Essay: Gender Equality And Sustainable Development Goals In Australia.

The Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable development goal is also known as the global goals. These goals of the sustainable development are developed to address the global challenges and also provide guidance to the international communities to face the same. The SGSs are developed to protect life’s natural foundation and also to protect the planet to create a balance and preserving opportunities of people to live. There are 17 goals that cover all the areas of the sustainable development: economic, social, and ecological. This report will revolve around the Gender Equality, its aim, main features of current crisis, and how successfully Australia addressed the challenges of the Gender Equality.

Sustainable development encourage the globe to think about how to improve the societies and economies without compromising the natural environment and the future generation well-being (UNDP, 2022). For any development to be effective and sustainable, it must consider the human need without compromising with the environment, and also include those who don’t have a voice in the decision making (Sachs et al., 2019). This is the reason why gender equality is a part of the sustainable development.

Gender inequality is considered as one of the more widespread and persistent source of the injustice since history. Not a single country, but most of the nations around the globe is fighting with this challenge. Girl and Women continue to suffer violence and discrimination around the globe and Australia is also facing this challenge since its history (Dfta, 2022). Gender equality is essential for the foundation of the sustainable and peaceful world. Equality is the fundamental human right. Gender equality is naturally linked to the sustainable development and it is also a vital to the human right realization for all (Humanrights, 2022).

(Dfta, 2022).

Australian government has introduced a number of the Acts to improve gender equality. In 1984, government has introduced Sex discrimination Act to making the sex harassment and sex discrimination across various parts of country against the law. The act of Australia International human rights obligation, has played a vital role in changing the attitude of the community and also helping advance gender equality in nation(Dfta, 2022). The principle objective of these acts is to improve and support the gender equality in country in every terms and also support the employers to provide equal opportunity to men and women and promote equal and full participation of women in workforce.

The sustainable development goal or global goal was adapted in year 2015 by United Nations to achieve the balance development which means that the main objective to introduce SDGs is to full fil human needs without damaging the environment and also achieve balance in the various aspects of society or community (Sachs et al., 2019). The countries should be committed to create a balance that must be economic, social and environmental. The main goal of the economies is to prioritize the progress and everything should fall after this (UNDP, 2022).

In Australia, the girl and women are makeup of only half of the population (50.7 percent) and comprising only 47 percent of the employees in the country. The primary carers for the disabled and old people, around 68 percent of the women are account for same.  As per the report, Women take higher leave in comparison to men and around 95 percent of the primary parental leave is taken by women which is approximately three times in comparison to the time provided by men in taking care of children(Sachs et al., 2019). The workforce of Australia is highly segregated by the female and gender dominated industry. The women workforce of Australia is highly represented as a part time workers and in the industries that are low paid and also in insecure work. They are continuing to be underrepresented in the roles of leadership and in both sectors, public and private (Vijeyarasa, 2021). The women are systematically denied of same work rights as of men in some regions. The sexual exploitation and violence, unequal division of domestic work and sexual care, and also discrimination in all the public offices is also a huge barrier.

Gender Equality and Sustainable Development

 Ending all the discriminations against women and girl is crucial for sustainable development and it has also been proven that the empowering girls and women helps economic development and growth (AU, 2022). It is also indicated that there more women in labor market and still have a large inequalities in some regions.

Covid 19 is also having the profound social health, and economic impacts across the globe. It is increasingly clear that this global pandemic is having the disproportionate impact on girls and women globally which has impacted negatively on the gender equality (Baker, Ali, & French, 2019). Girls and women are at the great risk of the domestic violence, heavily represented in the sectors that are hardest hit by Covid- 19, and they also perform the majority of the unpaid work (Vijeyarasa, 2021). It is also determined that the risk is high that this global pandemic will rolls back on women’s economic empowerment, gender equality, safety, leadership, and resilience. The government of Australia has committed to the ensure that the country do not lose these gains.

The government of Australia is also ongoing and steady commitments on the to promote women empowerment and gender equality was focused on-

• Advancing the women’s economic empowerment
• Ending violence against girls and women (Dfta, 2022).
• Enhancing the voice of women in leadership, peace building, and in decision making

To achieve these objectives, the Australian government has partner to work with regional organizations to advance their own priorities of gender equality. The government is  committed to the advancement of the rights of girls and women and gender equality at home, in national and also through international engagement which includes oversight of the funds of gender equality to drive the advanced gender equality initiatives, (Dfta, 2022) implementing the strategies for women’s empowerment, and gender equality, and also engaging with the issues related to the gender equality in multilateral fora, a range of the specialist and regional technical groupings, and also principally through the commission on the status of women (Baker, Ali & French, 2019). The government has also implemented the number of national actions plan on peace, women, and security.

