A/HRC/22/61 IV. Situation of more vulnerable groups A. Women and girls 36. Women and girls face stark challenges, including marginalization due to a gender gap in education, employment, security, health and political participation. Overall school enrolment rates in poor urban areas have actually decreased, with unequal rates of educational attainment between girls and boys. 76 Social norms that disadvantage girls, such as expectations regarding their domestic role in the home, early marriage and limits on their independent movement, all act as barriers to their education, especially when household income is limited.77 37. Globally, in 2010, 56.3 per cent of young males participated in the labour force, compared to 40.8 per cent of young females. Young women face greater challenges in accessing jobs, including higher unemployment rates compared to young men. When employed, young women are also more likely to be in unstable, part-time and lower-paid jobs.78 The conditions of the urban poor also add a distinctive gendered dimension by disproportionately increasing the unpaid care work burden of women. As the primary dutybearers of care and reproductive activities, women are especially affected by limited access to basic services, essential infrastructure, water, sanitation, inadequate shelter and restricted mobility. These restrictions all contribute to increasing the burdens related to unpaid care work such as cleaning, cooking and looking after children, the elderly and the sick, thus deepening a gender-based disadvantage. Unfortunately, this issue of women‟s “time poverty” has not been adequately addressed by policymakers.79 38. Women in poor urban communities are also more likely to be exposed to genderbased violence. In some countries, poor urban women are more likely to experience intimate-partner violence than rural or higher-income urban women.80 This has also been closely linked to a higher incidence of mental illness, as women who experience intimatepartner violence are significantly more likely to report thoughts of suicide. 81 This is consistent with some indicators that show a higher prevalence of poor mental health among poor urban women. 39. Furthermore, women living in slums consistently have much lower access to prenatal and antenatal care than those in other urban areas with higher incomes. 82 Furthermore, women and girls in urban poor populations are subject to a higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS than those in rural and other urban areas, which is perhaps linked to the findings that suggest that, for women in the urban poor population, forced or traded sex is 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 UN-Habitat. Ibid. See World Youth Report 2011: Youth and Climate Change (United Nations publication, Sales No. 10.IV.11). Cecilia Tacoli, “Urbanization, gender and urban poverty: paid work and unpaid carework in the city”, Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues, Working Paper, No. 7 (London and New York, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and UNFPA, 2012), p. 20. Montgomery, “Urban Poverty”, pp. 10–11. WHO, Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women: Summary report of initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses (2005), p. 16. Monica Akinyi Magadi and others, “The inequality of maternal health care in urban sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s”, Population Studies, vol. 57, No. 3 (2003), pp. 353 ff. 13