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PrintGender and basic rights
This young woman lives in Naa Wan village, Vientiane Province, Laos, where Oxfam Australia provides safe, clean water. Photo: Jerry Galea/OxfamAUS
The right to a sustainable livelihood
Some aspects of poverty and exploitation are experienced by both women and men. However, unequal gender power relationships in most communities mean that women are poorer than men and face greater social, economic, political and cultural discrimination. 'Women's work' – gathering fuel and water, processing food, caring for children and the sick, and managing the household – is demanding but not given the social or economic recognition it deserves.
The feminisation of poverty – the proportion of women in poverty – has accelerated in the past decade as a result of the global trend towards free trade. Environmental degradation and the conversion of many economies from subsistence food-growing to producing large commodity crops for export has made it difficult for women to meet their families' most basic needs.
Some women find themselves left alone to care for families while their men migrate in search of work. Others flee rural poverty themselves to find work in city factories, where competition is high and wages and conditions often scandalously poor. Women who cannot find work turn to the 'informal economy' – for example, working as very low-paid outworkers or prostitutes.
In order to reduce poverty, illiteracy and disease, resources and opportunities must be given to girls and women. However, in the distribution of development resources such as land, food or credit, men are often assumed to be the head of the household, so that women and children miss out. Yet 30 per cent of houses worldwide are now headed by women. The important role of women within the home and the wider community means that directing resources specifically towards women benefits the whole community.
Oxfam Australia helps poor women by establishing awareness-raising, literacy and credit programs and women's social action groups. These groups empower women to improve their status in their communities, and to earn independent incomes.