On 100th International Women’s Day, UN warns that discrimination still endures by UN Women & agencies 8:27am 8th Mar, 2011   8 March 2011    One hundred years after more than a million women poured out onto the streets around the world on the first International Women’s Day, the United Nations used the anniversary today to warn that despite the gains made much remains to be done to eliminate gender discrimination.    “In too many countries and societies, women remain second-class citizens,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “Although the gender gap in education is closing, there are wide differences within and across countries, and far too many girls are still denied schooling, leave prematurely or complete school with few skills and fewer opportunities.    “Women and girls also continue to endure unacceptable discrimination and violence, often at the hand of intimate partners or relatives. In the home and at school, in the workplace and in the community, being female too often means being vulnerable. And in many conflict zones, sexual violence is deliberately and systematically used to intimidate women and whole communities.”    Mr. Ban cited the urgent need for significant progress in women’s and children’s health. He also noted that in the realm of decision-making more women in more countries should take their rightful seat in parliament, fewer than 10 per cent of countries have female heads of State or government.    “Only through women’s full and equal participation in all areas of public and private life can we hope to achieve the sustainable, peaceful and just society promised in the United Nations Charter,” Mr. Ban concluded.    Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women, the new entity grouping together the work of four previous UN bodies, highlighted some of the gains made since those marches of 100 years ago, when only two countries allowed women to vote, compared with virtually universal suffrage today, with women elected to lead governments in every continent.    But, she said: “I suspect those courageous pioneers would look at our world today with a mixture of pride and disappointment. There has been considerable progress as the last century has seen an expansion of women’s legal rights and entitlements. In fact, the advancement of women’s rights can lay claim to be one of the most profound social revolutions the world has seen.    “But despite this progress over the last century, the hopes of equality expressed on that first International Women’s Day are a long way from being realized. Almost two out of three illiterate adults are women. Girls are still less likely to be in school than boys. Every 90 seconds of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy or due to childbirth-related complications despite us having the knowledge and resources to make birth safe,” she added.    She stressed that across the world, women continue to earn less than men for the same work, and in many countries they have unequal access to land and inheritance rights.    Despite advances, women still make up only 19 per cent of legislatures, 8 per cent of peace negotiators, and only 28 women are heads of State or government, she noted.    “I have seen myself what women, often in the toughest circumstances, can achieve for their families and societies if they are given the opportunity,” said Ms. Bachelet, a former president of Chile. “The strength, industry and wisdom of women remain humanity’s greatest untapped resource. We simply cannot afford to wait another 100 years to unlock this potential.”    UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay devoted her message to the courageous role women played in the recent peaceful mass movements that saw the ouster of the entrenched leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.    “The work, however, is far from over,” she said. “In these moments of historic transition in Egypt and Tunisia, it is important to ensure that women’s rights are not set aside as something to be dealt with after the ‘crucial’ reforms are won. Women’s rights should be at the top of the list of new priorities.”    She noted concerns that constitutional reviews and the development of reforms are undertaken without women’s full participation. “In fact, there are worrying signs about the content of some proposed reforms in Egypt being downright discriminatory,” she said. “The women and men in the Middle East and North Africa must ensure this is not the case.”    All over the world, major disparities remain between female and male access to education, employment and salaries, she added, stressing that while women are the world’s main food producers and their working hours are longer than those of men, women earn only 10 per cent of the world’s income and own less than one per cent of property worldwide. They also comprise nearly two thirds of the world’s 759 million illiterate adults.    Highlighting the advances in women’s and girls’ health in the last 100 years, such as reforms of the minimum age of marriage and sexual consent, safe abortions, contraception, mammograms, and progress towards ending sexual and gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan also stressed that women’s health involves much more than reproduction.    “We are also faced with challenges,” she said. “Maternal mortality rates and HIV rates among young women are still too high, tobacco consumption among women is increasing, sexual and other forms of gender-based violence continue to be widespread, and there is an increasingly heavy burden of non-communicable diseases on women,” she added, underscoring how lack of education negatively affects fertility, smoking rates, and HIV prevention.    March 2010    UN urges greater support for empowering women.    Top United Nations officials have called for greater support to women, particularly in developing countries, so that they can be empowered and contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eight globally agreed anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline.    Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that “the third Millennium Development Goal – to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment – is central to all the rest. When women are denied the opportunity to better themselves and their societies, we all lose. “Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in jeopardy,” he added.    The International Labour Organization (ILO) also joined the call for equal rights and equal opportunities for all, with Director-General Juan Somavia noting that the global economic crisis is threatening recent advances in the field of women and work.    