You Can Empower Women and Girls to Access Eye Care

Even though men and women lose their vision at nearly the same rate, men access eye health services more than women. This disparity is especially stark in children, where girls make up 2 out of 3 cases of treatable blindness and vision loss.

In many countries, women and girls face significant barriers to eye care, including lack of education, limited household decision-making power, fewer financial resources, and cultural restrictions on travelling alone. Families frequently give preferential treatment to male children, making them more likely to receive eye care. Girls often face the additional barrier of being too young to advocate for themselves.

Leading the Way in Gender Equity in Eye Care

Seva Canada, in collaboration with our partner in Africa, KCCO, identified the gender inequity in blindness treatment through original research, leading to a global shift in how eye health organisations collect and use gender data.

Improving gender data collection with our program partners helps us track service delivery to women and girls, and assess the effectiveness of interventions aimed at gender equity. Consequently, women and girls now have better access to care.

Community-based strategies often work best to ensure women and girls can get eye care. These include training outreach workers for door-to-door visits, family counselling, free transportation, and village-based Community Eye Centres.

Progress Made, But More Work Needed

Due to strategies like Seva’s, global blindness and vision loss in women has decreased by 10%. However, girls remain half as likely as boys to access eye care services. Seva Canada is now emphasizing its advocacy for girls, just as it has done, and continues to do, for women.