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Women make up about half of the world’s population1 and contribute over two-thirds of all the labor hours worked by the human race. Throughout the world, women are the primary providers of child care, as well as suppliers for themselves and their families of many of the necessities for day to day life. Increasingly, women are playing a major role in the formal economies regulated by society and are continuing to be a large part of the informal economies.11 Women have begun to influence the outcome of elections by conditioning their vote on whether candidates or parties promise to promote women’s interests. Yet, they are still grossly under represented in political decision-making, and women’s participation in parliaments, parties, and in formal government is still quite low.
Despite the importance of women’s role in society and the advances they have made toward secqring equality, a 1988 Population Crisis Committee study of 99 countries found that over 60 percent of the world’s women live under conditions that threaten their health, deprive them of choices about childbearing, limit their educational opportunities, restrict their participation in the economy, and deny them civil and political rights equal to those of men.