PHA-Exchange> WABA PRESS RELEASE 8 MARCH.doc

Tue Mar 7 06:54:18 PST 2006

For Immediate Release

Press Release

7 March 2006 (International Women’s Day-Women and Decision Making)

WABA calls for enabling women in all forms of decision-making

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) supports the call for
women’s greater empowerment and opportunity through realizing their right to
livelihood, health, education, and political participation, and especially
to decision-making of all forms, particularly those decisions that affect
their lives and the lives of their children.

International Women’s Day ( 8 March ) is a time for taking stock of the
overall status of the world’s women. Over a decade ago the United Nations
Fourth World Conference on Women called for increasing women’s capacity to
participate in decision-making and leadership. Yet for many women today,
particularly in developing countries, these are only words on paper.
Women’s decision-making ability and participation in public life are closely
linked with women’s overall advancement.  

Consider, for instance, that women earn only 10 per cent of the world’s
income and own less than 1 per cent of the world’s property, but they put in
two-thirds of the world’s working hours.  During the past 20 years the
number of rural women living in poverty has nearly doubled.  Women
constitute 60 per cent of the 1 billion adults who have no access to basic
education.  

Women shoulder multiple burdens. By participating in the workforce, they
contribute to the growth of the national economy. They are also the primary
providers of social reproduction, the care and maintenance of human beings.
Yet because women’s care-giving is done at home, without pay, nearly all
countries overlook this contribution to the nation’s well being and do not
include it in their national economic accounts.

Frequently, cultural practices discriminate against women. Even today, many
women are unable to exercise their social and economic rights, including
rights to such basic necessities as food, health care, and education. Women
may have little  say in managing their own bodies or personal lives. They
may be unable to determine how many children to have or when to have them.
Poverty, illiteracy, poor nutrition, ill health, too many children at too
close intervals—all these, added to social conditioning, result in women’s
suffering from low self esteem, with little awareness that they could make
decisions in matters concerning their own lives. Lacking the opportunity to
make choices on a daily basis, it is hardly any wonder that such women do
not participate in public and political life

The gender roles that a culture assigns to women affect their ability to
decide how to use their own time and energy. Indeed, many women cannot even
make decisions about what to feed their infants. They do not have access to
information, for instance on the benefits and management of breastfeeding,
and are easily misled by baby milk companies trying to convince them that
their own milk is valueless or inferior to artificial milks. Many times in
each 24-hour day, the mother of an infant or young child makes a decision
whether to give the breast, or to care for herself and her child in some
other way. In an enabling environment that respects her decision to
breastfeed, she is free to make that choice based on her needs and her
child’s needs.  But all too often a woman’s decision to breastfeed is
derailed by economic necessity that forces her to take up a job with no
maternity protection—no paid maternity leave, no breastfeeding breaks at
work, no job protection. Even where maternity legislation exists, it may not
be properly implemented.

Breastfeeding seems like a private activity, yet during the months or years
when women are lactating (producing milk) they can and should fulfil a
variety of public roles in addition to their role as mother. The civic
decision-making process must be open to women and men with family
responsibilities. Child care facilities would make it possible for people
with young children to participate more fully in decision-making, and quiet
babies in arms should be welcomed with their parents. The voices of women
who breastfeed should be heard everywhere—in committee rooms and board
rooms, in union halls, in parliaments, in town meetings, at debates and
rallies. Breastfeeding must not be permitted to be an excuse for
systematically excluding women from the important policy discussions that
affect all of our lives.

For more information, kindly contact:

Sarah Amin

Co-Director, WABA

Email: waba at streamyx.com

Tel. No. : 604-6584816

Chris Mulford

Co-coordinator

Women and Work Task Force

Email : waba at streamyx.com

Tel. No. 604-4816

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The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) is a global network of
individuals and organisations

concerned with the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding
worldwide based on the Innocenti

Declaration, the Ten Links for Nurturing the Future and the WHO/UNICEF
Global Strategy for Infant and

Young Child Feeding. Its core partners are International Baby Food Action
Network (IBFAN), La Leche

League International (LLLI), International Lactation Consultant Association
(ILCA), Wellstart International,

Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) and LINKAGES. WABA is in
consultative status with UNICEF

and an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations

(ECOSOC) * WABA, PO Box 1200, 10850 Penang, Malaysia * Tel: 60-4-6584 816 *
Fax: 60-4-6572 655*

Email: waba at streamyx.com * Website: www.waba.org.my

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