Oct 16, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Despite some positive advancement in the condition of women, they remain vulnerable to poverty and violence, and much still needs to be done to reverse the feminization of poverty around the world, Archbishop Celestino Migliore told a United Nations committee Oct. 13.
The UN committee was meeting about the implementation of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace in the 21st century.”
The archbishop cited recent statistics compiled by the International Labor Organization, which indicate that women represent 60 per cent of the world’s 550 million working poor, in many cases, earning less than one dollar a day.
“Poverty prevents women from attaining their basic needs such as nutrition, sanitation, basic health care and education, and it continues to deprive societies of the enriching and irreplaceable contribution that can be furnished only by women,” said the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN.