Metropolitan Model United Nations Conference XLII UN Women

Women: Work and Empowerment

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, puts it bluntly: Women are poorer than men. 60% - 70% of the 1.2 billion people who are poor today are females. Almost all countries have more women living in poverty than men. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), about 50% of the population lives in absolute poverty on less than $1.25 a day. 80% of these poor in SSA are women. Women make up more than 50% of the worlds population, but they own just 1% of the worlds wealth. Women also experience poverty differently than men do. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be met without gender equality and the social, political, and economic empowerment of women. Gender shapes all aspects of life and the human experience. Cultural ideas about gender held by both women and men play a huge role in determining what acceptable work for women is, and what mens work is in any given society. This is important to consider in poverty reduction efforts in developing countries as access to resources such as land, labor, education, and credit are governed by gender considerations and because womens priorities and responsibilities often differ from those of men.1 Most of the women who live in poverty work in agriculture, usually at a subsistence level, or in the home. Women typically work longer hours than men, performing tasks to uphold the house, such as transporting water and gathering wood for fuel. Women and girls do not earn an income for these essential tasks. Labors such as food preparation and caregiving are also unpaid domestic jobs that directly affect the health, overall well-being and quality of life of children and other household members. A woman in Kenya can burn up to 85% of her daily calorie intake fetching water for her family. Clearly, this kind of unpaid labor leaves little time or energy for work that might earn an income. Women who work at home face limited opportunities, but it is not enough to simply say that women need to have access to jobs outside the home, jobs for which they will be paid. Rather, the reasons that women are confined to home must also be considered. Cultural factors that limit womens rights and engagement in the workplace include:2 Religion and tradition determines gender norms in many cultures. Religious fundamentalism limits mobility and employment. Many societies give the male head of the household a high level of control over all family members. In many communities, a woman going out to work is taken as a sign that the man is unable to provide for his family. Paid work outside the home can actually lead to conflict in the home, especially if women earn more than men, or womens employment coincides with mens under or unemployment.

 In some cultures, women are not able to leave the home if not accompanied by a man. This norm limits the rights of women to work outside the home. Many women who leave the home face verbal, sexual and physical abuse from unknown males for being in the street and face gossip and stigma within their own communities. The growing levels and extremes of violence against women have been captured in the notion of femicide the killing of women by men just for being women. In Mexico for example, the term femicide has been used to describe female factory workers being killed for going against gender norms and engaging in paid work outside the home. The responsibility of producing and selling crops also often falls under a womens jurisdiction in many subsistence economies. Yet, in many countries, the farmer is thought of as male even when females do most of the actual labor. In Uganda, rural women work on average 12-18 hours per day, while men work around 8-10 hours a day. An African woman can spend 13 hours to pound enough maize (corn) to feed her family for 4-5 days. On average, a woman spends 4-5 hours a day just obtaining and preparing the food for her family to eat. In SSA, girls spend 40 minutes a day on productive work for every 15 minutes boys spend. Girls work while boys go to school, furthering inequality of opportunity for the next generation. Many programs to aid poor farmers focus on men over women. Women perform more than 50% of the agricultural work in SSA, but they receive only 10% of the financial loans made to small farmers.3 75% of the of the worlds women are unable to get loans because banks will not loan money to women who work without pay and are not allowed to own property.4 As indicated by the UNDP, gender equality in economic opportunities makes good economic and social sense for many of the following reasons: Increased earning power for a woman raises income for the entire household. This in turn translates into greater well-being for children in the family. Poverty reduction leads to fewer pregnancies, lower birth rates, fewer maternal deaths, and lower infant and child mortality rates. Increasing the income of a mother has 20 times the positive impact on child mortality as increasing the income of the father.5 Women who work outside the home are more educated, and more educated women earn more income than uneducated ones. Gender equality increases agricultural productivity. The World Bank has determined that if women farmers had the same the access to productive inputs and human capital as men do, total agricultural output could increase by an estimated 6 to 20 percent.6 Gender inequality slows development. Women prevent the poverty of ultra-poor households from worsening.

With the recent economic shocks developing in a myriad of countries, the need for womens unpaid labor is escalating, especially those countries linked to the AIDS pandemic and/or economic restructuring. However, these womens voices and lived experiences are still largely missing from debates on finance and development. In order to guarantee the survival of their families, these deprived women do constant unpaid work, work longer hours, and consent to degrading working conditions in times of crisis. The Millennium Development Goals aim to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (MDG #1) and promote gender equality and empower women (MDG #3). It is clear that these goals complement each other and cannot be addressed alone. This committee must examine both the causes of poverty and the particular ways that women experience poverty. It must also address possible solutions by studying and debating these issues: The role of women in agriculture and the kinds of agricultural programs that best help women. The availability of credit to women. Increasing the social capital of women. Including women in planning, budgeting, and policy-making processes. Promoting womens and girls economic rights and opportunities. Increasing educational opportunities for women and girls, beyond the primary level. Ensuring the safety of women and girls who are employed outside the home and the rights of females in the justice system. Access to health care for women and children. Early and forced marriage of girls. The rights of women to own land, manage property, conduct business, and even travel without the consent of their father or husband. Creating the infrastructure that will reduce the need for women and girls to spend hours gathering wood and obtaining clean water. The issues are complicated and difficult. Yet, there is much good news and progress on all fronts. United Nations agencies, national governments, donors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and non-profit charities are all at work to reduce or eliminate poverty in women. Delegates must work together to solve the various issues addressed in this Background Guide. The committee may wish to consider breaking up into smaller working groups to debate individual aspects of the problem, write working papers, and draft resolutions. The goal must be to turn words into actions. At all times, the committee must search for ways to bring women into the actual decision-making process. For too long, men have made decisions about women, and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals lags. Women want to be more than problems; they also want to be the solutions.

Questions to Consider: 1. How many women in your country are poor? 2. What kinds of employment are available to women in your country? 3. What specific factors limit the social, economic and political opportunities of women in your country and hinder them from climbing out of poverty? 4. What kinds assistance would be most beneficial to your country in reducing poverty in women? What kinds of assistance would your country be able to offer to other countries? Notes: 1. Briefing Sheet: Gender and Poverty Reduction, Virginia Tech, http://www.oired.vt.edu/wgd/BriefingGenderAndPovertyReduction.pdf 2. Womens Role in Economic Development: Overcoming the Constraints, Sarah Bradshaw, Joshua Castellino and Bineta Diop, http://www.post2015hlp.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/06/Bradshaw-Castellino-Diop_Womens-Role-in-EconomicDevelopment-Overcoming-the-Constraints.pdf 3. Gender-Responsive Programming for Poverty Reduction, http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/534_filename_gender-responsiveprogramming.pdf 4. Gender and Poverty Reduction, http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/povertyreduction/focus_areas/fo cus_gender_and_poverty.html 5. Same as 2. 6. Same as 2. Other Sources: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ http://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment http://www.un.org/popin/unfpa/taskforce/guide/iatfwemp.gdl.html http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/povertyreduction/focus_areas/fo cus_gender_and_poverty/gepmi/ http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/povertyreduction/focus_areas/fo cus_gender_and_poverty/gepmi/gepmi-in-africa/ http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/povertyreduction/overview.html

http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/534_filename_gender-responsiveprogramming.pdf http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/social/meetings/egm10/documents/Ngwira%20paper.pdf http://www.genderaction.org/images/PRSPs%26Gender-GTZ.pdf http://www.oecd.org/social/gender-development/42806451.pdf http://www.mcc.gov/documents/reports/paper-2012001153101-principles-gender.pdf http://www.trickleup.org/poverty/women.cfm