A new report by the agency on women in labour markets shows that a new gender gap may be emerging. “Although women’s overall labour force participation is growing, women remain disproportionately represented in poorly paid, insecure, part-time, home-based or informal work and continue to be undervalued when it comes to equal pay for work of equal value,” he stated.    Mr. Somavia added that the economic crisis is also an opportunity to shape new gender equality policy responses. “When governments design and implement fiscal stimulus packages, for example, it is important to recognize the labour market disadvantages that women may face.    “Women carry the heaviest burden when it comes to unpaid care work. This may expand as the crisis deepens and further limits women’s access to labour markets if policies for sharing care responsibilities with men are not forthcoming,” he said.    The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the UN corporate responsibility initiative known as the Global Compact today launched a new joint initiative called Women’s Empowerment Principles, which offers guidance on how to empower women in the workplace.    “The ‘multiplier effect’ of women’s empowerment has been increasingly acknowledged,” UNIFEM Executive Director Inés Alberdi told a news conference in New York. “What is powerful and new today is that the corporate community itself reports that gender equality is good for business — advancing innovation, attracting top talent, raising positive consumer and community recognition and improving profits.”    Among other elements, the initiative calls for establishing high-level corporate leadership for gender equality, and promoting education, training and professional development for women.    Kandeh K. Yumkella, the Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), stated that the key to enhancing opportunities for women in the developing world and lifting them out of poverty is to provide them with skills, know-how, technologies and finance to enable them to engage in productive activities and earn an income.    Mr. Yumkella noted that ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women is crucial if developing countries want to achieve the other MDGs. “If women are able to access credit to invest in business ventures, markets to sell their products, knowledge to expand their businesses, they will be in a better position to contribute to economic growth and development,” he stated.    This year’s International Women’s Day comes on the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 – which remains the most comprehensive global policy framework to achieve the goals of gender equality, development and peace. World leaders attending the summit in the Chinese capital declared that the full participation by women in all spheres of society, including decision-making and access to power, are fundamental for development and peace.    “We will not see sustainable progress unless we fix failures in health systems and society so that girls and women enjoy equal access to health information and services, education, employment and political positions,” said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO).    Margaret Chan added that International Women’s Day is a day of celebration and reflection on how to eliminate discrimination against women and girls. “Today we must all join forces to make sure that the health of women and girls is not jeopardized simply because they were born female.”    UN General Assembly President Ali Treki called for actions to guarantee women equal and full rights and opportunities to enable them to contribute their full potential to the objectives of peace and development.    “Let us work to eliminate all forms of gender-based discrimination, not only by making sure that there are no existing laws that directly discriminate against women, but also by ensuring that all necessary arrangements are in place that will allow women to actually experience equality in their lives,” Dr. Treki added in a statement.    Mar 3, 2011    Women’s empowerment lifts obstacles to achieving development goals, Ban says.    “Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in jeopardy,” Mr. Ban said to the Commission on the Status of Women.    He pointed out that injustice and discrimination against women persists around the world, manifesting in violence in some cases. Over two thirds of women experience violence in their lifetime, most commonly at the hands of an intimate partner.“We sometimes hear it said that such practices are a matter of culture,” the Secretary-General said, strongly emphasizing that “they are not.”    According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), women comprise only 18.8 per cent of parliament members worldwide, shy of the 20 per cent target set by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Beijing Declaration.    In 44 chambers in nearly 40 nations, the 20 per cent goal has been met, but progress is lagging in regions such as the Middle East. “Women’s representation in parliaments is an accountability issue,” said Rachel Mayanja, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women.    Parliaments, she emphasized, must be accountable to the entire population, including women. The representation of women in governments reflects how democratic they are, Ms. Mayanja said, noting that countries where women are not greatly represented tend to be “less inclusive, less egalitarian and less democratic.”    There also needs to be enhanced commitment at the highest levels – not just politics, but also other realms – to support women’s participation in the political process, she said.    UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro cited need to move from commitment to action on gender equality. “More and more people now understand that gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is not just a goal in itself, but a key to sustainable development, economic growth, and peace and security” she told delegates at UN Headquarters.    Ms. Migiro said “Violence is the most blatant manifestation of discrimination against women, but it is not the only one. Injustice and inequality persist in developing and developed countries and in all regions.”    In addition, she also noted that women still outnumber men among the world’s poorest people, and that two-thirds of illiterate adults are women – a statistic that has not changed in 20 years.    “We have also seen limited progress on reproductive health. Maternal mortality remains unacceptably high. Almost all these deaths could be prevented,” said the Deputy Secretary-General. “So, while we have seen advances, we have not seen enough,” she stated. “The message is clear – we need to move from commitment to action.” Visit the related web page
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