Women Empowerment Barriers

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One of the major obstacles to enhancing women’s empowerment are the barriers to economic empowerment for women. These barriers include the lack of access to services that educate women on making money and investments and the government’s failure to deal with the issue of granting women the right to inherit land from men in their family who pass away. “In a post-war economy, in which men have been killed or refuse to return home, 70 percent or more of the people live in rural areas with women accounting for over 50 percent of the country’s population.” Even though there are over 50% women in the country, they still seem to neglect this major inequality of rights. Women not being able to inherit this land causes a huge economic issue for them…show more content…
This ranking takes into account reproductive health, empowerment, and economic status (UNDP, 2015). “...the Sierra Leone war gave the world a pitiably effective demonstration of how a blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian laws can plunge into an even deeper hell than those women and girls who had already faced—discrimination, violence, and a lack of education and community support—with all of it constituting an assault on the most fundamental of their human rights” (Holland and Morrison, 22-23). However, due to this public showing of Sierra Leone’s unwillingness to grant equal rights to women, several groups have emerged to advocate for these rights. After the Civil War ended in 2002, the number of these organizations has grown, and more and more organizations have been taking on a stance of gender equality. Civil Service Organizations (CSO) in Sierra Leone have aided in the passing of three “Gender Bills”, a change that affected women all over the country. However, “many of the women’s organisations interviewed felt that they have very limited impact on government policy, pointing to the government’s rejection of demands by the women’s movement for a 30 percent quota in parliament as evidence of this” (Castillejo, 17). Women’s organizations in Sierra Leone face most of their challenges due to lack of funding. Because the country doesn’t have many resources to begin with, it’s difficult to find funds for CSO’s that may not be deemed important by the government or other donors. It’s also difficult for women to find information on donors, due to their high illiteracy rates and lack of easy access to informational resources (Castillejo,

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