Human Rights
Gender Equality
Education
Barriers to girls receiving education
Cost
Expectation/ role of women in household
Abuse in classrooms e.g. violence, exploitation and punishment
Lack of amenities e.g. girls toilets
Child marriage
Early pregnancy
Lack of government investment
Insufficient female teachers
Support from some religious backgrounds
Insufficient legislation
Why is gender equality in education important?
Empowers women and helps achieve gender equality in other areas e.g. employment
Also helps close development gap by having more workers and more productivity
Countries with equal secondary education show lower poverty, lower fertility rates, slowing population growth rate, lower IMR and better health.
Health care access
Factors affecting women's access to reproductive healthcare
Early forced marriage – 1 in 3 married before 18, 1 in 9 before 15
High rate of young pregnancy – 20,000 births a day to under 18s
Harmful practices inc. FGM and breast ironing
STDs inc. HIV/AIDS
Forced steriliation or abortion
Sexual violence
Gender bias in giving information
Lack of female empowerment in choice
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Mainly social and cultural factors preventing access.
Most of these are discriminatory (due to gender) and violate human rights.
Human rights violated when women and girls are denied the right to access health care.
Many issues have a negative multiplier effect, e.g. teenage pregnancy
What is being done?
MDG Goal 2 “Achieve Universal Primary Education” now SDG goal 4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”
Success of MDG? Enrolment in primary education in developing regions reached 91% in 2015, up from 83% in 2000.
But in 2015, 57 million children of primary school age were out of school.
Among youths aged 15 to 24, the literacy rate has improved globally from 83% to 91% between 1990 and 2015, and the gap between women and men has narrowed.
In the developing regions, children in the poorest households are four times as likely to be out of school as those in the richest households.
In countries affected by conflict, the proportion of out-of-school children increased from 30 per cent in 1999 to 36 per cent in 2012.
UN established Girls’ Education Initiative (UNICEF is lead agency)
NGOs e.g. Toilet Twinning
MNCs e.g. Nike have education as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility
Employment Opportunities
Right to have equal access to employment opportunities.
Labour Force Participation Rate - Measure of how many females to males work (over age of 15)
Why do rates differ?
Social norms – traditional role of women
Cultural beliefs
Access to child care
Laws on equal opportunities
Social acceptance of women as contributor to household income
Gender based norms
Employer discrimination
Sectoral structure of labour market
Afganistan Case Study
Strategies
AIHRC
Access to potable water, access to standard sewage system, access to security,
rehabilitation of irrigation systems, children’s access to education, access to health
services, access to justice, the situation of highways, access to shelter or home,
access to basic facilities like clothing, mine clearance programs, fighting corruption,
having a healthy environment, access to food, access to fuel and energy, and
electricity, and access to job opportunities are among the most important priority
Study and comparing of the priorities of women and girls in the villages and rural areas of the country shows that access to the right to work has been the most important priority for them in both 1395 and 1394. This means that women in the villages suffer more from unemployment than anything else and they need plans to increase job opportunities and work in the villages and rural areas. 26% of interviewed women and girls (1371 people) in 1395 and 27.1% of them (1877 people) in 1394 expressed work as the main priority in their social life.