Women's rights

Today I want to talk about sustainable development goal 5. The goal is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Six targets are distinguished in this goal. In this blogpost I want to discuss a few of these targets and why this sustainable development goal is so important.

Women represent half of the world's population and therefore half of its potential. But gender inequality is still a huge problem these days. This sustainable development goal stands up for women and girls. Gender inequality starts from birth. Watch the video to see one of the effects gender inequality has.

Other targets of the development goal include elimination of violence and harmful practices against women. Child marriage and female genital mutilation is still practiced these days and this needs to stop. These practices have negative impact on women and girls lives. Also, 1 in 5 women aged 15-49 reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within a 12 month period. There are 47 countries who have no laws protecting women against violence. And 37 countries don't even prosecute men for rape if they are married to or subsequently marry the victim. Child marriage has huge disadvantages for girls.

I think all of this is quite shocking, if there are no laws to protect women there will be nothing to protect them. Regardless of where you live in, gender equality is a fundamental human right. Advancing gender equality is critical to all areas of a healthy society, from reducing poverty to promoting the health, education, protection and the well-being of girls and boys. Investing in education programs for girls and increasing the age at which they marry can return $5 for every dollar spent.

This sustainable development goal is not only beneficial for economic growth it also covers basic human rights. I think that its crazy that we live in the 21st century and not everybody has basic human rights. Women all over the world still have to fight for their voice to be heard and still have to fight for a place in society. The aim is to have achieved all sustainable development goals by 2030. I think there needs to happen a lot the next 10 years to realize this. Do you think gender equality can be achieved everywhere before 2030?

References:

(1) https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg5

(2) https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/