Many women 'worse off than 10 years ago'

A new report by women in 150 countries concludes that many women all over the world are worse off today than they were 10 years ago and accuses governments of failing to keep their pledge to achieve equality of the sexes.

Governments worldwide have adopted a “piecemeal and incremental” approach to furthering women’s rights that cannot achieve the goals in the landmark platform of action adopted by 189 nations at the 1995 UN women’s conference in Beijing, it says.

The 207-page report, the fifth compiled by the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation since Beijing, delivers a strong message: “The women of the world don’t need any more words from their governments – they want action, they want resources and they want governments to protect and advance women’s human rights.”

The report entitled “Beijing Betrayed” was released yesterday, the fourth day of a two-week high-level UN meeting focusing on implementation of the 150-page Beijing platform.

Delegates from 130 countries have been touting the actions their governments have taken and are planning to achieve equality for women.

But at a news conference launching the report, the organisation’s executive director June Zeitlin said: “The realities women document often contrast sharply with the officials reports of their governments.”

“What we see are powerful trends – growing poverty, inequality, growing militarization, and fundamentalist opposition to women’s rights,” she said. “These trends are harming millions of women worldwide.”

While trafficking of women and children into bonded sweatshop labour, forced marriage, forced prostitution, and domestic servitude has become a global issue, the report said, governments don’t appear to be making significant efforts to combat these crimes.

According to the report, up to 175,000 women from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are being drawn into the sex industry in Western Europe every year, and there has been “a dramatic increase” in the number of Soviet bloc women trafficked to North America.

The report listed what it called “the dirty dozen” countries that have no women in parliament: Bahrain, Kuwait, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates and Guinea-Bissau.