Women's literacy and fertility rate:

The more education women have, the more likely they are to have smaller families.

Source: Literacy data from UNESCO's Education for All: Status and Trend series. Fertility data from the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: The 1998 Revision

Empowering Women

Good reproductive health improves the status of women, which is powerfully linked to sustainable development and poverty reduction. A woman with education and opportunities to earn income often chooses a smaller family. Family planning and women's rights, especially reproductive rights, hold tremendous promise for progress.

Equality and equity translate into better lives for women and their families. Empowered women are also better able to protect themselves from violence and disease - by promoting condom use, saying no to unwanted sexual relations, leaving abusive partners and obtaining needed services. When their role in life is defined solely by the ability to bear children, women have few options. With few economic opportunities and low social status, a woman's ability to manage her own life is limited - especially in decisions regarding marriage and family size.

Either by law or by custom, women in many countries still lack rights to:

• Own land and inherit property;
• Obtain access to credit;
• Attend and stay in school;
• Earn income and move up in their work, free from job discrimination;
• Have access to services that meet their sexual and reproductive health needs.

Education offers the best chance for a better life, yet two thirds of the 875 million illiterate adults in the world are female. In more than 45 countries, fewer than 1 in 4 girls are enrolled in secondary school.

The combination of education and access to family planning services mean smaller and healthier families. More education is strongly associated with lower infant mortality and lower fertility. In poorer countries, where access to health care is often limited, each additional year of schooling is associated with a 5 per cent to 10 per cent decline in child deaths.

Involving Men

The support, cooperation and involvement of men can add much to the movement towards a more equitable world with better reproductive health for all. The aim is shared decision-making about family size, shared influence over policies and programmes at all levels of government, and shared responsibility for contraception. Men must also play an active role in stopping the abuse of their daughters, wives, mothers and sisters by joining the effort to eradicate domestic violence, sex trafficking and rape.

Since men's views prevail in so many cultures, their cooperation in reproductive decision-making is key. Increasingly, family planning programmes are making services more attractive to men in several ways: separate clinics for males, modifying existing clinics to make men feel more welcome, offering services in the workplace, community-based distribution of condoms and information, and social marketing featuring positive images of men and women.

Engaging men as partners in fighting AIDS can help change the course of the epidemic. Cultural beliefs and expectations about "manhood" may encourage risky sexual and drug-taking behaviour in men. This puts them - and their partners - at heightened risk. Condom use and STI prevention and management can slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. Moreover, engaging men and boys as partners who take responsibility for their sexual behaviour and who respect the rights of women and girls will enhance all aspects of sexual and reproductive health, including family planning and the care of children.

Gender-based Violence

Violence against women takes many forms: genital cutting, domestic violence, rape and forced prostitution. Increasingly, gender-based violence is recognized as a major public health concern and a violation of human rights. Violence is one expression of the low status women hold in many societies.

UNFPA promotes the empowerment of women to speak out against violence and discrimination; laws and policies to protect and to punish; counselling for victims and training for police, judges and health workers. UNFPA supports the direct involvement of men and boys as partners for change to help overcome the socialization that perpetuates violent behaviour.

The Platform of Action (paragraph 96) of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) states: "The human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence."

• At least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family.

• Violence against girls and women throughout the world causes more death and disability among women in the 15 to 44 age group than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war, according to the World Bank.

• Each year, 2 million girls and women are at risk of female genital cutting.

• Violence and discrimination increase women's risk of HIV infection. In 2001, 1.8 million women were newly infected with HIV. Fear of violence may prevent women from negotiating condom use with their husbands and boyfriends.

• Discrimination in the form of son-preference can result in active and passive neglect, and even in sex-selective abortion, thereby reducing the number of females in the population below natural levels. naturally.

• Worldwide, discrimination and violence against women increases their risk of HIV infection. Worldwide, 16.4 million women aged 15 to 49 are living with HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa, infected women outnumber men by 2 million and the rate of infection in young women is double that of men their age

Harmful Practices

Each year, 2 million girls are at risk of female genital cutting (FGC). An estimated 130 million women worldwide have undergone some form of the procedure. Usually performed on young girls or adolescents approaching marriage age, FGC is typically conducted outside the medical system, without anaesthesia, using unclean instruments - with serious psychological and health consequences.

• Thousands of girls and women die each year as a result of FGC, from infections and haemorrhaging or in childbirth.

• 80 per cent of all cases involve excision of the clitoris and the labia minora; 15 per cent involve infibulation, the most extreme form of the practice.

Action against the harmful traditional practice of cutting the genitals of girls and women is gaining force. Community and religious groups are raising awareness, national governments are passing laws, and international consensus is pressing for an end to FGC.

Examples of UNFPA in Action

• A film on female genital cutting won the Special UNFPA Prize at the 17th Pan-African Cinema Festival in Ouagadougou, February 2001. The film, by Adjaratou Lompo of Burkina Faso, explores the impact of the practice on a young woman who succeeds in changing attitudes in her village.

• To better integrate gender issues throughout development programming, UNFPA developed a methodology and hosted a training workshop in Amman in 2001 attended by 35 trainers and focal points from Algeria, Morocco and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

• The FAMA Centre, a national NGO in Morocco that helps women victimized by violence, received funding to provide reproductive health services, computerize and analyse data, raise awareness and provide legal advice.