VOA标准英语2009年-Women's Rights in Developing World Receive

By Selah Hennessy
London
25 September 2009

 
View of United Nations General Assembly in New York, 24 Sep 2009
Women's issues are moving towards center stage in the global campaign to end poverty around the world. This week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. President Barrack Obama spoke¹ of the need to provide greater assistance to women in the poorest areas of the world, while last week the United Nations created a new super agency to tackle women's social and economic plight².

At the United Nations this week Gordon Brown announced a health care plan that will give 10 million people in poor countries access to free health care. The program, which will focus on women and children, comes as aid groups warn that in the developing world 500,000 women die needlessly during childbirth or pregnancy³ every year.

Also this week, a $24 million initiative was launched as part of the Clinton Global Initiative to give more economic power to women in the developing world.

The initiatives come only a week after the United Nations has consolidated⁴ four agencies that tackle women's issues, creating a new super agency, the U.N. Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM.

Up until now, the United Nations had agencies that focus on specific issues and groups, including children, the environment, refugees, health and education.  But the groups targeted at women were dispersed⁵ and, many activists⁶ complained, lacked clout⁷.

Widney Brown, senior director for policy at London-based Amnesty International, says the new powers given to UNIFEM are momentous⁸.

"We have a central place in the U.N. where we can hopefully have the sort of political power and financial clout to actually have a real impact on women's lives in all the countries where the U.N. works," she said.

She says women's groups have a lot of work to do. So far, she says, objectives set out in the U.N. Millennium⁹ Development Goals are not on target because no one is focusing on the broad issues. "They are taking specific issues that are symptomatic rather than looking at underlying¹⁰ issues of rights and empowerment, which is a longer term goal but is the one that is ultimately going to address successfully the symptoms," she said.

For example, she says, one of the U.N. goals is to reduce maternal¹¹ mortality by 75 percent before 2015, an aim which is still a long way off. She says the U.N. has focused on providing women with access to emergency obstetric care. But the important thing is to look at why emergency care is needed in the first place.

"What we need to be doing is, yes, ensure that there is good emergency obstetric care for women that is available but we also need to make sure that women get to control their lives and their health and their reproductive lives in particular, and that is not being addressed well," she said.

The focus, she says, needs to be on the high number of child marriages, on the fact that once women marry education often stops, and that women often do not have control over the number and spacing of their children.

She adds that land rights and inheritance laws also need to change, so that, for example, when women become widows they are not forced off their land. "What we need is an empowerment driven, poverty reduction program that would focus on women and would ensure that women have access to education, they have access to jobs and economic independence and they can make decisions about their own lives," she said.

One women's aid agency that is focusing on female economic empowerment is Women for Women International. It is this group that launched a multi-million-dollar project at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting earlier this week. The money will be used to put over 100,000 women through an educational program.

Brita Fernandez Schmidt, director of operations at Women for Women, says the fight for gender¹² equality will characterize the next century.

"[In] The 19th century the moral challenge was slavery and in the twentieth century it was the battle against totalitarianism and this century, really, the paramount¹³ moral challenge is the struggle for gender equality," she said.

She says women must have access to basic numeracy and literacy education and be given vocational qualifications.

The United Nations is not on track to meet its Millennium Development Goal to halve¹⁴ poverty by 2015 and she says this is because enough money is not being invested in women. "We have a lot of aid money flowing into the countries where we work. In terms of U.S. foreign aid only one percent is reaching women and girls. If we actually want to achieve our global goals of halving¹⁵ poverty, of achieving peace, we have to invest in women," she said.

According to the United States aid agency USAID at least one woman dies every minute due to complications related to pregnancy or childbirth.

In developing countries, only half of girls are enrolled¹⁶ in secondary school.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

3 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

4 consolidated   

a.联合的

参考例句：

• With this new movie he has consolidated his position as the country's leading director. 他新执导的影片巩固了他作为全国最佳导演的地位。
• Those two banks have consolidated and formed a single large bank. 那两家银行已合并成一家大银行。

5 dispersed   

adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的

参考例句：

• The clouds dispersed themselves. 云散了。
• After school the children dispersed to their homes. 放学后，孩子们四散回家了。

6 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 clout   

n.用手猛击；权力，影响力

参考例句：

• The queen may have privilege but she has no real political clout.女王有特权，但无真正的政治影响力。
• He gave the little boy a clout on the head.他在那小男孩的头部打了一下。

8 momentous   

adj.重要的，重大的

参考例句：

• I am deeply honoured to be invited to this momentous occasion.能应邀出席如此重要的场合，我深感荣幸。
• The momentous news was that war had begun.重大的新闻是战争已经开始。

9 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

10 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

11 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

12 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

13 paramount   

a.最重要的，最高权力的

参考例句：

• My paramount object is to save the Union and destroy slavery.我的最高目标是拯救美国，摧毁奴隶制度。
• Nitrogen is of paramount importance to life on earth.氮对地球上的生命至关重要。

14 halve   

vt.分成两半，平分；减少到一半

参考例句：

• Let's halve the project between our two teams.让我们两个队平均分担这项工程吧。
• I'll halve expenses with you.我要跟你平均分摊费用。

15 halving   

n.对分，二等分，减半[航空、航海]等分v.把…分成两半( halve的现在分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊

参考例句：

• You searched those halving your salary cut your enthusiasm. 你呈现，薪水减半降低了你的任务热情。 来自互联网
• Halving the repeater spacing made it possible to quadruple the bandwidth. 把增音机间隔缩小一半，就能使带宽增加三倍。 来自互联网

16 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》