Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Gender Equality Assignment

A summary of the background of the issue

Gender equality is a social order in which women and men share the same opportunities and the same participation in both the economic and the domestic areas of responsibility. It refers to valuing both men and women equally, it works to defeat the misjudgement that both genders can contribute to and benefit from economic, social, cultural and political developments within society. Women are ranked last in the ladder of society and this is a real disadvantage, if women were treated equally relating to being healthy and educated, their families, communities and nations benefit. When both sexes have relative equality, economies grow rapidly, less corruption occurs and children’s health improves. Gender equality is a vital and important human right.

Details about the issue and why the situation occurs

Gender equality is central to economic and human development in a country. Removing inequalities gives societies a better chance to develop.  Gender inequality refers to Men and women being physically different but it is the barriers between one another, these include social, economic, political and legal interpretation that lead to inequality between both sexes.  There are many issues relating to social inequality, men and women have different daily responsibilities and roles, men overrule women, as men tend to have a high status in society  as the work they do is riskier and heavier compared to women’s which is providing food for their family and caring for their children. Women are not treated equally; they have unequal access to education and health services.  There are high tendency of violence against women in numerous countries around the world. In some situations it may be within families where it is considered as ‘normal'. Economic inequality within the world has shown that 70% of the world's poor are female. Women have unequal access to economic resources and access to education which leads them to receive low literacy levels which then follows to low status jobs and there is limited opportunities for employment this then has disadvantage on women’s ability to improve their economic situation.  Within in the terms of political and legal inequality females are treated unfairly and are poorly represented at all levels of formal decision making in society.  This situation occurs as sex- stereotypes have a huge impact on the equality of men and women being treated equally. Behaviour in men and women generally reflect on the expectations for both sexes, which leads to unequal rights and benefits.

In most societies, traditional gender roles and power relations place women and girls in disadvantaged situations relative to men and boys. The roles and the stereotypes that are at the basis of gender inequality are established during childhood.  Organisations working with children, their parents and the broader community to inform and reduce gender inequalities in its effort to reduce the vulnerability to HIV infection and to AIDS. Programmes are available to reduce gender inequalities and stereotypes often focus exclusively on women. The following are issues that need to be dealt with in order to improve gender equality:
·         Education - Education is a fundamental human right: Every child is entitled to it. It is critical to our development as individuals and as societies, and it helps pave the way to a successful and productive future. When we ensure that children have access to a rights-based, quality education that is rooted in gender equality, we create a ripple effect of opportunity that impacts generations to come. Education enhances lives. It ends generational cycles of poverty and disease and provides a foundation for sustainable development. A quality basic education better equips girls and boys with the knowledge and skills necessary to adopt healthy lifestyles, protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making as they transition to adolescence and adulthood.
·         Sexual and reproduction health rights - Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights. Acknowledgement of the critical role that men and boys play in improving Women’s reproductive health and achieving gender equality is commendable. For example, the addressing reproductive health needs of adolescent girls and women in low-income household, requires strengthening the role of boys and men in achieving reproductive health goals.
·         Infrastructure – To invest in infrastructure to reduce women’s and girls’ time burdens, measure women’s and girls’ time burdens as a result of the lack of infrastructure is hours per day (or year) women (girls) and men (boys) spend fetching water and collecting fuel.
·         Property rights – to guarantee women’s and girls’ property and inheritance rights, so women have an equal share of property in comparison to men overruling property etc.
·         Employment – eliminating gender inequality in the work force is one of main issue that needs to be dealt with, if women firstly have low literacy levels and there employment is unskilled, this then continues on to low status jobs. Where access to jobs is not available, this issue needs to be addressed so there is equal fairness in employment.

·         Participation in national parliaments and local government bodies- Increase women’s representation in political bodies. The United Nations recommends tracking women’s share of seats in national parliaments. So there is no unequal decision and unfairness directed at women in politics
·         Prevent violence against women – Laws need to be enforced to provide a safe and ensure stabability for women to feel safe at home and at work.

