I. Facts and Figures

• Around 100 million children have no access to primary education, of whom at least 60% are girls.

• Women make up more than 2/3 of the world’s illiterate adult population numbering 960 million.

• Women bear more than half of all work done. More than three quarters of men's working time is spent in paid employment, whereas only a third of women's work is paid.

• Women in paid employment earn around 75% of that earned by men.

• Girls aged between 12 and 17 make up over 90% of household staff - the most common from of work for working children.

• Between 60 and 100 million girls have been aborted, killed, undernourished or terribly neglected because of their gender – girls are less likely to reach adulthood. In several regions of the world, the number of men is 5% higher than that of women.

• This unfair, targeted treatment of girls in terms of food and health has led to a situation in which the growth of 450 million adult women has been stunted as a result of malnutrition.

• More than 16.4 million women are today suffering from HIV/AIDS. In several regions of Africa and Asia five times more girls are HIV positive than boys. In Botswana one woman in three between 15 and 45 is HIV positive!

• One woman in five is a victim of violence on a worldwide scale.

• Between 40 and 60% of all sexual crimes are carried out on girls under the age of 16.

• The majority of people smuggled into countries illegally are women, especially women to be sold or passed on to the sex industry. Many of these women were kidnapped or sold by their own families.

• Around 50 million people are currently on the run, approx. 75-80% of these are women and children.

• 80% of hand-held weapon victims in war are women.

• More than 300,000 young people serve as child soldiers, many of whom are female refugees.

• According to estimates, around 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty on an income of less than one US dollar a day. 70% of these people are women.

• The number of women living in poverty has risen by 50% since 1970, the number of men by 30%.