Women in Poverty Stricken Countries - Essay Example

? Women in Poverty Stricken Countries Introduction For as long as there has been humans walking the face of this earth, women have endured an often tumultuous plight towards equity and freedom in society. This can still be seen in the developed countries of the world where is still income inequality, stereotypes about gender roles, and a lack of women in primary positions of leadership. The disparity, then, is even more more pronounced throughout the developing countries of the world where women struggle on a daily basis to enjoy just a few of the simple freedoms that their counterparts in other parts of the world take for granted. Women in third-world countries often lack access to education, healthcare, and employment opportunities. This reality, therefore, begs the question of what needs to be done to ease the social, emotional, and physical difficulties facing the millions of women living in abject poverty in third world countries throughout the globe. There are many facets to living it poverty that make even the basic of human function difficult to endure. Yet, countless millions of individuals throughout the world are faced with this reality each and everyday. As difficult as poverty is to endure, however, being a female in poverty stricken countries seems to simply compound the situation. The voices of women globally have been silenced in many cases and it difficult for them to achieve justice. Instances of rape and other unspeakable forms of abuse continue to occur almost unabated (Buvinic, 1997). Progress has certainly been made in recent years, largely due to the presence of a more globally focused media, but the reality is that much more needs to be done to protect women living in poverty in third world countries. The focus of this paper is to look at ways that society can better provide for the social, emotions, and physical needs of the millions of women living in poverty throughout the developing world. Social Needs of Women Living in Poverty Naturally, women comprise a little more than half of the world’s population, yet they represent a full seventy percent of individual living in poverty throughout the world. In the developing nations around the globe, this percentage can be even higher. This represents the reality that not only are women living in abject poverty, but often times they find themselves alone, frightened, and unable to consider any way out of their situation. In addition, the number of women raising children alone and in poverty continues to rise, further magnifying this problem. Women in poverty often find themselves victims of unspeakable social injustice and discrimination. In addition, they often discover problems in attaining access to even the most basic of healthcare services, educational options, and employment opportunities. While these difficulties certainly exist is first world countries, they are further magnified in the developing nations of the world, where class inequality is much more noticeable and government assistance is lacking (Batana 338). Even childbirth has become troubling for women living in property in much of the developing world, as there is a lack of clean medical facilities nearby that can attend to their specific and unique needs. Whereas even the poorest among us in Western societies typically have access to basic and clean child birthing facilities, that simply is not a luxury that much of world’s poor have available to them. Add to that the reality that single women giving birth are further stigmatized and less likely to receive assistance from society, and one quickly realizes the uphill struggle that women living in poverty face today in almost every facet of their social life. A child born poor, most often becomes a teenager without educational options, and adult without employment opportunities, and an elderly member of society with nobody to care for them. In other words, most of the women born into poverty in this world will remain such for the remainder of their life. Sociologist has labeled this the cycle of poverty. It will truly take a global and monumental effort amongst all sectors of society in order to reverse this cycle. This cycle begins at birth. Poor mothers do not have access to quality nutritional diets for their children. In addition, mothers are often malnourished themselves, leading to a reduced time that they can breast feed their own children, and even then the milk is not as nutritionally balanced as it would be if they were afforded a proper diet. Children, then, grow up malnourished, which affects their healthy. Not only can an unhealthy child not focus in school, they are often unable to attend because of illness. In addition, once school becomes unaffordable to the family, girls are the first to be asked to stay at home and help with domestic duties around the house, in an effort to allow the boys to attend school for as long as possible (Quisumbing, Haddad, & Pena 228). While many members of society would like to think that this is not longer a situation plaguing society and that members of both sexes are equally afforded quality educational opportunities, which sentiment could not be further from the truth. Women in poverty are often the victims of unspeakable violence and neglect. Much of this occurs outside of the view of society, and even when members of the community know what is going on, they often do little to stop it. It is estimated that in the developing world alone, more than 3 million females die each year because of violence perpetuated against them simply because of their gender. As children, many young girls are often sold into prostitution. Many claim that this is due to the sheer desperation of the family, but the reality is that many families in poverty simply discard their female children. In doing so, if the opportunity exists to sell them into life in the sex trade, then all too commonly they do so. This problem has gotten so severe that it is now estimated that four million females from poor families are either sold or forced into prostitution every year. That bears focusing in on. This is an