Description
Process by which women gain power and control over their own lives and acquire the ability to make strategic choices.
Additional notes and information
Women’s empowerment has five components: women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and to determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.
In this context, education, training, awareness raising, building self-confidence, expansion of choices, increased access to and control over resources, and actions to transform the structures and institutions that reinforce and perpetuate gender discrimination and inequality are important tools for empowering women and girls to claim their rights.
Sources
(1) UN Commission on the Status of Women (2002). Agreed Conclusions on eradicating poverty, including through the empowerment of women throughout their life cycle, in a globalising world;
(2) United Nations Statistics Division – UNSD. Global Gender Statistics Programme