The UN’s mandate for International Women’s Day 2012
“Invest in rural women. Eliminate discrimination against them in law and in practice. Ensure that policies respond to their needs. Give them equal access to resources. Provide rural women with a role in decision-making.” – United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon
Recognizing the critical role and contribution of rural women, the theme of International Women’s Day 2012 is Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.
Key contributors to global economies, rural women play a critical role in both developed and developing nations — they enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and can help reduce poverty levels in their communities. In some parts of the world, women represent 70 percent of the agricultural workforce, comprising 43 percent of agricultural workers worldwide.
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A one-woman crusade to improve the lives of Afghan villagers
Zarifa Qazizadah is the only female village head in Afghanistan. She moves around on a motorbike and hopes to win a seat in the national parliament. The 50-year-old mother of 15 thinks education for women is paramount.
And she’s off again. Zarifa Qazizadah is making her way from one house to the next, asking the villagers how they are – her villagers. As the only female village head in Afghanistan, she takes special care of the thousand or so families that fall under her care in the Narsoyi district of Mazar-i-Sharif.
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The rights of Afghan women are at risk again
A council of clerics has put forward a series of recommendations to President Karzai that would drastically restrict women’s rights in Afghanistan. Activists fear the government might bow too easily to the pressure.
“Women are a by-product of creation,” states a declaration put last week by a senior council of Islamic scholars and mullahs to President Hamid Karzai for implementation. The recommendations of the Ulema Council, which has some 3,000 members, stipulate further that women should accept the leading role of men in all walks of life, without resistance.
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