annual figure and is not mean to be cumulative over a generation. This is not limited to Africa either, as the countries of Southeast Asia, among others, are common breeding grounds for exploiting young female children from poor families (Quisumbing, Haddad, & Pena 228). Being pushed into the sex trade is not the only social injustice done to poor women, sexually speaking. Throughout the world, more then twenty percent of women are forcibly raped at least once during their lifetime. In developing countries, not only is figure much higher, but the act is often repeated multiple times. In many nations, poor females simply have no voice. They do not speak out because of fear, and they are not heard because society has long since forgotten them in many ways. For this reason, many women living in poverty simply do so alone. They begin to accept their victimization, feel that this is simply their lot in life, and are unwilling to believe that there is any hope of living a life filled with normalcy. They do not believe that that they will ever have enough resources to adequately sustain themselves, not to mention their families. Hence, the cycle of poverty continues. The bottom line is that millions of girls around the world are simply not getting any social interaction out of the home, nevertheless any access to an education. Recent estimates are that more than 70 million children around the world are not enrolled in school, and most of these from developing countries. Of this number, more than 50 million of them are girls (Sha, Muhammad, & Zia 87). Forced out of school at an early age, as these females become adults they have no vocational training, are often married off at an early age, and have few social skills that will afford them the opportunity to come out from their present condition of poverty. There are other serious issues regarding poverty and education that must be addressed as well. Consider, for example, the reality that educated women and women of financial means statistically have fewer children. Affording girls in poverty the opportunity to complete their education will serve to reduce the fertility rates amongst this population over time. If this were to occur, over time, the number of children being raised in poverty will begin to decrease. This demonstrates that the cycle can be broken eventually, but it will involve a complete shift in the priorities that many society exhibit towards women. Women who have been educated are also better equipped to care for their children. They will understand the importance of an education, giving them access to a nutritional diet, and providing for their social needs. It is also a sad reality that millions of women around the world are subject to HIV/AIDS infection. Studies have recently shown that educated girls not only practice safer sex, but they are better aware about how to raise their own girls to be aware of the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases (Sha, Muhammad, & Zia 87). In essence, education may not be the miracle cure that is going to help women free themselves from poverty, but is certainly the first place that society must look at. Girls need to be afforded the opportunity to go to school and study alongside their male counterparts. They should not be relegated to domestic duties from an early age, and they need to have their social wellbeing looked after and nurtured. Emotional Needs As previously mentioned, females living in poverty often experience great difficulty finding suitable employment. Those that do find work often suffer great emotional trauma due to long hours, poor treatment, and often back breaking working conditions. It is a sobering reality that women actually work about 65% of the average daily working hours around the world. Given this, one would think that they are better off than they are. The fact is, however, that women only earn about 10% of the total income in the world. This figure would be even lower if you did not average in women living in Western countries. Women also struggle in many areas of the world to earn their own land, exhibiting a total of only 1% of the total property in the world (Minh 504). As such, if they are separated from a man for any reason, they are often left with no place to go. Finally, it should be noted that women earn, on average, only half of the salary that a man earns. Again, in developing countries, this might be even less. Out of sheer desperation, many females often turn to labor brokers that promise them a better way of life in a distant land. They use what little money they do have to go in search of this better opportunity, only to discover that they have literally sold themselves into slavery. With no way to return home, they are forced to work out their days in near slave like conditions, earning very little money, while much of what they do earn goes to pay of their debt. It is a never ending and hopeless cycle that wreaks emotional havoc on millions of poor women around the world. Within most poverty stricken societies, there is an entire underground economy that thrives on informal employment. Such employment is away from the eyes of the government and can be debilitating to the progress of the women’s rights. While such employment options do occasionally provide women with a sustainable income, that vast majority of occupations offered under informal employment arrangements amount to little more the exploitation. Informal employment is much more common for females than males, and often consist of domestic household help, or factory workers. Domestic laborers in many countries are afforded few protections. Even in areas of the world that do offer protection for workers in informal type of employment arraignment, women almost always remain silent for fear of losing what little bit of an income that they are able to earn. In addition, they find it difficult to trust others and are fearful of recrimination if they do speak out against their employers. Such jobs are really taken by women living in poverty, which is why they continue to be available. They compound, however, the emotional turmoil that is felt by