Rédaction Africa Links 24 with lexpress
Published on 2024-02-27 02:43:00
Presentation of the World Bank’s Gender Inequality Report. Malagasy women continue to face major challenges. This hinders their potential and perpetuates gender inequalities in the country.
Deep inequality. Hary, a housekeeper in a household in Antananarivo, cannot read or write. “I left school in T2, according to my mother. She didn’t have the means to send me to school. It’s not really a blockage in my life to be illiterate, but I would have liked to spend more time in school to learn things. Who knows? Maybe I would have become a doctor or a teacher if I had been able to study?” says this woman in her forties who is unable to decipher her national identity card. She thinks she is 40 years old, but on her national identity card, she was born in 1978.
A significant proportion of adult women aged 15 to 49 are illiterate, according to a new report from the World Bank entitled “Unlocking the Potential of Women and Girls – Challenges and Opportunities for Greater Empowerment of Women and Girls in Madagascar.” It was presented yesterday at the World Bank office in Anosy. Malagasy women and girls face multiple disadvantages that affect their ability to accumulate human capital in education and health, participate in economic opportunities, and make decisions, according to the report. According to the World Bank, the lack of investment in human capital weighs heavily on women’s potential to actively and productively participate in economic opportunities.
Reducing disparities. “The survey data, and even more so the qualitative data recently collected for this report, highlight the troubling and deep links between poverty, lack of access to education, absence of economic opportunities, lack of autonomy and voice among girls, and child marriage. The report also shows that beyond the direct struggle against identified gender gaps, the underlying factors of inequalities must also be taken into account when formulating relevant policies. Among these factors are patriarchal social norms, lack of access to basic services, vulnerability to shocks and climate change, as well as poverty and lack of economic and social capital among the most vulnerable,” explains Miriam Muller, the report’s lead social issues specialist.
To reduce existing disparities between men and women, it is important to help girls and young women complete their education, improve women and girls’ access to professional healthcare, enhance women’s economic opportunities, enable them to have a stronger voice and agency, and eliminate all forms of gender-based violence.
Read the original article(French) on lexpress.mg
