A/HRC/11/6 page 9 causes and consequences of violence, the campaign fact sheet does not explore the linkages between the achievement of women’s rights to political participation, their degree of social and economic equality and the prevalence of the problem.6 25. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, on the other hand, has recognized the linkages between VAW, and more specifically trafficking, domestic violence and exploitation, and women’s lack of enjoyment of economic and social rights in many of their comments on State reports. The Committee has also expressed concern about the effects of the current international financial and economic crisis upon the full realization of the rights of women and girls worldwide, including the potential increase in violence against them.7 26. According to the International Labour Office (ILO), the impact of the economic crisis is expected to be more detrimental to women’s employment than to men’s in most regions of the world.8 Women migrant and domestic workers have already been among the first to be laid off, reflecting their location in part-time, flexible and vulnerable work, as well as gender biases that consider women’s labour as dispensable.9 Women’s concentration in export sectors such as manufacturing and high-value agriculture, the drop in remittances from migrant women’s care work and the tightened conditions for microfinance lending to women farmers and entrepreneurs are also expected to adversely affect women’s incomes and livelihoods.10 The World Bank predicts that up to 53 million more people will be driven to poverty in developing countries this year, bringing the total number of those living on less than $2 a day to over 1.5 billion. This will seriously jeopardize the achievement of the MDGs which aim to slash poverty, hunger, infant and maternal mortality, and illiteracy by 2015. These worrisome signs are likely to result in serious setbacks to the realization of gender equality and elimination of VAW. 6 Fact sheets are available at http://endviolence.un.org/factsheets.shtml. 7 “CEDAW: Committee Concerned by Impact of Financial Crisis on Rights of Women and Girls”, Press release, 6 February 2009 (see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/financial crisis/). 8 Global Employment Trends for Women: March 2009, Geneva: ILO, 2009 (available at http://www.ilo.org/global/What_we_do/Publications/lang--en/docName WCMS_103456/index.htm). 9 Seguino, Stephanie, written statement to the Interactive Expert Panel on Emerging Issues: The Gender Perspectives on the Financial Crisis, held on 5 March 2009 at the fifty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/ csw53/panels/financial_crisis/Seguino_25Feb09.pdf). 10 M. Buvinic (World Bank) written statement to the Interactive Expert Panel … (see note 9 above) (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw53/panels/financial_crisis/Buvinic. formatted.pdf).

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