There are two issues that should be deeply explored. The first is population. The world is headed toward 9 billion people by 2050, with the growth to come in the poorest countries. Food, water, jobs, energy and security will be scarce. This will have serious consequences.

I want to talk about the second issue, which is allied with the first. The issue is gender inequality. Former U.N. envoy Stephen Lewis said these words at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, last summer: "I challenge you to enter the fray against gender inequality. There is no more honorable or productive calling. There is nothing of greater import in this world. All roads lead from women to social change."

And, of course, all women were once little girls.

Sixty-million women and girls are "missing" in Asia thanks to sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and neglect of the girl child. Millions of girls worldwide are not sent to school and are forced to marry at young ages. When a girl goes to school and learns how to read, she is empowered throughout her entire life. She marries later, has fewer children, sends them to school, earns income and participates more in the life of her community. Two-thirds of the illiterate people on the planet today are women and girls.

Illiteracy leads to poverty and powerlessness. Poverty and powerlessness are the root causes of violence against women, sex trafficking, and many other ills.

The Cairo Consensus of 1994 promised universal access to primary education (this was aimed at girls) and universal access to reproductive health, including family planning services. Unfortunately, this agreement, to which the United States was signatory, has been more honored in the breach. Lack of access to reproductive health services means that more than 500,000 women die in childbirth every year and 40 per minute seek an often illegal, unsafe abortion. They lack access to the family planning that we take for granted. Millions of women who play by all the rules of faithfulness in marriage contract the AIDS virus.

Because of the low status of women in many cultures, because of fundamentalist religions of all stripes which limit the spheres in which women and girls can participate and the choices they can make, the world is digging an unnecessary hole for itself.

The United Nations Population Fund is a leader in the fight for the education, health and human rights of the world's women. It offers the family planning that prevents the tragedy of abortion.

In 2006, 180 countries allocated funds for UNFPA but not our own. Hopefully the next president of the United States will rejoin the world community by supporting UNFPA and its fight for gender equality.

-- 
Anna Stone
Overseas Program Manager
International Women's Development Agency Inc

--When women benefit, the entire community benefits.

mailto: 
astone@iwda.org.au

International Women's Development Agency Inc
Level 3, Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
PO Box 64, Flinders Lane Vic 8009
Australia


www.iwda.org.au

T +61 3 9650 5574
F +61 3 9654 9877