From CNN: “A parade of world leaders took the lectern at the United Nations on Wednesday. But days before the speeches on a host of issues, the global body quietly undertook an issue that often flies under the radar: Women. Last week, the United Nations consolidated four agencies that tackle women’s issues and created a new super agency. Humanitarian workers around the world embraced the move. It was about time, they said, that the world got serious about how half its population lives…
Ahead of this week’s U.N. meetings, UNIFEM issued a report on the progress of women’s rights, part of a set of development goals that global agencies have committed to achieving by 2015. “Implementation still has a long way to go in translating commitments to women’s rights into changes in women’s lives,” UNIFEM said. Roughly 60 percent of the world’s population living in poverty are women and girls. According to UNIFEM:
• Women are outnumbered four to one in legislatures around the world.
• Over 60 percent of all unpaid family workers globally are women, and women still earn on average 17 percent less than men.
• About one-third of women still suffer gender-based violence during their lives.
• In some parts of the world, one in 10 women dies from pregnancy-related causes even though the means for preventing maternal mortality are cost-effective and well-known.”
Read the full article here.
