Why Women?

In our world today there is one group of people who in every country in the developing world are overwhelmingly the poorest, the most stigmatised, brutalised and oppressed. A group who are not only discriminated against economically but have horrendous violence and injustice inflicted upon them daily. Yet there are no mass protests on their behalf and no monuments raised in their honour. Who are these people? Women.

Women do 66 percent of the world’s work and produce 50 percent of the world’s food, but earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of its wealth, including property. As a result 75 percent of the world's women cannot get bank loans because they have unpaid or insecure jobs and are not entitled to property ownership.

Today more girls and women are missing than men were killed in battle in all the wars of the 20th century. Bride burnings, dowry deaths, female infanticide, domestic violence and lack of access to food and medicine given in preference to boys ensure that the number of victims of this routine mass murder far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century. Their only crime is that they are female.

We all pay the price for this crime. In the countries where girls are the most uneducated and women the most marginalised, chaos and fundamentalism are rife and poverty seemingly intractable. This is no coincidence.

It is all the more remarkable and humbling that when microloans were first offered in the developing world it was the poorest women who showed themselves to be the most reliable group to lend to. This fact has remained true across every territory and time. Not only are they the most reliable economically but studies in the developing world have shown that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, education, medicine and housing.  (Women in Africa re-invest about 90 percent of their income back into their households compared to between 30 and 40 percent for men). As a result the wellbeing of the whole community improves.

Their example is such that there is a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff that the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism is the economic empowerment of women. Their emancipation is key to creating a fairer and safer world.

That is why over 90% of WildHearts micro-clients are women. Their example is an inspiration to us all.

Statistics from the United Nations Social and Economic Commission and the World Food Programme.

All images feature WildHearts micro-clients and their dependents in Northern Ghana.  Photographed by the WildHearts team, February 2010.

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