With the continuous efforts of the government, the GDP of Australia has been increased 11 percent by reducing the gender employment gap. The business is now having more female employees and as per the report, women having in leadership making business 15 percent more profitable (Vijeyarasa, 2021). The family violence has been reduced by 40 percent which cost around $ 3.4 billion of Victorian economy.

Girls and Women represent half of the globe population and therefore, half of their potential. For the full human sustainable and potential development, it is essential to achieve the objective of the peaceful society along with gender equality (Vijeyarasa, 2021). Moreover, it is also shown that empowering women spurs economic growth and productivity.

Nurses protect and also promote people interest receiving care and treatment. It means that the Nurses should ensure that the appropriate actions are taken and also ensures the quality and safety of their treatment and care is not compromised due to the harmful prejudicial attitude about culture, sexuality, religion, race, social, economic, age, gender, and other factors as well. It is also one of the ethical value in the code of conducts of the Nurses that they should follow and provide care or treatment accordingly (Gunn et al., 2019). It is the responsibility of Nurse to promote and protect health, rights, and safety of the patient at the professional as well as at the personal level. Nurses or healthcare system can address the issue of the gender inequality through various means including organization processes, legislation, and information gathering (Lord et al., 2021). Nurses should also not disclose the gender of the child to the parents before the birth. To prevent the current crises of the gender equality, Nurses should also increase the awareness about the gender equality at the personal level as well.

Conclusion

This report revolved around the Sustainable development goals or the global goals that needs to be achieve at the national as well as the international level. The violence against and women is one of the greatest challenges for most of the economies of world and this challenges is addressed at the global level. Girls and Women should have the equal opportunities and rights, and should also be able to live free from discrimination and violence. Gender equality is one of the goal of the sustainable development along with other 16 goals. This report has included the main aims of the gender equality, key features that SDG looking to address, how Australia address this issue, and role or contribution of the nurses at the professional and personal level to address this current crises of the gender equality.

Reference

AU (2022). Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy. Retrieved 15 April 2022, from https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment-strategy

Baker, M., Ali, M., & French, E. (2019). Effectiveness of gender equality initiatives in project-based organizations in Australia. Australian Journal of Management, 44(3), 425-442.

Dfta. (2022). Australia’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2021–2031. Retrieved 15 April 2022, from https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/australias-national-action-plan-on-women-peace-and-security-2021-2031

Dfta. (2022). Gender Equality. Retrieved 15 April 2022, from https://www.dfat.gov.au/development/topics/development-issues/gender-equality-empowering-women-girls/gender-equality

Gunn, V., Muntaner, C., Ng, E., Villeneuve, M., Gea-Sanchez, M., & Chung, H. (2019). Gender equality policies, nursing professionalization, and the nursing workforce: a cross-sectional, time-series analysis of 22 countries, 2000–2015. International journal of nursing studies, 99, 103388.

Humanrights. (2022). Face the facts: Gender Equality 2018 | Australian Human Rights Commission. Retrieved 15 April 2022, from https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/face-facts-gender-equality-2018

Lord, H., Loveday, C., Moxham, L., & Fernandez, R. (2021). Effective communication is key to intensive care nurses’ willingness to provide nursing care amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 62, 102946.

Sachs, J. D., Schmidt-Traub, G., Mazzucato, M., Messner, D., Nakicenovic, N., & Rockström, J. (2019). Six transformations to achieve the sustainable development goals. Nature sustainability, 2(9), 805-814.

UNDP (2022). What are sustainable development goals. Retrieved 15 April 2022, from https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals?utm_source=EN&utm_medium=GSR&utm_content=US_UNDP_PaidSearch_Brand_English&utm_campaign=CENTRAL&c_data-src=CENTRAL&c_src2=GSR&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxZP779aL9wIVzlVgCh2a3wDoEAAYAiAAEgJVKPD_BwE

Vijeyarasa, R. (2021). Gender equality in Australia: looking for the silver bullets in the short and long term. Australian Journal of Human Rights, 27(1), 170-177.