Topic: 2024-Gender Equality in Rural Areas
Country: Ireland
Delegate Name: Ava Gailits
Country: Ireland
Committee: UN Women
Topic: Gender Equality in Rural Areas
Delegate: Ava Gailitis
School: Williamston High School
Gender equality in rural areas is an important issue that needs to be addressed, as it affects many women around the globe. Women often have less access to resources in developing countries, even though they do a majority of the agricultural work. Stemming from traditional and cultural gender roles women are responsible for homemaking, which leads to a decreased pursuit of education, employment, and more based on the level of housework they are doing. In addition, women in these areas usually have less access to medical care, especially reproductive healthcare, while men generally have as much of a need for high-level healthcare. They don’t have many technological resources, which contributes to all of the issues above. When women do get jobs, there are often pay gaps, which can contribute to more hunger in families, especially those with single mothers.
Ireland has worked hard to combat this issue. Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan is focused on promoting agricultural and rural development and takes tailored measures to empower women in farming. The On-Farm Capital Investment Scheme provides grants to support young and women farmers. This helps them get more equipment and technology and creates more equitable access to resources. Since 2019, Ireland has also maintained and added its comprehensive policy and legal framework that focuses on promoting gender equality and lifting women and girls.
In the future, Ireland would like to see improvements to infrastructure such as clean running water, and access to quality, affordable healthcare, to decrease the gap between women and men. These things would help to reduce the amount of domestic work that falls on women in rural areas. With this, people must be aware of women’s reproductive rights and the necessities and healthcare needs that come with that because one of the pieces of this issue is that women don’t have access to proper reproductive healthcare. Ensuring that resources are equally distributed is important too, and implementing programs to provide or give funds to purchasing equipment and other things is very important to combating the problem.
Citations:
https://www.ifad.org/en/rural-women#:~:text=While%20there%20has%20been%20considerable,unpaid%20domestic%20and%20care%20work.
https://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/ruralwomen/facts-figures.html
https://capnetworkireland.eu/celebrating-women-in-agriculture-and-rural-communities/
