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The
struggle to close the gender gap and empower women continues
amid new challenges in the national and global fronts. To
reach this goal, the 1994 ICPD POA spells out the enabling
conditions: education, economic self-reliance, access to health
care, and women's participation in decisions that affect their
lives.
The
direct links between girls' education and women's ability
to escape poverty are well-understood. Education enables women
to respond to opportunities, challenge their traditional roles,
and change their life circumstances. Having one's own income
enables a woman to assert herself in the family and empowers
her to make reproductive decisions. This economic independence
gives her more dignity, self-respect and space to assert her
will in reproductive and sexual matters.
Women
testify to the liberating effects of education, independent
incomes, and the consciousness of their self-worth. Ethnographies
and life stories of generations of women across classes and
ethnic groups capture women's own reflections on their lives.
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