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Women
"Women are over half the world's people, one third of the official
workforce and do two-thirds of the world's work-hours. Yet they receive only one-tenth of
the world's income and own less than one-hundredth of the world's property."
UN Source
In recent years in our own society, many laws have been introduced which aim to ensure
that women have equal opportunities with men. But around the world, many millions of women
and girls still miss out on education and health care and are misused in the work they do
both inside and outside the home. Most government and international statistics
underestimate the amount of work done by women - largely because much of it is unpaid and
so, in economic terms, invisible. Women of the Third World experience deep injustices.
They are the backbone and strength of their communities and yet their needs are rarely
taken into account.
WOMEN AS FOOD PRODUCERS
Official statistics only measure work that is involved in the production of cash crops
by paid labourers. They fail to recognise the invaluable role that women play as food
producers for their families. Although 50% of Third World women plough and level land and
70% are involved in planting, tilling and harvesting.
Women in rural Africa produce, process, and store up to 80% of the food. Yet often
government development officials have repeatedly failed to include women in the planning
and implementation of projects intended to alleviate hunger and improve health. Women are
the largest group of landless people in the world. They are overlooked in many development
projects and they find it hard to get the training, seeds and tools they need to improve
their work.
WOMEN AND WORK
Women spend many hours each day doing unpaid work as the chart shows.
WOMEN AND HEALTH
Most of the girls and women in the Third World do not get enough to eat. In many
societies boy children are given preference when it comes to food and health care in the
family. Half of all women aged between 15 and 49 suffer from anaemia and the percentage is
much higher among pregnant women. This, together with malnutrition during pregnancy, can
greatly damage a woman's health. It also leads to very low birth weights and a much
greater risk of infant death.
A WAY FORWARD
Here are some of the changes that might improve the position of women in the Third
World:
 Officially recognise the key
role women play in food production
Make education, training and
retraining available to all women
Give women better access to
resources, e.g. land, credit and tools
Introduce appropriate
technology that takes women's work into account
Set up development projects
that listen to and involve women
THINGS TO DO
1. Carry out a survey to see how women in your family spend their time over a 24 hour
period. Then, using the chart above, compare this with the way African women spend theirs.
Next, do the same for the men in your family. How do they compare?
2. CAFOD supports development programmes to enable people to help themselves. Collect
materials from CAFOD and other development agencies to find out how the projects they
support meet the needs of women.
3. Carry out a survey in the different groups/institutions to which you belong to find
out:
 | how many women are in decision-making positions
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| how many women are in positions of responsibility
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| how many women are given training and opportunities to improve their career.
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4. Find out more about the Fourth World Conference on Women which took place in
Beijing, China, in September 1995. What resolutions were passed to give women more
empowerment in their lives?
Further information available from CAFOD:
A Question of Sex - a new edition of 'Youth Topics' by CAFOD, Christian Aid and
SCIAF, looking at the roles of men and women around the world, and encouraging young
people to question stereotypes and power. A4 sheet. Free.
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