New world group aims to fight women’s poverty
p2pnet news | Freedom:- United Nations statistics show women account for 70% of the world’s poor, own a mere 1%of the world’s titled land, and that two-thirds of the world’s illiterate people are women.
But a new group, with some of the world’s wealthiest, most privileged and most influential women as members, has been formed to change that.
And they’re using the Net to help get their message across.
Women, Faith, and Development Alliance, “has emerged with a global outlook and more than $1 billion in financial commitments,” says Voice of America.
It, “aims to boost the economic status of women and fight for the changes that will make such improvements possible”.
Involved are Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Queen Noor of Jordan, former Irish president Mary Robinson, and former Canadian prime minister Kim Campbell.
“Decades of research and analysis have shown that investments in women and girls are also the most effective solutions to poverty,” says WFDA.
“However, resources for women and girls in poverty remain disproportionately low compared to overall global allocations of aid.”
The group says rather than concentrating on specific areas such as education, health care, and microenterprise, it instead wants to focus media, public and political attention on making sure all programs, no matter the sector, include women and girls as well as push for more awareness of global poverty in general.
“WFDA advocacy priorities in the short term will include influencing the U.S. Presidential candidates as well as the the U.S. Government generally,” it says, going on:
“In addition, the WFDA will target important decisions being made at the United Nations and other global institutions that impact women and girls.”
The group staged an April 13-14 summit in Washington with actress and Global Youth AIDS ambassador Ashley Judd and three youth leaders from around the world, Birungi Alice Hope, Stellamaris Mualeh, and Andrew Francis, talking about the struggles girls in less developed countries face when they’re living in poverty.
“If we want a breakthrough, we have to change the choices for girls,” Judd is quoted as saying on the WDFA blog, going on education is the key to combating all aspects of the plight of women living in poverty.
“By spreading knowledge and information, she adding, “Our eyes have been opened to how frequently rape is used as an instrument of war and armed conflict.
“Gender apartheid is happening, and we need to get real.”
Voice of America – Global Effort to Fight Women’s Poverty Launched, April 13, 2008
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April 14th, 2008 at 6:12 am
let’s also count how many used the court system to put innocent people behind bars just cause they dont like them or extracted huge lumps of money out their ex husbands.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Why is it that women say they want equal rights, but yet they still insist that men put the toilet seat down? Why should men have to raise and lower it every time? Wouldn’t a more equal solution be for men to leave it up and women to leave it down?
April 14th, 2008 at 8:35 am
How about standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, Rekrul? Women are more likely to need advocates than men in this sort of situation. Stand for the weak.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Why do people start organizations like this that discriminate among the human population? Isn’t fighting poverty among the human race, regardless of gender or race enough?
This type of thinking consistently perpetuates the imbalance that exists in any given poll statistic. I bet there is no clause that states this organization will broaden it’s criteria when statistics reach 50% equal with male genders. I bet they had to play the gender card to get funding for this, which is a shame. Any poor or illiterate, regardless of gender should motivate people to do something to help.
If you are going to help people, then help people, and stop narrowing the categories to specific sets of people.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I do not recognise March 8.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Fathers 4 justice FTW!
April 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
@ Stray Mongrel completely agree, people should just stop bringing politics into what is normally demonstrated in our daily lives (rarely though) as human compassion
April 14th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“How about standing up for those who canât stand up for themselves, Rekrul? Women are more likely to need advocates than men in this sort of situation. Stand for the weak.”
They’re too weak to put a toilet seat down?