SDG 5 – Gender Equality Earth year 4,492,056,017
Mother Earth/Gaia‘s Blog
Mankind, My children
In my first blog post, I asked that you commit to following my blog posts for the next few weeks to give me a chance to explain the most important issues affecting our joint survival. Subsequent Blogs have started to give you some facts about the big and important Global issues that need to be addressed and what sorts of actions you personally could take. In today’s Blog post I want to talk about SDG 5 – GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT.
The problem
Women in developing countries often have to walk for hours to fetch water and they toil in drought prone fields to feed their families. Women are half of the world population but get access to only a minute portion of the worlds resources and power. Poor girls have less opportunities for education and 15 million girls under 18 are married off by their families each year with little or no choice. Four out of 5 victims of human trafficking are girls and 30% of women suffer physical or sexual abuse. The risk of death for a child under 5 is twice as high for mothers who are not educated, so education is a major tool to bring gender equality, to increase earning potential and to increase a girl’s life chances. Just 1 year extra in school can increase a woman’s earnings by up to 20%.
Do you feel guilty when watching TV reports about the suffering of the poor in developing countries and the inequality and unfairness that denies opportunities to girls and women in much of the world? Do you feel helpless and frustrated about such unfairness? Have you ever thought about what YOU might do to help make the world a better place where such inequality can be eliminated? Now is your chance to do something to change the world!
The facts
1. 250,000 maternal deaths and 1.7 million new-born baby deaths could be avoided if there was better health care for women
2. 125 million women are affected by Female Genital Mutilation
3. Women in age range 15-44 are more at risk from rape or violence than from Cancer, accidents, war or Malaria
WCYDo (What Can You Do?)
1. Join with friends or family to sponsor a girl child in a developing country through primary school
2. Donate once a month or fund raise for www.equalitynow.org, www.unwomen.org, www.clintonfoundation.org
3. Share the facts about Gender inequality with family and friends
Encourage others to join us and to visit us on Facebook and Twitter to sign up for our newsletter and information about our proposed WCYDo APP. See you next week on blog, which will be about SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation.