Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Consider the following well-attested observations: (1) Forty years of international development policies have increased rural poverty in a gender-disproportionate manner. During the last twenty years, even as USAID policies mandated concern for women, “the number of rural women living in absolute poverty rose by about 50 per cent … as against an increase of about 30 per cent for rural men” (Jazairy et al. 1992, p. xix). Against this, international justice would require that women's development be secured as a part of international development. (2) Approximately 75 percent of the world's 18 million refugees are women and girls, at risk of “endemic sexual violence against refugee women” (Zalewski 1995, p. 342). International justice would require that women's rights to be secure in owning her own body, and thus to be secure against rape, be recognized as human rights. But even at the level of ordinary living, in cities, suburbs and rural districts, sexual violence is endemic, while the state has too frequently proven a poor or indifferent protector. (3) Environmental degradation disproportionately increases the difficulty women face in carrying out responsibilities socially adherent to gender. For example, where women must collect the biomass necessary to food preparation, loss of biodiversity adds hours to the unpaid domestic burdens of the poorest women. Where food is insufficient, ... log in or subscribe to read full text