Women

Women also merit UNESCO's special attention in preventive education. Like youth, " women " do not exist as an abstract category. Their identity is neither homogeneous nor uniform, differs from culture to culture, from one social situation to another, and varies according to economic status and religious denomination. Women occupy a wide variety of places in society and play an increasingly important role in socio-economic development. Moreover, women can be mothers, teachers, prostitutes, managers, politicians. They can be in close proximity to young people living in situations at risk, or might themselves live in precarious states or suffer from discrimination, i.e. in high-risk contexts.

According to the Human Development Report (¹¹) «No country treats its women as well as it treats its men. «... «In industrialized countries, gender discrimination (measured by the HDI) is mainly in employment and wages, with women often getting less than two-thirds of the employment opportunities and about hag the earnings of men. In developing countries the great disparities, besides those in the job market, are in health care, nutritional support and education. For instance, women make up two thirds of the illiterate population...»

⁽¹¹⁾Human Development Report, Op. cit., pp. 16/1

As a result of these conditions of inequality and modern social vulnerability, women in general, and each woman in particular, are particularly exposed to drug abuse.

Subject and object of preventive education, women are privileged partners in some pilot projects set up by UNESCO, mainly in innovative peer teaching educational strategies. On the eve of the World Conference on Women organized by the United Nations, it is urgent to take into account the increasingly important role of women in society within the context of socio-economic and human development and to consider the multiple, transverse and specific needs of women in the implementation of realistic and pragmatic preventive education strategies.