• Submitted by: admin
• Caribbean
• culture an traditions
• Education
• Europe
• Havana
• history
• international
• personalities
• Society
• Business and Economy
• Politics and Government
• 12 / 11 / 2008

---

Inequality between men and women continues to be widespread and deeply ingrained in many cultures. This was one of the fundamental conclusions in the 2008 World Population Report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which was presented on Tuesday in Cuba along with the supplement “Generation of Change: Young People and Culture.”

With the theme of “Reaching Common Ground: Gender, Culture and Human Rights,” the report invites people to reflect on aspects of gender inequality. It considers how females constitute three-fifths of the billion poor people in the world, two-thirds of the 990 million adults in the world who cannot read, and 70 percent of the 130 million children who do not attend school.

For Susan MacDade, the UNFPA representative in Cuba, the experiences of that organization show that programs with cultural sensitivity are indispensable for achieving development that is consonant with human rights.

The experience of Cuba with the relationship between culture and gender has been fomented since 1959, when the revolutionary victory made women active subjects in the transformations that took place in the country, pointed out Norma Vasallo, chair of Women’s Affairs at the University of Havana, when she commented on the report.

Isabel Moya, general director of the Women’s Publishing House, demonstrated the necessity of including in future reports the anti-humanist practices directed against women in the First World.

Along with the document that summarizes the state of the world population in 2008, for the third time the United Nations has published a supplement: “Generation of the Change: Young People and Culture.” Through the lives of four girls and three boys, this accompanying document points out the value that the protection of cultures have for youth, while defending their right to adopt culture in their own ways.

The study points out the changing cultural context of the more than 1.5 billion youth between the ages of 10 and 24, who constitute the largest generation in human history, with approximately 70 percent of them living developing countries and 60 percent in Asia.

(Juventud Rebelde)