Global Status of Women

Illiteracy Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Girls are two-thirds of the children who don’t go to school. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only 17% of girls are in secondary school. It would take $6 billion to provide basic education. Over $17 billion is spent on pet foods in the US and Europe. Global military expenditure stands at over $1.5 trillion a year at current prices for 2009.

Mashal, 18, illiterate-read interview

Our literacy class in Peshawar, taught by Hassan, a college student

Most of the Poor are Women Nearly 3 billion people—half of the world's population—are poor. Women make up 75% of the poorest people and only 19% of parliament members worldwide. Only 1% of the world’s landowners are women.

A top-of-the-line village home in Tanzania

Tanzanian village school

Most youths in developing nations The UN reported in 2005 that over 200 million youth live in poverty, 130 million youth are illiterate, 88 million are unemployed and 10 million young people live with HIV/AIDS. Most (85%) of the world’s one billion young people between 15 and 24 live in developing countries.

We treat pets better than women and children * More than half of all youth (about 525 million) survive on less than $2 a day. Rates of malnourishment are increasing—about 25% of infants and children under age five are underweight, leading to stunted growth (over 40% of the children under five in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa), with a total of one billion undernourished people. The leading cause of death of teenage girls in developing countries is complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Over 500,000 women die each year in childbirth, 20% as a result of unsafe abortions. One woman dies in childbirth every minute due to lack of adequate health care.

Condoms, Tanzania

Health Problems 15 million adolescent girls give birth every year with higher infant mortality rates than older mothers. Most of the new HIV infections (6,000 young people every day) are girls in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

Living on the street in Rio

A Rio Favela

A Swiss middle school

Women Left Out of Government By 2010, only 19% of parliament representatives were women, up from 11% in The highest numbers of women politicians were in Rwanda, Sweden and South Africa. Nine chambers lack any women at all, as in Saudi Arabia. In terms of heads of state, only nine of 151 elected leaders were women. Some countries are making progress in terms of women in power by setting quotas. Brazil just elected its 1 st woman president. The 2008 banking crisis was blamed on men by the Prime Minister of Iceland, Johanna Sigurdardottir, who campaigned to end the “age of testosterone.” The Scandinavian countries are models for gender equality programs like extensive parental leave.

Prime Minister of Iceland

Dilma Rousseff,Brazil

Including Women in Development A new focus in development programs is the return on investment of programs for girls and women. The chief economist of the World Bank, Lawrence Summers states, “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest- return investment available in the developing world.”

How to Help * Acumen Fund * The Global Fund for Women * * Pakistani Literacy Project #!/pages/NGOs-small-global-info-share/ To see more photos