NYT: U.N. Reports Lack of Data on Women in Poverty (interesting report)

[DeepModem Mom]

U.N. Reports Lack of Data on Women in Poverty
By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: January 21, 2006


Rock stars, movie actresses and heads of state have shined a bright light on global poverty in the past year, often highlighting the particular burden on women, but a report from the United Nations released this week painstakingly details the huge gaps in data needed to understand how poverty - in all its ugly guises - affects women.

Many poor countries simply do not collect the most basic facts about births, marriages and deaths by sex and age, or the employment status and wages of men and women.

The dearth of information makes it difficult to pinpoint where girls are being married off while they are still children, or where female fetuses are being aborted because boys are preferred, or where girls are dying because they get less food and medical care than boys, says the report, which was released Wednesday.

Its authors, and specialists in the field, say better information is urgently needed if the world is to fashion sensible, effective solutions to reflect conditions that are constantly evolving and vary greatly even within a single country.

Africa, the world's poorest region, has the weakest systems for data collection. Four in 10 Africans live in countries that did not conduct a census in the past decade, and 8 in 10 live in countries with inadequate national collection of vital statistics....


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/international/21poverty.html

[Triana]

1. Nobody cares how poverty affects women...

...in this country or many others. We're just incidental, not considered key elements of society. We're breeding sows and as long as there are enough of us to do that, who cares about anything else? Whether we're poor, whether we're healthy, whether we thrive or wither or whether we suffer. As long as we're able to push out babies, no one cares. Once we're too old for that, what little care and protection we did have is removed. This is why elderly women and the poorest of all - forgotten - left to die. No one cares, save their immediate family. All these "moral" bible-thumpers won't address this problem, along with many problems they don't acknowledge. Their patriarchal religion and dogma is the crux of the problem. Why would they finger themselves? They won't. We're second-class citizens everywhere. Even Laura Bush, except SHE is wealthy enough to afford to have what she needs as she ages. How many of the rest of us are so fortunate?

Ghandi said "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

Secondarily, I say "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can ALSO be judged by the way its women, children, elderly, sick, and its environment are treated."

If we use either or both of those yardsticks to measure the morality of each nation, including our own, then most of them (including the US) are just one big, immoral festering sore, and no patriarchal religion or patriarchal society or government (ie: more of the SAME) is going to fix it. We need different, more balanced leadership. Everywhere. Won't happen, but that's the requirement if any of this is ever going to change. Well, that's my $20.

[zann725]

2. Not JUST foreign countries. How about here in U.S.? If you are single,

without children, and EVEN with advanced "degrees"...there are no "aid" or "housing" programs for you in time of need. And the very structure of the American family, offers little sympathy or support for women on their own (in time of need)...particularly over a certain age (40-ish). And due to the STILL deep disparity between wages earned between Women and Men, most Women suddenly on their on (due to divorce)...or job loss, or illness, or death of husband (whose pension in a lot of cases has been "pulled" by prior employer)...are suddenly literally out on the street.

And most, for fear of personal safety in a shelter (the only option for most)...fail to be "counted" among the homeless. Yet STILL prior middle-class women who show up NO WHERE on the neat little "charts" and numbers that count Poverty.

Poverty OF Women IN AMERICA needs examined FIRST. Take care, and I do mean "care" of our own mothers, daughters, and sisters FIRST...whether biologically related, or "related" to them directly or INdirectly by human nature. There is at least ONE such woman in Povery and need (through NO fault of her own) that each of us knows, and could help in whatever little way. How many times have we ignored, pretended it didn't exist...and just turned away
...to the Poverty in OTHER countries instead. For focusing on the far away is far more "polite"...removed...and easier to ignore, except in "statistics."