Women's food security for gender equality
Food is a basic human right. Approximately 1.5 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day, and every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger. Poverty, hunger and malnutrition silently kill the poor people and take away their ability to work and learn. So, adequate food is needed for survival, fulfilling the basic demands, ensuring constitutional human rights and achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
Many rural women come to the cities for livelihood, but their bad luck follows them everywhere. They live inhuman lives, both in their villages and in cities, without food, shelter and other basic necessities. Where there is no money, there is no purchasing power. So we need effective and sustainable programmes to give women adequate food.
If we can arrange food for all, urban migration from rural areas will become less. Poor people, especially women, need a sustainable livelihood. World Food Day highlights awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger. Despite the increases in food grain production, around half of the population of Bangladesh remains below the food-based poverty line.
Women are often the first to suffer malnutrition in the family. This has repercussions on their health, productivity, quality of life, and survival. Climate change will affect availability, accessibility, utilisation and systems stability of food. Bangladesh will face a major problem in the next 40 years since production of rice will decrease by at least 8% and of wheat by 32%, while the population will increase by 50-75 million.
World Food Programme (WFP) mentioned in its report of 2009 that, in Bangladesh, 46% of pregnant women, 39% of non-pregnant women, and 40% of adolescent girls, suffer from anaemia because of depleted iron stores during pregnancy and lactation, a consequence of insufficient intake of foods rich in iron and folic acid.
According to the World Bank, approximately 33 million of the 150 million people in Bangladesh cannot afford an average daily intake of more than 1,800 calories, which is the minimum standard for nutrition. For the people in most developing countries, the daily calorie average is 2,828. In Bangladesh, that average is only 2,190.
Helen Keller International (HKI)-Bangladesh has been working to ensure food security and empowerment of women through different programmes. Emily Hillenbrand is a gender specialist and programme manager of HKI-Bangladesh. She said: "Gender discrimination is an underlying, structural cause of Bangladesh's alarmingly high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition. Their malnutrition is related to their limited control over economic assets, exclusion from household decisions, and restricted mobility."
I can place here a simple example of rural women's bad luck due to lack of decision-making power. A woman in Patuakhali who wanted to have her own nose-pin repaired had to ask her husband's permission and was refused, even though the wife had saved her own money for that nose-pin repairing! (Source: HKI Bulletin, No. 5, May 2010). This proves how disadvantaged and dis-empowered the poor women of our country are!
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) agrees that poverty is a major determinant of chronic household food insecurity. Global Hunger Index 2010 of IFPRI mentioned that malnutrition among children under two years of age is one of the leading challenges in reducing global hunger and can cause lifelong harm to health, productivity, and earning potential.
The burden of child malnutrition could be cut by 25-36% by providing universal preventive health services and nutrition interventions for children under two and their mothers during pregnancy and lactation. The health of women, specifically mothers, is crucial to reducing child malnutrition. Mothers who were poorly nourished as girls tend to give birth to underweight babies, perpetuating the cycle of malnutrition. Nutrition interventions should be targeted towards girls and women throughout the life cycle, and especially as adolescents before they become pregnant, the report added.
Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger has been selected as the target of MDG One. It aims to:
* Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day;
* Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people;
* Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
In fact, MDG One is related to MDG Three: To promote gender equality and women's empowerment, and MDG Five: Women's (maternal) health.
Hunger and malnutrition increase women's dependency on men and decrease their decision making power. That is why women should raise their voice to prevent discrimination and violence against them, and to be able to make their own choices/ decisions like men.
Nobel Laureate of Bangladesh Dr. Muhammad Yunus said: "Economics has a relationship with peace." That means a poor economy is interlinked with poverty, and familial, social and political unrest. As a result, poverty hinders our development and economic growth, and creates obstacles on the road to achieving progress, prosperity, sustainable development, food security, adequate nutrition, gender equality, empowerment of women, peace and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
That is why we urgently need to stand up against poverty. The government, political leaders and policy makers need to be sympathetic in the real sense towards the poor and hungry; and kindly feed every hungry woman and girl an adequate diet every day. The state is committed and bound to feed the hungry at any cost.
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