If we all wanted to join forces in promoting the health and well-being of those who deserve it the most and receive it the least, we should concentrate on women. It is simply because when women become healthier, better nourished and rise above poverty, and when their status in society improves, the world will be a better place, our children will have a better future and development and peace will have a better chance.
Women have a major role in production and reproduction. Women in the third world spend almost three-fourths of their prime time of life in an almost continuous state of pregnancy and lactation. They also work long hours in family food production, child care and household management and often work longer hours than men. Women in continents like Africa are the primary producers of staple foods. They form a major part of the labor force in Asia. They spend relatively more of their income on child nutrition and family welfare needs. They are the primary driving force in delivery of primary health care and birth attendance in hundreds of thousands of villages around the world. They form the majority of teachers and nurses. They also have the responsibility of bearing and caring for the next generation. They teach the children in the world and heal the pains of the sick and elderly. It is unfortunate that the world does not pay enough attention to their health, as well as their economic and social well-being. They have an undue share of poverty, illiteracy, disease and poor diet. They also are given an uneven and unfair share of the fruits of advances made in social, economic and political development in the third world.
Women represent an untapped resource in the success of the world development. Stereotypical images of women as passive victims overshadow their agency and contributions to the development of the world. Women are victims, but they are also fighters. Women are survivors and they are protectors. Women are also peace builders. Across the world, with limited resources and in spite of threats from their own communities, women are active in peace marches and reconciliation efforts across conflict lines. Portraying and treating them solely as victims not only undermines their efforts and robs them of the opportunity to progress, but it also excludes a vast and untapped resource in terms of peacemaking and post-conflict recovery and transformation. Women are largely active in the informal spheres, at community and civil society levels, beneath the radar of the international community and the traditional peace and security framework.
The promising side of the picture is that women in the industrialized world have made substantial progress in their efforts for a better position in society, and the UN Decade for Women has made a difference in putting women and women's issues on the national development agenda in many countries, and the world is now better informed and aware of the women's problems and needs.
