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Women's rights and gender
Background:
Worldwide discrimination of women
International studies and estimates confirm that women are still being discriminated against in all regions of the world: Nearly 70 per cent of the world's poorest people and two thirds of those who are illiterate are women. Every year around 530,000 women die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, 99 per cent of them in developing countries.
Across the world women carry out more than 66 per cent of work done and produce 50 per cent of all food. In total, they possess only 1 per cent of global assets and make only 10 per cent of total income. Women are also discriminated against at the political and economic level: In 2008 only around 18 per cent of all parliamentarians worldwide and only 17 heads of government were women.
Gender equality is a human right. Gender equality helps to reduce poverty, improve education, fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and boost economic growth. Promoting gender equality is therefore one of the priority areas of German development policy.
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