What organisations are currently doing to address the issue?


UN Women Watch
Women watch is a central gateway to information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women throughout the united nations system, including the united Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women the United Nations Secretariat, regional commissions, funds, programmes, specialized agencies, and academic and research institutions.
Feminist Majority Foundation
 The Feminist Majority Foundation, which was founded in 1987, is a cutting edge organization dedicated to women's equality, reproductive health, and non-violence. The feminist majority foundation makes use of research and action to empower women economically, socially, and politically. The organization believes that feminists - both women and men, girls and boys - are the majority, but this majority must be empowered.
Equality Now –  
Equality Now works to end violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world through the mobilization of public pressure. Equality Now was founded in 1992 to work for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Working with national human rights organizations and individual activists, Equality Now documents violence and discrimination against women and mobilizes international action to support their efforts to stop these human rights abuses. Through its Women’s Action Network of concerned groups and individuals around the world, Equality Now:
·         Distributes information about human rights violations
·         Takes action to protest these violations
·         Brings public attention to human rights violations against women
The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) -  
The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is an international, feminist, membership organization committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women's human rights. AWID’s mission is to strengthen the voice, impact and influence of women’s rights advocates, organizations and movements internationally to effectively advance the rights of women.
Vital Voices
Vital voices invest in and bring to visibility extraordinary women around the world by unleashing their leadership potential to transform lives and accelerate peace and fairness in their communities. The organization includes a team of over 1,000 partners and has trained more than 8,000 emerging women leaders from over 127 countries since 1997. These women have returned home to train and mentor more than 500,000 additional women and girls in their communities.

What suggestions can you offer to address the issue

Locally:
1.       Reassuring male colleges/ friends that is interested in perusing a ballet/ dance career. That gender should always be equal.
2.       Reassuring female friends that it is good to be an engineer or go into the army as we are trying to promote gender equality
3.       Allowing small children that one may babysit to dress up and play with the opposite genders/ clothes stroke toys. Example Angeline Jolie is allowing her youngest daughter to dress up in male clothes.
4.       Encouraging the opposite genders to be involved in more male/female dominated sports at a community level. Thus demonstrating that boys and girls can play each other’s, suppose sports.
5.       Employing young teens equally in male/female dominated retail areas such as clothes shops and sport shops.
Globally:
As the world becomes smaller and different nationalities and cultures travel and witness small communities making an effort in gender equality this observation is taken back to their homeland and may encourage them to employ similar values. As these values are spread around the word this then becomes a accepted norm. Then this promotes gender equality worldwide.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Kirribati and climate change

Kirribati is a coral atol which contains 33 islands and 100,000 people live there. The average height about sea level is less than 2 metres. They predict that their country will be underwater by 2030. It is hard from them to grow their food and sources to survive due to salanation. As time goes on he storms increase and they feel there will not be much left of their island. The major issue they are dealing with is lack of freshwater supply. The environmental affects are storm serges,drought, and erosion. The governement response to this is to educate and train others, so they will be able to be useful in their own country and be accepted into other communities.

Wheelchairs with students for special needs in Kirribati
Australian Volenteers international help support this cause, they help support those in need for wheelchair to give them sustainability. So far they have donated 60 wheel chairs to those in need.

TuberCulosis 
There are 300 hundred people out of 100,000 diognosed with Tuberculosis in their country. The average number of people in their household is 14  The dots who are nurses that assist those with the disease are funded by the Australian government.

Nurses of Kirribati
They are undertaking a degree at grifth university in brisbane and undertaking a nursing course.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Sri Lanka Country Profile

8.3% of the existing population have access and are currently using the internet

22% of the world’s population live below the poverty line and the further 20% live holding two thirds of the countries wealth.
There is a large gap between the richest 10% who account for over one third of the wealth while the poorest 10% share only 3%.

4% of the country’s wealth is spent on health care, and 8% is used for educational resources.

