“The story of women and international development is a story of women organizing to challenge the development paradigm. Over fifty years, women have influenced development agencies to include women’s concerns, and formed a global social movement that has altered gender relations throughout the world. Today women are seeking political power to advance their claims for equity. To envisage the years to come, an historical perspective refreshingly underlines that tremendous progress has been attained for women’s rights and gender justice (although massive work remains to achieve full women’s empowerment). In developed countries a century ago, women could not vote and rarely worked beyond the home. Now they do both although globally gender gaps persist in earnings, household responsibilities, asset ownership and decision making. Going forward, countries most resistant to women filling citizen and economic roles will certainly continue to experience an erosion of traditional cultural and religious barriers to women’s empowerment in response to citizens’ bottom up organizing and government reforms.”
Извор: WUNRN – 12.06.2015
In Malakal, South Sudan, an HIV support network with around 150 members meet on a regular basis to talk about the challenges faced in accessing antiretroviral medicines. Photo: UNAIDS
10 June 2015 – Despite considerable advances made in the global response to the AIDS epidemic over the last several decades, young women and adolescent girls in Africa “are still being left behind,” according to a new joint report from the United Nations and the African Union.
In the sub-Saharan region, AIDS-related illnesses remain the leading cause of death among girls and women of reproductive age. In 2013, 74 per cent of new HIV infections among African adolescents were among adolescent girls, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said in a statement.
Young women and adolescent girls acquire HIV on average five to seven years earlier than young men, and in some countries in the region, HIV prevalence among this population can be as much as seven times that of their male counterparts.
“In the absence of a vaccine, ending gender-based violence, keeping girls in school and empowering young women and adolescent girls are the best options we have available,” Sheila Tlou, UNAIDS Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said.
By Kate Jere
Education is critical in empowering and transforming the lives of young people yet a new policy paper by the EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO and UNGEI argues that school-related gender-based violence is preventing millions of children, especially girls, from exercising their right to a safe and inclusive education of good quality.
School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) encompasses sexual, physical and psychological violence occurring at school and on the journey to and from school. It is violence that is perpetrated as a result of gender stereotyping, discriminatory practices and unequal gender relations. It includes explicit threats or acts of physical violence, bullying, verbal or sexual harassment, non-consensual touching, sexual coercion and assault, and rape. Corporal punishment and discipline in schools often manifest in highly gendered ways. And unprecedented access to information and communications technology has resulted in new forms of intimidation, cyberbullying and sexual harassment.
By Joann Vanek
Myths abound in the field of informal employment statistics—from ‘there are none’ to ‘they don’t tell us anything.’ Here are answers to some of the most common ones.
Myth #1: There are no statistics on the informal economy.
Statistics on the informal economy is a relatively new area for data collection by national statistical offices. But substantial progress has been made in the development of these statistics since 1993 when the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) recommended a statistical definition of the “informal sector,” and since 2003 when it added a statistical definition of “informal employment” covering employment both inside and outside the informal sector.
Increasingly, national statistical offices are including data collection on informal employment, so defined, in their labour force surveys and are doing so as an input to policy-making. Perhaps most noteworthy is Mexico’s release of information on informal employment and its contribution to the GDP on a routine basis as key economic indicators. In 2011, the International Labour Office (ILO) and WIEGO prepared a database on informal employment and employment in the informal sector with nearly 50 countries. Data on informal employment and the informal sector are also available from these and additional countries through national statistical offices. The ILO and WIEGO have jointly published two editions (2002 and 2013) of Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture, which report these statistics; and WIEGO has also published a working paper with updated regional averages.
