Raul Castro advocates at UN for gender equality and women's empowerment | CubaMINREX

28.9.15

Raul Castro advocates at UN for gender equality and women's empowerment | CubaMINREX: New York, September 27, 2015

Mr. President,

Forty years after the First World Conference on Women, and twenty years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Action Program, one out of three women endures physical and sexual violence; 90% of the 2.5 million victims of human trafficking are female; unemployment is higher among women than men, and they receive an average of 60% to 75% of the men’s salary for the same work; millions of women do not enjoy equal rights with respect to inheritance and property; and, women representation in parliaments worldwide is of only 22%.

Nearly 90% of the current victims of war are civilians, most of them women and children, and the same applies to 75% of the people displaced by conflicts or seeking refuge.

Women make up 70% of the 2.7 billion of the world poor, and two thirds of the nearly 800 million illiterate adults; more than 300 thousand women die every year of avoidable complications during childbirth, 99% of them in South countries.