Breaking Barriers:

Breaking Barriers - session


MDG Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Educate girls and women. Educated girls tend to become women with greater economic independence. They have an increased ability to negotiate and bargain in home, community and economic life. Educated girls and women tend to participate more in public life, and they can manage natural resources in a more sustainable manner.
Overcome barriers to schooling for girls. There has been tremendous MDG focus on expanding enrollment in primary school. But these gains for girls are often lost in the transition to secondary school due to lack of separate, private, safe girl's sanitation facilities, sexual harassment or violence at and en route to school, and due to the need for curriculum reform and teacher training for higher quality schools with greater relevance to girls' lives.
Promote mechanisms that give women a voice in politics and governance institutions. These mechanisms can vary widely from proportional representation systems that increase the probability women will be elected, to more transparent political party selection processes, public funding for campaigns, and more. But in countries around the world, women in politics are strengthening the credibility of democracies through their participation, reinvigorating political accountability, and contributing to improved efficiency in policymaking through bringing their diverse perspectives.
Enact and implement equal economic rights for all. Legislation on equal pay for equal work, free choice of profession or employment, equality in hiring and promotions, leave and unemployment benefits, freedom from sexual harassment in the workplace, and other critical rights are increasingly being legislated. But weak implementation of these laws continues to constrain women's equality and empowerment. Count women's work. Continued lack of political will and financial resources necessary to collect good quality data disaggregated by sex hampers the ability to make effective policies on wages, informal employment, unpaid care work, and other issues critical to women's economic participation.
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization's goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women. In 2005 Habiba Sarobi, 54, became Afghanistan's first woman governor. Six years on she remains the country's only female governor, a post she has held against a creeping tide of intolerant fundamentalism that has strengthened opposition to women in public positions. A pharmacist by profession, Sarobi had to abandon her job during the Taliban rule, fleeing to Peshawar in Pakistan with her children. There she worked underground teaching girls in refugee camps. As governor of Bamiyan, a province in the central highlands of Afgahnistan, she aims to have 25 to 30 per cent of government jobs filled by women.
Habiba Sarobi: "Earlier people did not believe a woman could hold a position like this. I have been a successful model because I was able to institute good governance system in my province. Maybe I have survived in my position because I am still the only female governor.‛ Overview: Afghanistan has long been rocked by political, social, religious and economic turmoil. This instability has had a particularly harrowing impact on the women of the region. Under Taliban rule, women were forbidden from working, entering education or engaging in wider society beyond the four walls of their homes. Because of this, progress in women's rights, education and political engagement came to a standstill for a period of time but in the last few years, notable improvements have been made.

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Progress: Since the inauguration of the Karzai regime in 2001, notable improvements have been made for women in politics. For example, according to the Afghan constitution, 25 per cent of parliament delegates must be women (that's 68 out of 249 seats).
During the September 2010 elections, more than 2,500 parliamentary candidates stood for 249 seats. Of these, 400 of the candidates were women. Unexpectedly, 69 women won seats -a number higher than the minimum quota and a victory for Afghan women.
Setbacks: Illiteracy is the biggest setback that Afghan women face. As of 2008, 12 per cent of Afghan women could read and write. Human rights organisations feel that not enough is being done to boost education, particularly amongst women.
Habiba Sarobi: ‚We have set a target of having 25-30 per cent women in government jobs. Currently we have reached only 11 per cent because it is difficult to find educated qualified women.‛ Investment in Afghan education has mainly targeted primary education. Secondary education has not seen many curriculum changes or investment. Consequently, a sector of Afghan society that grew up during instability has been left without an education and therefore with poor employment opportunities.

