Economic Empowerment
Women continue to make up over 70 percent of the world’s poor. Facing ongoing discrimination in accessing education, health care and employment, women are more likely than men to be at risk of hunger and poverty – a situation which further inhibits their ability to access clean water, medical care or the political processes which allow them to exercise their rights.
UNIFEM (now a part of UN Women) remains committed to bringing gender equality into trade and economic practices and supporting women to change economic conditions. UN Women works to reshape matters at both ends of the economic spectrum, providing practical assistance to, as well as working on a larger scale to increase women’s participation in economic policy formulation.
Women continue to struggle to secure economic independence. Often paid less for the work they do, the average wage gap, as of 2008, was 17 percent. Facing further difficulties in trying to access credit and financial systems, women are placed at risk of having to enter insecure and unsafe work. This situation has been made worse by the recent economic crisis, which particularly affected women working in export-reliant factories. In 2009 an estimated 22 million more women worldwide became unemployed.
UN Women’s Approach
Advancing women’s economic security and rights remains a core UN Women priority. The path out of poverty for women requires gendered perspectives to be incorporated into trade and economic policies. Frameworks are essential, to address women’s exclusion from the economic mainstream. UN Women supports efforts to include a gendered perspective in national poverty reduction strategies, budgets, data systems and trade policies. With many women locked out of economic opportunities, it is a further priority for UN Women to foster new opportunities and enable women to develop new skills through job training initiatives, improving women’s access to credit schemes and information on labour laws.
UN Women in the Asia Pacific
UN Women further works to secure women’s rights to land and property ownership and to improve conditions for migrant workers. This is a particular focus for the Asia/Pacific region, where UN Women has been to improve standards and regulations for migrant women. In Jordan, this resulted in the formulation of standardised contracts for migrant women guaranteeing basic rights, a minimum wage and the right to medical care.
Nine Asian countries have further adopted the Covenant of Ethical Conduct and Good Practices, committing themselves to establish information campaigns for migrant workers and to developing resource and welfare centres in receiving countries to ensure migrants have access to assistance when in-country.
In Indonesia, UN Women has also supported the drafting of laws in the province of Biltar to ensure there are standardised practices around the recruitment of migrant women, and emphasising the need for women to be granted access to proper information on the migration process.