Varun Jhaveri - Global Youth Advocate to World We Want 2015

GENDER EQUALITY IS NOT A TARGET TO ACHIEVE

Date: 30 September 2015

Gender Equality is not a target to achieve; it is a mind-set and a crosscutting prerequisite for achieving any global developmental goal.

The modern times have finally recognised the importance of gender equality in the society along with laying a special emphasis on the status, working conditions and role of women in the developmental process. With the latest Sustainable Development Goals that have been decided upon, the focus now has to be on the solutions and goals met and further issues on which there is a need of doubling of the efforts to achieve gender equality and sustainable development.

Various reports and research reflect the link between gender equality and Sustainable development through equity and growth by involving a social and an institutional change. However, even after meeting certain international targets and following treaties, an equitable change in the conditions of work for women has not yet been achieved fully.

There is also a huge chunk of female human resource whose work, both paid as well as unpaid, are not taken into consideration fully, leading to a skewed ratio between the male and female workforce ratio. This work, which includes doing the household chores, setting up of small household business and taking care of the family, involves a lot of effort and forms a major part of the family income, but goes unaccounted for, while calculating the GDP of the country. Even in the paid sector, we can witness the inequality in wages between the men and women. Another problem dealing with this issue is the lack of safety in the workplace, leading to situations such as harassment, which makes women the more vulnerable lot and prevents equal participation in the work process. Social Security, economic policies, and laws, rules, regulations and working policies of the organisations are hence seen to be some of the most important driving factors behind the employability considerations.It is of prime importance that we try to analyse the relationship between changing the mind-set of the people and achieving gender equality in the developmental process of the nations. It was noted that no amount of legislative process or signing of treaties can solve this issue from its root cause until and unless the attitude and the mentality of the people is changed. It is extremely vital to involve youth at every step in the entire process to realize the achievement of indicators associated with Goal 5 of Gender Equality.