The UN has linked poverty to violence against women.

LONDON - The world will never eliminate poverty until it confronts social, economic and physical discrimination against women, the United Nations said Wednesday.

“Gender apartheid” could scuttle the global body’s goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015, the U.N. Population Fund’s annual State of World Population report said.

“We cannot make poverty history until we stop violence against women and girls,” the fund’s executive director, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, said at the report’s launch in London. “We cannot make poverty history until women enjoy their full social, cultural, economic and political rights.”

The report said gender equality and better reproductive health could save the lives of 2 million women and 30 million children over the next decade — and help lift millions around the world out of poverty.

Hmmmm… Stopping violence against women and girls… I can think of one particular patriarchal religion followed by a few billion people that might be a problem in that regard… Of course, it’s never mentioned…

Improving women’s political, economic and educational opportunities would lead to “improved economic prospects, smaller families, healthier and more literate children, lower HIV prevalence rates and reduced incidence of harmful traditional practices.”

“Inequality is economically inefficient, it is a violation of human rights and it is a hazard to health,” Obaid said.

Yawn. Yeah, we know… But what are you going to do about it? The cliche, “a strongly-worded resolution” comes to mind. I will give the fine writers over at the AP credit for one thing. They did pick an interesting example of the inequality women face in the world and the disconnect between rights and roles…

In Iraq — called the world’s youngest democracy by its government — many women felt the country’s draft constitution “will not be presenting them with all the opportunities for equal rights that they would have wished,” Obaid said.

Iraq…

Yep… They picked Iraq… Now ponder that for a minute. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, and even China are all historically bad countries when it comes to equal rights for women, and yet none of them get mentioned. Instead, they fret over Iraq.

Lack of contraception leads to 76 million unintended pregnancies in the developing world and 19 million unsafe abortions worldwide each year, the agency said. More than half a million women die annually from preventable pregnancy-related causes — a figure that has changed little in a decade.

Ummmm, no… “Lack of contraception” does not lead to “unintended” pregnancies. Having sex does. Are we ever going to hold people responsible for having children? It’s always lack of education… Lack of condoms… Lack of money… Lack of guidance… Lack of lacks… I can’t take it anymore.

I will say, though, that it’s probably safe to guess that a good number of those “unintended” pregnancies are due to rape. In most of the countries I mentioned above, it’s perfectly okay to rape a woman. In fact, in just about every one of them, if the woman is raped, she’s stoned to death because she disgraced her family.

That’s another concept in that afforementioned religion.

You know the one… The one whose name we dare not speak lest we offend…

The one religion of the region where only 51% of women are literate…

The one religion of the region where only 5% of women hold parliamentary seats (second only to Oceania, which includes Indonesia, the largest country in the area, and predominantly that same religion)…

It’s the great elephant in the living room. If we addressed the petty arab dictatorships, shari’a law, and all the other things that keep women subjugated around the world and fostered a true understanding and desire for actual real freedom, things would be different. That should be something the UN looks into.

But they won’t.

They’ll keep watching television through the elephant’s legs.

Link To Article

Link to Fact Sheet on Gender Inequality From Report