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No economic growth without women's rights,
UN says
28 Feb 2006 06:44:58
GMT
Source: Reuters
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By Evelyn
Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The world is beginning to
understand that integrating women and girls into the life of a
nation is the surest path to economic growth and development, a top
U.N. official told an annual meeting that analyzes the global status
of women.
Louise Frechette, the deputy secretary-general, spoke on
Monday at the opening of the Commission on the Status of Women,
which coincided with an exhibit honoring 1,000 women activists from
around the world, who have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
"The world is starting to grasp that there is no tool for
development more effective than the empowerment of women and girls,"
Frechette said.
"Study after study has taught us that no policy is as likely
to raise economic productivity or to reduce infant and maternal
mortality," Frechette told the gathering, expected to be attended by
some 1,000 activists and government officials.
In a building across the street from the United Nations, the
pictures and biographies of 1,000 women activists from around the
globe fluttered from strips of rope.
The names of the 1,000 women were gathered over two years by
Swiss parliamentarian Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, who proposed last
year that a Nobel Prize should be bestowed upon women contributing
to world peace. Only a dozen women have been given the peace prize
in Nobel's 100-year history.
"Young women today desperately need role models," said Cora
Weiss, president of the Hague Appeal for Peace, who organized the
event, which included Nane Annan, the lawyer-artist wife of U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"These are women from 150 countries who represent all kinds
of disciplines: environmentalists, social workers, nurses, grass
roots organizers."
Among the women activists honored were Devaki Jain, an Indian
economist and social worker; Noleen Heyzer of Singapore, executive
director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women; Mama Loite Doumbia
of Mali, a human rights campaigner and trade union leader; and
Bogaletch Gebre of Ethiopia, a scientist who set up a center on
women's livelihood, education and health and the dangers of female
circumcision.
Also honored were Americans Betty Reardon, founder of the
Peace Education Center at Columbia University; and Chris Norwood,
who organizes low-income people in the south Bronx to train their
neighbors in health education.
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