THE NEEDS: EMPLOYMENT

Need #5: Equal Employment for Women

According to estimates, women represent about seventy percent of the world’s impoverished (UNIFEM).Women are not given the opportunity to make money for themselves or their family in many nations. They are usually restricted to homemaking roles, and if their husband is lazy or dies, then they are unable to make an income. This may also prevent them from leaving abusive home lives, because they know they could not make it on their own without a job or with an extremely low-paying job.

Women who can work make less money than men. “They are often paid less than men for their work, with the average wage gap in 2008 being 17 percent. Women face persistent discrimination when they apply for credit for business or self-employment and are often concentrated in insecure, unsafe and low-wage work (UNIFEM)”. This is not merely a trend in developing countries, but around the world, even in developed countries that claim to give women equal rights. According to one source, women hold only one percent of the entire world's assets (Meroff 112).

Saima Muhammad was a shame to her husband. She couldn't have a son and since her husband did not work, she was constantly being beaten for her inability to have a child who could provide for the family. At the end of her rope, Saima turned to an organization that gave her the finances to buy beads and fabric and begin an embroidering business. Once she began to bring in money, her husband no longer beat her. He even decided that having girls was not so bad, they were not as weak as he thought they were (Kristof 185-187). Women are capable and willing to be a part of the working world if they are provided with the opportunity. However, many women cannot have jobs if they don't have an education.

Help On The Way:

Camfed works to empower women as they enter employment. They are helpful in their launch of a Seed Money Program, which loans small amounts of money to girls who are trying to get their foot in the door of the business world (Camfed).

Another program that helps women to start their own businesses is the Kashf Foundation. Kashf was founded by Roshaneh Zafar, a Pakistani woman. She was fortunate to grow up wealthy and empowered and uses her gifts to pioneer micro-financing in Pakistan. The program gives sixty-five dollars to a woman who is willing to invest. Women's businesses grow more slowly than men's and face complications, such as being taken over by a man, but the micro-financing revolution is a new and growing idea (Kristoff 188). The basic premise is that is a woman is contributing to her family income, she will be more valuable to her husband and she will be able to provide for herself and her children. It does not work to simply pour money into the homes of poor families, as most of it will go into the hands of the husband do with what he pleases. Micro-financing uses small loans to ensure that women themselves are building their self-worth, and that the money cannot be used for other purposes.

Organizations like this are growing more popular in America, as a way to contribute to the efforts to fight poverty overseas. Americans can donate and will be repaid by the business owner without interest. A friend's church has taken the initiative to invest its church building fund into one such organization, and many other churches and Christians are following suit by investing their money in micro-financing.

What Do You Think?

Works Cited:

Campaign for Female Education, www.camfed.org

Kristof, Nicholas and Sheryl Wudunn. Half the Sky. New York: Knopf, 2009.

Meroff, Deborah. True Grit: Women Taking on the World, for Christ's Sake. City: Authentic Media, 2004.

UNIFEM, United Nations Development Fund For Women, www.unifem.org