World Bank wants equal chances for women

Jim Kim, World Bank Group President on Thursday in Washington called for equal opportunities for women globally.

He said this at the launching ceremony of a report on women compiled by “Voice and Agency Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity finds.”

Kim said persistent constraints and deprivations that prevented many of the world’s women from achieving their potential had huge consequences for individuals, families, communities, and nations.

“If the world is going to end extreme poverty and ensure that prosperity is shared by all, we have to have the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world,” he said.

He said that the report noted increasing school enrolment and achieving gender equality in enrolment were long-standing development goals.

Kim stressed that women’s land rights could be strengthened by progressive legal reforms and improved governance.

The report said that girls with little or no education were far more likely to be married as children.

It said they were more likely to suffer domestic violence, live in poverty and lack a say over household spending or their own health care than better-educated peers.

It indicated that 65 per cent of women with primary education globally were married as children and lacked control over household resources. It said they are also prone to domestic-beating, compared with five per cent of women who finished high school.

It said across 18 of the 20 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage, girls with no education were up to six times more likely to marry than girls with high school education.

It said nearly one in five girls in developing countries, became pregnant before age 18, while pregnancy-related causes account for most deaths among girls aged between 15 and 19 in the developing world.

It said this usually led to death of over 70,000 deaths each year.

World Bank wants equal chances for women