HEALTH : Conference to Study Global Status of Women

The health, education and general welfare of women and girls around the world and in Los Angeles will be discussed at a Jan. 13 conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The conference, “Girls and Women: An Investment in the Future,” is being organized by the Los Angeles chapter of UNICEF, a United Nations children’s advocacy group, with support from the Los Angeles City Commission on the Status of Women and the YWCA.

Organizers expect more than 500 participants, including UNICEF activist Julie Belafonte, wife of Harry Belafonte; former UNICEF ambassador Stephen Lewis of Canada, and Ghanaian actress Akuyoe, who will make a special performance. An address on the status of women and girls in Mexico will be delivered by UNICEF representative Clara Jusidman, who is based in Mexico.

Marilyn Solomon, executive director of UNICEF/Los Angeles, said the conference will underscore the global implications of unhealthy children.

“We have to try and look at the commonalities of children locally and internationally,” she said. “People often ask, ‘Why should we care about children someplace else if we have problems here?’ Part of my goal is to answer that question.

“Basically, we are no more than a global village, and we have to be responsive to all of the people that reside in that village.”

The daylong Los Angeles conference was organized in connection with the release of a 1993 UNICEF report on the status and health of women and girls worldwide.

“A woman’s access to health care, education, services of all kinds, credit, jobs, participation in public life and, ultimately, power over resources is less than a man’s virtually everywhere. Only when she has gained equality can her full potential as a woman--and therefore a mother--be realized,” the report states.

Inequities in health, education and economic opportunity cited in the report prompted Solomon, a former head of the Los Angeles City Commission on the Status of Women, to organize a local conference as a prelude to UNICEF’s Fourth World Conference on Women, scheduled for September in Beijing.

Although in the United States the problem of neglecting girls’ health is not as profound as in other parts of the world, Solomon says, there are subtler forms of gender inequality and discrimination, especially in education and economic opportunity.

“In education, recent research shows that the classroom experience for little girls is different than that of boys,” said Solomon, noting that compared with boys, girls on average receive less attention from teachers and less encouragement to pursue careers in math and science.

Women and children also face problems with malnutrition and lack of prenatal care, particularly in less developed nations. Female infants and toddlers tend to have less nutritious food, fewer visits to medical facilities, lower vaccination rates and less nurturing than boys have, according to the 1993 UNICEF report.

Abdelmone Afifi, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health and a conference participant, said similar health care problems exist among women and children in Los Angeles. Although infant mortality rates in the United States average among the lowest worldwide, the rate among African Americans, for example, is comparable to those in less developed countries.

“In spite of tremendous advances in the state of health, the African American community is not keeping up with the rest of the (groups) in the United States,” said Afifi, noting that African Americans tend to have less health care coverage and information available about prenatal care and drug addiction than the population as a whole.

Those issues and many others will be addressed at the conference, with specific proposals for change at the policy level as well as the grass-roots level, Solomon said.

Admission to the conference is $125 in advance, $140 at the door. Information: (310) 277-7608.