Women's Human Rights and Health in Developing Countries.

he improvements in development in Latin America and the Caribbean observed from the 1950s through the early 1970s have started to decline. Principal factors include growing external debt, the world trade imbalance due to the increase in the price of oil and manufactured products and the decrease of primary products. This deterioration of socioeconomic conditions has increasingly and primarily affected women. Recognition of women's status improved alongside restitution of democratic governments in Latin America. Recognition of human rights norms improved as the economic crises deepened. The rise of democratic governments and the renewal of respect for human rights created a friendly context for improving women's rights in the 1980s. Many advances occurred through legal and constitutional reforms and through the development of a strong women's movement. Feminist women even attained governmental and parliamentarian positions and contributed to changes in some countries. Yet, from the beginning of the 1990s, due primarily to the globalization of the world economy, new patterns of consumption and production also emerged. In developing countries, structural adjustment programs were applied which led to increasing inequalities, unemployment and social exclusion. The gap between rich and poor widened within and among nations. In 1995, 20 percent of the richest people in the world held 85 percent of the global income, while the poorest 20 percent of people had only 1.4 percent according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Report on Human Development. Imbalances and inequities