22% of the Sri Lanka’s population live below the poverty line

The literacy rate for women is 89% and male is 92%

82% of the population have current clean water access


91% of the population have adequate sanitation

The life expectancy at birth for a child is currently 75 years.


What policies and activities are working to reduce poverty?
Some policies and activities are that Sri Lanka is articulating a poverty reduction strategy in 2003 which focused on restoring peace and economic growth in the country. Its main pillars are:

1) strengthening the economy;

2) reducing poverty caused by conflict;

3) creating opportunities for the poor to participate in economic growth;

4) investing in people;

5) empowering the poor and strengthening governance; and

6) implementing an effective monitoring and evaluation system. The strategy is currently being refined by the new administration.
There are 381.481 per 1,000 people who own mobile phone in Sri Lanka
The percentage of students that complete a primary school education in the state system has grown constantly, and by the 1980s 99 percent of female students and 93 percent of male students at the primary school level were being trained in government-run schools.

Sri Lanka’s recent achievements and challenges in the recovery from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, for example this has had a definite affect on the economic activity particularly in industries such as fishing, tourism, banking, many small industries, domestic trade and transport. Since mid 1983 Sri Lanka has been afflicted by a serious civil conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting and it is estimated that over 70,000 people have been tragically killed. In May 2009 government forces forcefully took control of the last stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebels. The Sri Lankan government has traditionally supported a strong health and education system which is reflected in high life expectancy and literacy rates however the years of conflict has worsened poverty and resulted in major inequities between regions

Poverty affects many people in Sri Lanka despite the attempt at a sustained government is to introduce various poverty reduction programs such as income subsidies and food distribution, about 22% of the country's population live below the poverty line. There is a large gap between the richest 10% who account for over one third of the wealth while the poorest 10% share only 3%.

The Sri Lankan government supports health and education by publicly funding primary school education, there are large differences in learning outcomes across regions. The education system requires widespread reform to help the country transform socially and economically in the future. The quality of primary education is variable and some children have poor access. Health, particularly under nutrition in children, is of concern in conflict-affected areas, hill country plantations and remote rural areas. Existing social welfare programs are not always targeted and do not address underlying causes, such as water and sanitation, and maternal health. While access to basic public health services is good, there are gaps, such as mental health services in conflict-affected areas. Budget allocations for health, as a percentage of GDP, have been declining in the past few years.

In 2008 Sri Lanka exported $US8.1 billion worth of goods including textiles and clothing, tea, spices, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, coconut products, fish and petroleum products to US (25.5%), UK (13%), India (7%), Germany (6%) and Italy (5%).

It imported $US14 billion worth of goods including machinery, textiles, mineral products, petroleum, transportation equipment and foodstuffs from India (23%), Singapore (10%), China (8%), Iran (8%) and Hong Kong (6%).

 What average income [GDP per capital (PPP US$)]?
The average income in reference to the GDP per capital (PPP US$)} is $5026 per capital

 




Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Poverty Cycle

What is cycle of Poverty?
The cycle of poverty has been described as a phenomenon where poor families become trapped in poverty for generations.
Because they have no or limited access to critical resources, such as
·         Education
·         Financial services
Subsequent generations are also impoverished
There are multiple cycles of poverty- based on, among other things,
·         Economic
·         Social
·         Spiritual and
·         Geographical factors
Many cycles overlap or perpetuate new cycles and therefore any attempt to depict the cycle of poverty will be far more simplistic than realistic.
The figure below shoes- in very simplistic terms- how a cycle of poverty related to hunger keeps a person or household poor in one the world’s developing countries.
 8+ Goals
In September 2000, Koffi Annan former general secretary of the united nations. He suggested that we could do something to end poverty. 189 countries agreed that by September 2015 we can achieve 8 goals towards ending global poverty.
1 - Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
2 - Achieve universal primary education
3 - Promote gender equality and empower women
4 - Reduce child mortality
5 - Improve maternal health
6 - Combat Disease HIV/ AIDS, Malaria and other
7 - Ensure environmental sustainability
8 - Develop a global partnership for development