At UN, Vatican representative supports efforts to protect women from poverty, exploitation
October 13, 2015
Speaking to a UN session on the advancement of women, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s permanent observer, remarked that despite some recent progress, women still represent a disproportionate number of the world’s poor.
The archbishop took note of positive advances in the education of women and in health care, especially maternal care. But he observed that women still encounter difficulties finding work with adequate pay. Women and girls suffer gravely as the result of warfare, and are frequently forced to leave their homes and face added dangers as migrants, he said. The archbishop also called attention to the exploitation of women and girls by human traffickers.
Archbishop Auza said that the Vatican strongly supports efforts to improve health care for women, reminding the UN representatives that the Catholic Church is the world’s leading provider of health-care service. He insisted, however, that health-care efforts should “uphold the dignity of the human person across the life cycle, starting from the very beginning of life at conception to its natural end.”
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