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| U.N. report: Women's unequal treatment hurts economiesWorldwide abuse 'a massive violation of human rights'
By Jonathan D. Austin UNITED NATIONS -- Women throughout the world continue to be the victims of violence, sexual exploitation and discrimination -- at a considerable cost to their countries' economies, according to a United Nations report. The report, issued by the U.N. Population Fund, notes that conditions for women have improved since 1994, when 179 countries met and pledged to do more for their female citizens.
But Stan Bernstein, a senior research adviser with the fund, said the continuing discrimination against women constitutes "a massive violation of human rights that takes various forms around the globe." The annual report, which was released Wednesday, is an attempt to underscore "what the costs of inequality are, what has kept it in place in the past, and what's being done to address it now," Bernstein said. Pocketbook factorsBernstein said the report includes economic data because "sometimes people don't pay attention to misery until it hits them in the pocketbook. So we felt we had to report on both sides." According the report, titled "State of the World Population 2000," a 1 percent increase in female secondary schooling results in a 0.3 percent increase in economic growth. If you use Pakistan as an example, that estimate means the increased investment in education would have upped the country's economic growth by $262 million in 1999, excluding inflation, which was estimated at 6 percent. Grim statisticsThe report also tries to show the link between abuse, illness, early deaths, abortions and degradation. According to its data:
Abuse breeds additional miseries"Abused women tend not to use family planning services ... for fear of reprisal from husbands," the report states, citing a Ghana study in which "close to half of all women and 43 percent of men said a man was justified in beating his wife if she used contraceptives without his expressed consent." Likewise, abused women who participated in focus groups in Peru and Mexico said they did not discuss birth control with their husbands, fearing a violent reaction. The resistance to contraception, the report said, "takes a tremendous toll, both physical and emotional, and causes immense damage to a woman's reproductive health." Unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, frequent high-risk pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases are among the results. Nations agreeThe miseries surveyed in the report have "direct consequences for the lives of women, for the lives of men, for the quality of their partnerships, for the development of their communities, and the development of their countries," Bernstein said. The report refers to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. At that conference, 179 countries agreed to increase domestic allocations to health care, including reproductive health, and agreed to share technical data from successful programs. In a 1999 review of the conference goals, representatives from those countries agreed that empowering women and meeting their education and health needs were necessary, according to the report. "The countries included many of these goals for reproductive health, for women's empowerment, for reduction of women's mortality and HIV/AIDS deaths," Bernstein said. Improvements notedThe report cites changes in legal or administrative codes that have since improved conditions for women, including:
The report also cites advancements in Cambodia, which enacted comprehensive abortion legislation; in Ecuador, which is discussing the addition of sexual and reproductive rights to its constitution; and in Albania, Burkina Faso, Fiji, Madagascar, Poland and the Sudan, all of which adopted measures to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. "The world has moved these topics to the center of the international development agenda," Bernstein said. "This is a time of extraordinary opportunity, and we have to rise to the occasion. "We know what needs to be done, and we need to commit ourselves to do the action," he said. "There are not going to be too many second chances." RELATED STORIES: U.N. conference calls for AIDS programs, domestic violence laws to protect women RELATED SITES: The State of World Population 2000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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