International Women's Day, 8 March 2007

Eilidh Whiteford, Campaigns Manager of Oxfam in Scotland, celebrates International Women's Day

• Posted on Mar 8, 2007

Celebrations taking place all over the world to mark International Women’s Day will acknowledge a century of progress and setbacks in the struggle towards equality for women and men. This annual celebration provides a good moment to take stock of the current position of women in the world today. The picture that emerges is one of deep poverty and inequality, underpinned by a systematic denial of women’s human rights on a global scale. In 2007 the world is still very ill divided, with inequality between women and men cutting across and compounding other forms of inequality and exclusion.

Of the 1.3 billion people worldwide living on less than one dollar a day, a massive seventy per cent are women and girls. This feminisation of extreme poverty is possibly the starkest example of how gender inequality undermines human rights in the contemporary world. The uneven distribution of food, water and shelter, the basic essentials of life, says as much about inequalities within societies as inequalities between them. According to the UN, globally women put in two-thirds of the world’s working hours and produce half its food, yet earn only ten per cent of income and own only one per cent of property. One woman in three will experience gender-based violence during her lifetime.

Access to essential public services like basic education and healthcare is another key area in which women’s human rights are being denied on a global scale. Around sixty per cent of the 80 million children missing from primary schools today are girls, with the proportion of girls in secondary and tertiary education even lower. Two-thirds of adults who cannot read and write are women, with adverse knock-on impacts on their life opportunities, health and incomes. Every minute of every day a woman dies as a result of pregnancy or childbirth. The vast majority of these deaths could be prevented through relatively simple medical interventions, but too many women can’t afford to pay for treatment or live too far from clinics to access services.

This sobering picture of women’s lives in the 21st century demonstrates why equal rights for women need to be at the heart of the global campaign to end poverty. We know from experience here and in other parts of the world that universal access to education and health care can transform societies and deliver sustainable improvements in people’s lives. Yet progress is painfully slow. The Millennium Development Goals, internationally agreed poverty reduction targets, are well off track, while the economic pressures of globalisation are increasingly and disproportionately falling on the low-paid and exploited women agricultural and textile workers at the end of global supply chains.

Women have plenty to say about this state of affairs, but in many parts of the world struggle to make their voices heard. The under-representation of women in public life, and the restrictions placed on their participation in collective associations such as Trade Unions inhibit their participation in decisions that affect them. Worldwide, a mere 16% of elected parliamentary representatives are women, with far fewer in ministerial roles. This democratic deficit afflicts wealthy and poor countries alike. Here in Scotland we have no room for complacency: a paltry 15% of our MPs are women, only 39% of MSPs, and 22% of local councillors. The lack of visible participation of women in the political sphere all over the world compounds discrimination, and exacerbates existing inequalities that deprive women of their rights.

As hundreds of events take place today around the world, women involved in the international whiteband campaign, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty are making their voices heard. In Nepal ten million signatures have been collected to demand proportionate representation of women in upcoming elections. In India women are demanding their rights to decent work, to healthcare and education. In Peru events have been organised to challenge violence against women and economic exclusion. Closer to home, women throughout Scotland will be coming together to demand an end to the shameful gender pay gap that persists more than twenty years after the introduction of legislation to ensure equality in the workplace.

There is plenty evidence from around the world, including Western Europe, to demonstrate that poverty reduction can be achieved through the provision of decent public services and the availability of decent work. At present women are significantly disadvantaged on both these fronts, to the detriment of society as a whole. Our efforts to tackle poverty need to prioritise women and girls in order to create any kind of meaningful equality. Programmes to tackle poverty that ignore the existing gender gap in incomes, health, education and decision-making risk reinforcing those inequalities and deepening the gulf between women and men. As we stand up and speak out on International Women’s Day, let’s honour the great achievements of those who secured us votes, rights in the workplace, access to education and healthcare, but let’s also remember those around the world who are still fighting for those rights, and acknowledge there’s a long way still to go to make women’s equality truly a reality.

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