousands of women around the world from different walks of life will celebrate International Women's Day (IWD). Since 1911, IWD has been used as a platform to bring pressing women's issues to the forefront of political arenas. Women and women's organizations use this special day to rally for important issues such as equal pay, childcare, safe working conditions and an end to all forms of discrimination against women. In 1977 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution inviting member states to proclaim a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace. International Women's Day would be observed on any day of the year in accordance with each country's historical and national traditions. The United Nations observes International Women's Day on March 8, and this year's theme is “Gender Equality 2005: Building a Secure Future” with particular emphasis on issues pertaining to development, human rights, security and disasters. This significant day is an occasion to review how far women have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. In recent decades, women worldwide have made progress in their struggle for access to education and health care and their participation in the paid labor force has certainly increased. Moreover, a growing number of women now participate in society as decision makers in hopes of affecting the outcome of policies that affect them as women. But despite this progress, women still have great lengths to go to claim equal rights and to have the same opportunities as men.
Women and basic
needs: The human right to water Women and basic needs: The human right to water “The state parties recognize…the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.” (International Covenant on the Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, Article 11) Water, an inalienable human right, is a common good for everyone to access. When water becomes a commodity, it is privatized and transferred to multinational companies for profit at the expense of people's livelihoods. It is estimated that 2.2 million people in developing countries are dying every year, most of them children, from diseases linked to the lack of access to clean drinking water, inadequate health and poor hygiene. More than half of the 1.2 billion people who do not have access to water are women and girls. Women particularly in Asia and Africa travel around 10-15 kilometers in order to transport as much as 15 to 20 liters of water. Moreover, women devote more than eight hours, a typical working day, just to transport water back to their homes. Women not only use water for domestic use, but also for vegetation to provide food for the family and for income generation. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have required the privatization of water services on several countries as a condition to grant them loans for “development.” In places such as Cochabamba, Bolivia, the privatization of water caused a 200 percent increase in rates. When water supply is suspended due to nonpayment, women begin to use contaminated water from rivers and streams. This puts them and their families at risk of serious illnesses. The privatization of a common good such as water puts more strain on families who must not only decide whether money should go for food, healthcare, or education, but now also for water. “State parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, the same rights.” (Article 11,Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women) Around the world, 1.3 billion people live in abject poverty and the majority of them are women. Women earn 30 to 40 percent less pay than men for the same work. Worldwide, women constitute 36 percent of the paid labor force and female-headed households are disproportionately represented among the poor and the informal sector. In 1994, the Rwandan genocide left 300,000 children orphaned. Nearly 60,000 of those children became the providers for their brothers and sisters, and two-thirds of the 60,000 child heads of households were young girls. Globalization has certainly contributed to the growing inequalities between rich and poor and hampered workers' rights in profound ways. Globalization is the process of investment and production dominated by agents that transcend national borders and do not have a country's national interest at stake. In the face of global competition, workers are expected to produce goods and provide services at faster rates without earning fair wages. Changes in the global economy has limited the number of living-wage jobs and reduced employment security. Women work in factories for long periods at a time and in hazardous conditions in order to meet the demands of their employers. Furthermore, workers today receive little or no protection from unemployment and can be fired from their jobs at any time, leaving the worker's family to suffer economically. The average weekly salary for a Mexican working in a plant, or maquiladora, on the U.S.-Mexican border is a mere $55.77. However, since the 1980s, corporate profits increased by 270 percent. Economic policies forced on developing countries by multinational institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund force women and girls to increase their paid and unpaid labor for the mere survival of their families. The lack of economic power for women has led to the sexual exploitation of women via prostitution and trafficking. Poverty is the most common cause for prostitution and female sex workers have a very high risk of contracting HIV and transmitting the virus to their unborn children. |