KEY FACTS
 Following the downfall of the Taliban, Afghanistan saw its highest school enrolment rates, with more than 4.3 million children enrolling in primary and secondary school education. In the 7-12 age bracket, 40.5 per cent of girls and 67 per cent of boys were enrolled. However these figures hide the dramatic discrepancy between the urban and rural regions in Afghanistan. Girls represent less than 15 per cent of total enrolment in nine districts in the south and east of Afghanistan (Source: World Bank). Rebecca Namayanja, 28, used to run a small hotel business on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda but decided to buy a fishing boat to earn more money. A single mother of two young daughters, she was determined to expand her income to give her girls a good education having been forced to leave school herself because her parents could not pay the fees. Fishing is a traditionally male preserve, and she had to fight against the prejudice that prevents women joining the industry. However, she has now grown her business and owns five boats and employs ten men.
Rebecca Namayanja: "In many African traditions and cultures it was long considered a taboo for a woman to touch the fishing nets… Women waited for their husband's catches at home and preserved the fish, through salting and drying. But now we realise this was just a superstition." Overview: Uganda's second largest export after coffee is fish. However, women have only recently started to break into the male-dominated fishing industry.
Progress: Because of the significant role the fishing industry plays in the country, women are being encouraged to partake further in the fishing industry. Programmes such as the Wece Farmers Fish Ponds, which is supported by the UN World Food programme, have been set up to help women to improve their lives and support their families by learning how to raise and farm fish in ponds away from Lake Victoria.

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Other organisations such as the Women in the Fishing Industry Programme have been formed ‚to build the capacity of women to profitably run small scale business enterprises in the fishing industry and other sectors‛ (source: The GBV [gender-based violence] Prevention Network).
The Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation has taken an active role in promoting female presence not just in fishery, but also in the running of Beach Management Units (BMUs). BMUs are community-based organisations that bring together everyone involved in fisheries at a beach " boat owners, boat crew, traders, processors, boat builders and repairers, net repairers and others " to work with government and other stakeholders in managing fisheries' resources and improving the livelihoods of the community members.
Setbacks: In 1982, the very first cases of HIV/AIDS in Uganda were identified in Kasensero, a fishing village on the coast of Lake Victoria, in the Rakai district. HIV prevalence in fishing communities is now estimated to be 28 per cent, more than four times the national average, according to government statistics.
In March of 2010, fisheries state minister, Fred Mukisa, urged women to join the fishing industry in a bid to fight illegal fishing practises, like dynamite fishing. (Source: All Africa) The projects being founded encouraging fishing away from Lake Victoria are beneficial in the fight against the high rate of HIV infection in the fishing community.
9 KEY FACTS  Statistics show that unlike many of its neighbouring countries, employment rates amongst women in Uganda are higher than that of men. According to statistics by the Uganda Labour Force Survey 2002/03, 89.4 per cent of women are listed as employed, compared to 87 per cent of men. In rural areas, the difference is bigger, with 88.6 per cent of women employed compared to 85.7 per cent of men.
 With a total literacy rate of 74 per cent in Uganda (Source: Unicef 2003/08), fishing is a very attractive industry for Ugandans to enter, as it does not require an educational certificate nor previous experience to start a fishing business.
 Fisheries contributed 6 per cent of GDP in 2001/02. About 70 per cent of this came from fish sales at landing sites and the remaining 30 per cent from value addition by traders, transporters and processors. Direct, indirect and induced multiplier impacts suggest that the sector's importance is even greater. An estimated 1.2 million people are directly dependent on fisheries.
 However only 0.9 per cent of Uganda's workforce is employed in the fishing industry. In rural areas, 1.8 per cent of men and 0.1 per cent of women work in fishery and in urban areas 0.8 per cent men and 0 per cent of women work in fishery. Bringing the total to 1.7 per cent of men and 1 per cent women employed within the country's second largest trade. Overview: In South Africa, roughly one million people work in the agricultural sector, chiefly as manual labourers. Of this number, around two thirds are women. Under apartheid women farm workers had little protection under South African legislation. Several acts of parliament, passed since apartheid ended, have improved the position of women farm workers under the law. The Employment Equity Act of 1998, for example, prohibits direct and indirect unfair discrimination on grounds of gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, and family responsibility in recruitment and working conditions.
However, women are usually employed as seasonal and temporary workers, (with women comprising around 20 per cent of permanent workers) and much of the new legislation does not protect them. Better-paid, better-protected and more secure contracts tend to be held by men.
Setbacks: According to the pressure group War on Want, women farm workers face harsher treatment and conditions whilst earning only 78 per cent of what their male counterparts. They are also more likely to be employed on temporary contracts, and for lower wages.
These employment patterns lead as well to the majority of women working on farms not being covered by social insurance schemes such as pension funds, medical benefits or maternity benefits.
The employment of women farm workers is often tied to their husband's employment. Indeed, there are reports that married women farm workers are denied contracts in their own names, and work on the basis of contracts signed by their husbands.
Positions held by men were more secure than the seasonal and temporary positions mainly occupied by women. Housing is often tied to employment, with many examples of women farm workers being evicted from their homes after losing their jobs. If men want to join Sikhula Sonke, they must sign a declaration saying that they will refrain from violence against women.
On one farm Sikhula Sonke has negotiated maternity leave for female workers, even for seasonal workers. Another farm owner eventually agreed to start a pension fund for all workers on his farm, and contributes to the fund even during the months that the seasonal workers are not working. Raquel Barros founded the charity Lua Nova (‚new moon‛) in 2000 after four years of frustrated attempts to get pregnant. She was living in Italy, with her husband, and decided to go back to her home city, Sorocaba, in São Paulo state, in order to help young mothers living on the street who couldn't take care of their babies. In 2006 she started a programme to teach these women the skills they needed to build their own houses. Five of the women now work full time in the construction business. Raquel became pregnant herself two years after founding Lua Nova. Her twins are now nine years old.

Contacts
Raquel Barros: ‚We can see that the prejudice is slowly giving place to the recognition of their work, even in such a masculine field of work. Now, people are recommending their services because they are meticulous and better organised than the men.‛ Overview: Brazil has traditionally been a typically patriarchal society, with men given the role of bread winner and women handed the position of home-maker. It was not until 1988 that women became wholly equal to men in the eyes of the Brazilian constitution, and thus were able to hold jobs in the services and industry sector without the fear of discrimination Progress : Although women in Brazil have traditionally relied on employment in the services sector (retail, hotel, catering etc), many have begun to break away from that employment segment and enter sectors such as construction.
The Brazilian government's special secretariat for policy on women reports that female contribution to the construction industry grew by 3 per cent between 2008 and 2009. Due to this, projects like Mão na Massa (Hands On) have launched in Brazil with the aim of promoting and assisting women in gaining access to the construction industry.
Setbacks : The gender gap has widened in recent years. The Global Gender Gap Report lists Brazil ranking at 85, compared to 67 in 2006. Dagmar Rivieri Garroux, known as Tia Dag (auntie Dag), runs Casa do Zezinho, a school in one of south São Paulo's favelas. She set it up in 1994 after working with children fleeing from paramilitary groups in São Paulo. It is now one of the largest extracurricular schools in the city, home to 1,200 girls and boys aged between six and 21 years old. When the school first opened parents refused to allow their daughters to attend, but gradually she talked them round. Today Tia Dag proudly says that she convinces nine out of ten parents to allow their daughters to stay on in the school even once they are teenagers. By offering social, cultural and artistic activities, as well as vocational training, Tia Dag and the teachers aim to prevent these young people from joining São Paulo's criminal gangs. Tia Dag: ‚In downtown São Paulo, women work; they have careers even though the jobs pay poorly. But in the favela, women are unpaid servants. They are not expected to be anything more than underappreciated house wives... I know that if they let their daughters study they will have the same opportunities as the boys down the road. Well, not the same, because prejudice is widespread in Brazil, but their chances at pulling themselves out of this cycle of violence, submission and impoverishment will be much better.‛ Key facts " Statistics from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics show that literacy rates amongst females have continued to soar in Brazil, reaching an impressive 99 per cent in 2007.