PRESS BRIEFING PRESENTS REPORT ON GLOBAL SITUATION OF WOMEN

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING PRESENTS REPORT ON GLOBAL SITUATION OF WOMEN

Several officials from the United Nations Secretariat held a press conference this morning at Headquarters to present a new five-year progress report on the situation of women around the world. The report compiled and analysed data on conditions for women in the areas of health, human rights, politics, work, education and family.

The briefing was attended by Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs; Angela King, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women; and Francesca Perucci, researcher and author of the report. Thérèse Gastaut, Director of the Public Affairs Division of the Department of Public Information, introduced the participants.

Mr. Desai said the report, The World’s Women 2000: Trends and Statistics, set out to create a picture of conditions for women around the world through the gathering together of a wide-ranging set of global statistics. But it was not a standard statistical publication. On the contrary, the data was presented in an interpretive and user-friendly way to give a sense of what was actually happening around the world. The report was financed entirely through extrabudgetary resources.

An analysis of the data showed some improvement for women. There was some narrowing of the gender gap in terms of economic activities and participation in the work force. There was a decline in the incidence of early marriages and early childbearing, which, nonetheless, remained exceptionally high in certain parts of the world. The report also addressed the difficulty for women in reconciling their home responsibilities with their work responsibilities. Innovation would be required to resolve the conflicting demands on their time, he said, citing flexible work arrangements as one possible option.

Ms. Perucci, who noted that the data indicated that women were increasing their numbers in the labour force, said the report had tried to determine the impact on women of working during their childbearing years. However, there was not enough data available. She said it would be important in the formulation of policies to be able to understand how men and women dealt with that situation.

Ms. Perucci said the report was intended to sensitize governments and peoples on what needed to be done to improve statistical information on women around the world. Noting the lack of data in such other areas as violence against women, she said the report urged countries to improve their national statistical systems and encouraged the international community to prepare guidelines for countries in that regard.

On the issue of violence against women, Ms. Perucci said it was one of the new topics being investigated, but she had been hampered by the lack of data available. As a result, it had not been possible to present regional trends or make an over-the-years comparison. Another area in which there was very little

Women Press Briefing - 2 - 31 May 2000

data available was the increase in one-parent families. Most of those families were headed by women, and that group was the most vulnerable to poverty.

Ms. King described violence against women and trafficking in women and girls as burgeoning problems which tended to be under-reported. Governments and agencies needed to start gathering statistical information on those issues. She said it was important that the publication was being released on the eve of the Beijing + 5 follow-up conference next week. The report looked at most of the 12 critical areas highlighted by the 1995 Beijing Plan of Action, and could serve as a ready reference and a tool for policy makers at the government level, statisticians and activists.

If the gender gap in schooling were not to close by 2005, a correspondent asked, when did the panel expect it would close? Ms. Perucci said that, given the limited data available, it was hard to make a clear projection. “We know what the tendencies are and, in general, we know that the overall enrolment is high and the gap between males and females is narrowing”, she said. However, she also pointed out that in some areas women had great difficulty in gaining access to schools.

Mr. Desai added that the Secretary-General had launched a major programme on girls’ education and given high priority to ensuring that by 2005 the gender gap in education would be closed.

Another correspondent said the report showed that there had been a tremendous increase in girls’ enrolment in schools in Latin America, yet a UNESCO report stated that there had been a global per capita decrease in spending on education. Did that mean the quality of education had gone down? Ms. Perucci said the quality of education was very low in some of the developing regions. And in fact a large percentage of women with some years of primary education could not read or write.

In response to a question on the most significant changes in the past five years, Ms Perucci cited, in terms of family, the changes in living arrangements, in particular the increase in one-parent families and the increase in births outside marriage. As for work, she said there was a new focus on the need to understand and collect data on working conditions for women.

Asked if the increase of women in the labour force was a result of their having fewer children or their entry into the workforce being forced on them, Ms. Perucci said it was a combination of the two, plus the fact that women’s participation in the labour force had been previously underestimated. The data indicated that women were having fewer children and investing more in their careers.

A correspondent asked why one section had been titled “women’s rights as human rights”. Ms. King replied that a clear statement of women’s rights as human rights had emerged from the 1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights and had been reaffirmed by the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women.

* *** *