International Women's Day: a story from Peru

Photo from Grameen

The only way Alejandrina Flores could manage to feed her six children was to do without herself.  She had lost her job because illness meant she had too many days off work, and then her husband left her.

She attempted to set up a business for herself, making dolls, characters from Peruvian culture, but couldn't earn enough to put food on the table.  Then she heard about a micro-finance organisation, Pro Mujer, which not only gave small loans but coaching for starting or expanding a business.  She joined up, received the training and drafted a business plan.  She was given a loan to buy the materials she needed.

Now her earnings have almost tripled she can support her family.  One day she hopes to have her own store.

Women are outstanding poverty-fighters in the world of micro-finance.  When a woman receives a small loan to start a business, she is more likely to invest the business profits to better her children’s nutrition, health, and education.

Stop Poverty Now

Education and empowerment

Photo by Mohammed Amin Jibril/IRIN

It was heartening, I thought, to read during this week leading up to International Women's Day about Fathiya Hassan in Somaliland, who has distinguished herself in a man's world. She is the first female car-washer in the capital, Hargeisa, and has been for the last two years. Then I read a little further and realised that it isn't good news, not at all.

She is only 12 years old, so she started when she was 10. Where has her childhood gone? Most of her clients are women, which she likes, because the men are inclined to pay her less, or threaten to beat her rather than pay at all. The boy car-washers don't think she should be there at all.

But she has to work, she has to help support her family of 11 in Abaye settlement of the capital, because her parents can't manage to provide for them all. She would far rather be going to school rather than making this particular mark in her male dominated world.

Where do you start to try to improve things? She has the freedom to work alongside boys and that is something. But she doesn't have the freedom to go to school. Will she then fall into the same cycle, so often heard, of early marriage, early babies and many of them? Because young uneducated girls' don't have a good knowledge or understanding of contraception and they haven't the confidence to negotiate. Their children are less likely to do well at school or to continue their education beyond the minimum, and daughters in particular are likely to drop out.

The focus must be to empower girls, so that they can make their own decisions, and create their own futures. And how do you empower girls? Education, education, education.

Gender gaps

Photo by Flickr user CraigOppy. Creative Commons licence.

An article published for International Women's Day discussed the ten worst and best countries for women, using the United Nations Human Development Reports as sources.

One of the huge number of different indices is the gap between female and male literacy.

• Mali - 49% (52%)
• Benin - 49% (56%)
• Yemen - 47% (65%)
• Mozambique - 46% (61%)
• Ethiopia - 46% (62%)
• Guinea - 42% (57%)
• Niger - 35% (44%)
• Chad - 31% (42%)

These figures give the adult female literacy rate compared to male, with the youth rate in brackets. Although they are improving, there is a very long way to go.

The literacy rate is of course tied to potential for earning. The article then went on to compare, rather selectively, the income gap between female and male as a percentage, the following all being countries where women on average earn less than half as much as men.

• Benin 48 %
• Bangladesh 46 %
• Sierra Leone 45 %
• Equatorial Guinea 43 %
• Togo 43 %
• Eritrea 39 %
• Cape Verde 36%
• Yemen 30%

Looking at some of the rest of the countries in the UN report is even more interesting:

• Kenya 83%
• Mozambique 81%
• Sweden 81%
• Malawi 73%
• Norway 77%
• Mali 68%
• UK 66%
• United States 63%
• Italy 47%

I found that really startling but I suppose if you are near or below the poverty line, earning a greater percentage of men's earnings doesn't really amount to much. In other words it's probably easier to give equal pay in a country where pay is minimal.

International Women's Day 2007

You can find out about International Womens' Day here. It dates from the early 1900s, and apparently is a national holiday in some countries.