Women do over 60 per cent of the work (including non paid work) in the world. Half of the food is produced by women, but they own only 2 per cent of the land. What comes to the salaries, the situation is not better. Women's share of the total salary is only 10 per cent. Of all the illiterates, two thirds are women. That is  waste of human resources. 

At the time of war women and children are in the worst position. Sexual harassment and violence are the most difficult conflict related questions. What comes to children, human trafficking is a serious concern. But a war or a conflict can offer also new possibilities, especially for young and educated women, as war changes gender roles. After the crisis new social atmosphere can emerge, and issues that have not been spoken before can appear. 

However, women are not involved in peace mediation, though they are also the ones suffering. We need women in mediation processes so that these new opportunities can realize. So far the number of women in peace mediation has been close to zero. There needs to be real effort to raise the role of women in order that the voice of women is heard during and after crisis. Generally speaking, women's participation is needed in every level in the society. First and foremost, women should have more control over their own household economic. Economic power also directly affects on children's well-being.

What should we do, in order to increase women's access in every sector of the society?  By repeating the same habits, there can't be any changes in social behavior. We can rapidly change judicial and economical norms e.g. by quotas and legislation but we can not change the social atmosphere quickly. To change the atmosphere we need long-term work and goals, so the old conceptions on how to behave or act could be forgotten. By promoting positive discrimination in legal and economic field we can little by little turn the social norms into something else. It needs only one person who is ready to fight against the general norms.

The role of education is crucial in eliminating poverty and empowering women, but the problem lies in the fact that teaching is often gender biased.

In Finland the situation is better. But we still have a lot to do. Here poverty concerns most of the older women who have never entered the labor market because they took care of their families. For the same job, the salary is not the same for men and women. There are inequalities that we have to conquer.

Elina Helmanen

Trainee

Writing is based on conference ”North to north -women as agent of change” held September 29th in Helsinki.