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ISSUE BRIEFS • UPCOMING EVENTS • BOOKS • FILMS

WOW! ISSUE BRIEFS

This monthly e-publication of the WOW! (Work of Women) program at World Neighbors provides WOW! members with regular updates on concerns affecting women in the developing world. For a subscription to this timely and insightful resource, join WOW! Your membership fee and any donations support the work we do around the world. We also invite you to scroll down to view a selection of archived issue briefs.

Hunger Now Rising to Historic Highs

July 2009

West Africa girl WOW! Work of Women "For those living on less than $2 a day, the financial crisis is accelerating hunger, and the worst is yet to come," predicted Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), last month. The WFP and others are finding that the global economic situation is worsening food availability and hunger for millions of families around the globe.

In fact, hunger is projected by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to reach historic highs this year, with one sixth of all people around the world likely to go hungry.

Once again, hunger is likely to affect poor women disproportionately, since women often eat less in order to give men and children, especially male children, more. Women are also more impacted by the additional time and work required when food is scarce. For example, it is they who stand in long lines to get the food at markets or distribution centers. It is they who care for family members who are weak or ill due to insufficient food or malnutrition. It is they and their babies who bear the consequences of poor nutrition during pregnancy and the first year of their babies lives.

The good news is that the FAO and others are recognizing that smallholder farmers in developing countries can provide the impetus to improve food availability globally, and even to spur broader economic growth. Read more about the rising numbers of hungry.

Women and Water
April 2009
Inadequate access to water disproportionately affects women and girls in the developing world. Traditionally, women and girls have the responsibility of collecting water for use in the household and for hygienic purposes. They are expected to walk an average of 4 miles (approximately 3 to 6 hours) daily to gather water, carrying over 40 pounds of water at a time. The energy spent walking and carrying such heavy loads daily wears on the bodies of already under-nourished women and girls who do not meet their recommended caloric intake. Read more about women and water.

Ending Poverty Begins with Women
March 2009
Today, more than 1.4 billion people are living in extreme poverty – on less than $1 per day – and almost half of the world’s population is considered poor. A majority are women and girls. The number of rural women living in poverty has more than doubled over the last 20 years, and the gap between women and men in poverty continues to expand. Although women perform two-thirds of the world’s unpaid labor and grow more than 50 percent of the world’s food supply, they account for approximately 70 percent of those living in poverty.

Back to Basics: What is Work of Women?

January 2009
WOW! – the Work of Women group at World Neighbors – was begun in 2000 by a group of women who were strong World Neighbors supporters. These women were particularly interested in focusing on women’s struggles and women’s contributions to community progress around the world, and in connecting sister-to-sister with women around the world. Read the issue brief.

Human Rights are Women's Right

December 2008

In the most basic sense, the idea of women’s human rights is simply that as human beings, women have human rights. Why does this need to be stated? Because for decades, human rights were primarily defined from the perspective of men’s needs and experiences. For example, human rights were defined primarily as individuals’ right to be free from State intrusion and abuse. The ways that women are affected by war and other abuses was largely invisible, and the abuses that primarily affected women were not seen as human rights issues.. Read the issue brief or take a glance at the issues!

Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS

November 2008

Women represent slightly more than half of all individuals living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and more than 98 percent of these women live in developing countries. In many of the world’s most affected regions, women have become increasingly at risk for contracting this deadly disease. Women represent 60 to 70 percent of new infections in sub-Saharan Africa, and since 2001, the number of women living with HIV globally has increased by 1.6 million. Read the issue brief or take a glance at the issues!

Modern Day Slavery

October 2008

Although most people around the world believe that slavery ended centuries ago, the reality is that millions of people are forced into and exploited in a modern day slave trade every day. Human trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, tying with the arms trade and falling closely behind the drug dealing industry, yet it goes strikingly unnoticed by much of the population.

Unlike drugs or arms, however, humans can be used, sold, and exploited over and over again for years until the victims finally die of disease, malnutrition, abuse, or murder, or, more rarely, are rescued or escape. The trafficking in persons industry has been estimated to generate $5 to $9 billion per year worldwide. Read the issue brief or take a glance at the issues!

Investing in Women's Literacy

September 2008

Literacy is more than just the ability to read and write. It influences the life chances of people in every society and culture. Literacy affects poverty, childhood mortality, population growth, gender equality, sustainable development and much more.

Education, especially women’s education, is essential to the process of human-centered development. Research has shown that increasing women’s access to education is crucial for progress to be made in developing regions. Women’s important role in development, however, is being impeded by their very low levels of literacy and educational attainment. Read the issue brief or take a glance at the issues!

A Women's Job is Never Done

August 2008

Burkina Faso woman with picture of workload. Life is not easy for women in the developing countries of Asia, Latin America or Africa. They struggle daily just to keep pace with their most basic needs and those of their families.

A typical woman in a developing country is burdened with approximately 17 hours of work each day, leaving little time to spend on activities that can better her quality of life. Bersigguia, a young women living in West Africa, is one of these women. She is burdened with great responsibility, yet has little real power to make decisions or contemplate choices. Read the issue brief or take a glance at the issues!

The Fight Against Hunger

July 2008

Little girls from Haiti.

As the price of food has risen steadily in recent months, a global food crisis has taken root. The causes are multiple, but the effects are felt disproportionately by women and children.

Haiti is just one example among the countries especially hard hit with both widespread hunger and rising social tensions. There, 80 percent of the population lives in poverty. In the capital city Port-au-Prince, some women have resorted to making mud cakes or cookies as an immediate answer. Read the issue brief or take a glance at the issues!

In Search of Better Opportunities

June 2008

In recent decades, globalization has increased the flow of migrant workers who travel from countries of limited opportunities to fill jobs in countries with greater opportunities. Increasingly, these migrant workers are single women who have left behind families in search of more economic resources. For example, women constitute more than 50 percent of migrant workers in Latin America and Asia. Read the issue brief!

Investing in Mothers and Children

May 2008

Research has consistently shown that investing in mothers’ health and well-being corresponds to an overall improvement in the quality of life and future prospects of their children. The report State of the World’s Mothers 2008, published by the humanitarian group Save the Children, identifies the presence of a skilled attendant at birth and access to, and use of, family planning services as the areas most strongly associated with child survival and well-being. Read the issue brief!

Kenya WOW! Work of Women at World Neighbors Poverty: It's Not Just About Money

April 2008

Poverty tends to be reproduced from one generation to the next. Why don’t poor people just lift themselves up? Why don’t they just get to work? These are fairly common refrains in some circles. One aspect that helps explain the complexity of poverty is recognition that a number of effects of poverty—poor health, lack of education, marginalization and so on—also cause or reinforce it. Read the issue brief!

Nepali woman WOW! Work of Women Celebrating Accomplishments, Raising Awareness of Challenges

March 2008

At the same time that we are witness to women in leadership roles around the world, and more awareness that women's rights are human rights, we still find women facing enormous challenges throughout the world. Women make up 70 percent of the nearly 3 billion people around the world who live on less than $2 a day. They are dying at a rate of half a million a year from preventable complications of pregnancy. Girls are the majority of children who cannot or do not attend school. One in three women will be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Read the issue brief!