individuals with little to no means to adequately take care of themselves. Consider the plight of the domestic worker. Many females working in areas that require household help do so for far below what is considered a minimum standard of living. They work long hours, often up to 18-20 hours a day. Many do not receive any days off. To compound the difficulties that each of the factors brings to the females working under such conditions, they are forced to work alone and with little to no contact with families or friends (Minh 504). If this continues for an extended period of time, the entire social structure that the worker might have built up over the years is slowly eroded. This brings on a feeling of helplessness and fear that there is little hope of getting out of their present situation and beginning a new and better life. Emotional trauma is common is these workers. Mothers are often separated from their children for long periods of time. What little money they are able to send home does little to help their children escape poverty. In fact, studies show that much of the money that is sent home to support children in poverty gets abused and spent by other adults in the family who have been entrusted to be the caretakers of the children while the mother is away working. Upon hearing of these developments, mothers are pushed even deeper into despair (Minh 504). Physical Difficulties Endured by Women in Developing Countries As difficult as it is to fathom, many girls born into poverty are simply and literally tossed aside. Known as female infanticide, many babies that born to mothers who are already living in deplorable conditions riddled by poverty and hopelessness, many of them are simply abandoned and left to die. The mothers must feel that they cannot provide for the newborn, so if there is no individual or organization willing to step up and provide assistance, then infanticide may appear to be the only option and way out. It is estimated that there are more than 32 million girls missing throughout the world, many of them likely victimized by female infanticide. In addition, in families that living in poverty and have multiple children, girls often receive an inferior diet that lack nutrition, as the parents will tend to favor the boys of the family in that regard. Over time, this will obviously result in numerous physical difficulties and abnormalities. As many girls growing up in poverty around the world live in developing nations, the problem of female genital mutilation and cutting is also prevalent. It is estimated that more than 100 million girls have undergone some form of genital mutilation, usually as a result of cultural tradition. Women growing up in poverty have not been properly educated themselves about the dangers of this practice, and so they are much more likely to continue to subject their young female children to the practice. Such practices often lead to severe pain that lasts a lifetime, tremendous bouts with infection, and in some cases results in premature death. There is also the reality that many girls born into poverty are forced to become a bride at an early age, which often result in a first pregnancy that occurs very early in life. Early pregnancy results in an increased risk of maternal death. Even woman that are of normal childbearing age often have numerous health problems related to issues caused by poverty. Many women in developing countries, as a result of inferior medical care, develop hemorrhaging during childbirth. This could result in death. In addition, many malnourished pregnant women are anemic, and their unborn children do not gain the nutrients to experience a healthy birth. This results in countless children being born around the world, already coming into a poverty-stricken society, underdeveloped and malnourished from day one (Buvinic 42). All of these physical factors, and others, combine to paint a most bleak picture about females who grow up and live in poverty. Conclusion Yes, it is true. Women live in poverty everywhere. This is not a problem confined to the developing nations of the world. This is, however, a problem compounded in the developing world and one that has grown so severe that action must be taken. With all the talk about women’s rights in recent decades, it is sobering to consider that little process has actually been made. Stephen Lewis recently noted, in speaking about the nations of Africa, “The atmosphere of benign neglect, compounded by the rooted gender inequality, all adds up to a death sentence for countless millions of women in the developing world. For whatever reason, we simply cannot break the monolith of indifference and paralysis” (Batana 343). There simply, at current, is no way out of poverty for millions of women and girls living in poverty. This truly is an issue that members of society in the developed cannot truly grasp. Even the poorest of the poor in many countries is quite wealthy compared to the millions of women living in abject poverty in much of Africa, Southeast Asia, India, and portions of Central America. What we have to do now is to learn how to better equalize opportunities for women living in poverty, and provide better for their social, emotional, and physical needs. Doing this will be the start of a long road toward to gender equality among the classes. Works Cited Batana, Yele Maweki. “Multidimensional Measurement of Poverty among Women in Sub- Saharan Africa”. Social Indicators Research 112.2 (2013): 337-362. Buvinic, Mayra. “Women in Poverty: A New Global Underclass”. Foreign Policy 108.1 (1997): 38-53. Minh, Quang Dao. “Rural Poverty in Developing Countries: An Empirical Analysis”. Journal of Economic Studies 31.6 (2004): 500-508. Quisumbing, Agnes., Haddad, Lawrence., and Pena, Christine. “Are Women Overrepresented among the poor? An Analysis of poverty in 10 developing countries”. Journal of Development Economics 66.1 (2001): 225-269. Sha, Nareen., Nadeemullah, Muhammad., and Zia, Muhammad. “Women, Work, and Poverty: Gender-Based Factors Strengthening Feminization of Poverty in Pakistan”. Pakistan Journal of Women’s Studies 20.1 (2013): 87. Read More