Women in Bangladesh stand up for gender equality. Credit: UNICEF/Jannatul Mawa

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
NEW YORK, Sep 7 2020 (IPS)

Twenty-five years ago, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing set a path-breaking agenda for women’s rights. As a result of the two-week gathering with more than 30,000 activists, representatives from 189 nations unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

This historic blueprint articulated a vision of equal rights, freedom and opportunities for women – everywhere, no matter what their circumstances are – that continues to shape gender equality and women’s movements worldwide.

A quarter century on, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, calls for urgent action: “With nations around the world searching for solutions to the complex challenges of our age, the leading way for all of us to rebuild more equal, inclusive, and resilient societies, is to accelerate the implementation of women’s rights – the Beijing Platform for Action. That vision has been only partly realized. We still live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture, and this simply has to change”.

The Beijing Platform for Action imagined a world where every woman and girl can exercise her freedoms and choices, and realize her rights, such as to live free from violence, to go to school, to participate in decisions and to earn equal pay for work of equal value. As a defining framework for change, the Platform for Action made comprehensive commitments under 12 critical areas of concern.

Twenty-five years later, no country has fully delivered on the commitments of the Beijing Platform for Action, nor is close to it. A major stock-taking UN Women report published earlier this year showed that progress towards gender equality is faltering and hard-won advances are being reversed.

Women currently hold just one quarter of the seats at the tables of power across the board. Men are still 75 per cent of parliamentarians, hold 73 per cent of managerial positions, are 70 per cent of climate negotiators and almost all of the peacemakers.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The anniversary is a wake-up call and comes at a time when the impact of the gender equality gaps is undeniable. Research shows the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating pre-existing inequalities and threatening to halt or reverse the gains of decades of collective effort – with just released new data revealing that the pandemic will push 47 million more women and girls below the poverty line.

We are also witnessing increased reports on violence against women throughout the world due to the lockdowns, and women losing their livelihoods faster because they are more exposed to hard-hit economic sectors.

While much works remains on fulfilling the promises of the Beijing Platform for Action, it continues to be a global framework and a powerful source of mobilization, civil society activism, guidance and inspiration 25 years later.

It was at the Fourth World Conference on Women, specifically at the Women & Health Security Colloquium, where Hillary Clinton coined the phrase, “Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights”.

In a recent article in The Atlantic, she recalled her participation at the Conference as the Honorary Chairperson of the US delegation, and the significance of the Beijing Declaration: “A 270-page document might not lend itself to bumper stickers or coffee mugs, but it laid the groundwork for sweeping, necessary changes.”

Underlining the urgency for implementation, she added: “As the changes laid out in the Platform for Action have been implemented, what’s become clear is that simply embracing the concept of women’s rights, let alone enshrining those rights in laws and constitutions, is not the same as achieving full equality. Rights are important, but they are nothing without the power to claim them.”

Years after, global activists continue the hard work and those who participated at the 1995 Beijing Conference remain touched by this historic meeting. Zeliha Ünaldi, a long-standing gender advocate from Turkey, said it was a life-changing experience: “When I recall those days, mingling around the tents with thousands of women committing to a better world, two words immediately come to my mind: sisterhood and peace. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the subsequent five years helped me understand the power in us and of us as the global women’s movement.”

The upcoming UN General Assembly later this month will be a key opportunity to bring to the forefront the relevance of the Beijing Declaration and move the needle on implementation, with a High-Level Meeting attended by global leaders on “Accelerating the Realization of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of all Women and Girls” on 1 October.

The event will showcase how building equal and inclusive societies is more urgent than ever, as the COVID-19 pandemic ravages lives and livelihoods.

Calling on world leaders to use their political power to accelerate robust action and resources for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls: “This is a re-set moment. On this important anniversary, let us reaffirm the promises the world made to women in 1995. Let us draw on the activist spirit of the Beijing Conference and commit to forging new alliances across generations and sectors to ensure we seize this opportunity for deep, systemic change for women and for the world.”

The anniversary will be further commemorated in the context of the Generation Equality Forum, a civil society–centred, global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of France and Mexico, foreseen to take place in the first half of 2021.

Exactly 25 years after the opening of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, its significance is undimmed. In that quarter century we have seen the strength and impact of collective activism grow and have been reminded of the importance of multilateralism and partnership to find common solutions to shared problems.

Back in 1995, the deliberations of the Conference resulted in the framing of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: a bold agenda for the change needed to realize the human rights of women and girls, articulated across 12 critical areas of concern.

The Platform for Action provided a blueprint for the advancement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, adopted by 189 UN Member States and universally referenced.

The continued relevance of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action cannot be overstated today. The far-reaching social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the significant increases in violence against women, threaten to reverse many of the hard-won advances made in the last 25 years to empower women and girls.

At the same time, the outstanding value of women’s leadership through the COVID-19 pandemic is in plain sight, along with the recognition of just how much women’s work and women’s movements have sustained the world, from domestic life, the fight for human rights, to national economies.

We also know that by next year, 435 million women and girls are likely to have been reduced to extreme poverty. Governments, local administrations, businesses and enterprises of all sorts must not let this happen.

To tackle persistent systemic barriers to equality, we need transformative approaches and new alliances that engage the private sector alongside governments and civil society. This is a re-set moment. The economic and policy lifeboats for our struggling world must put women and children first.

The political will of leaders can make the difference. World leaders convening at this year’s United Nations General Assembly have the opportunity to use their power in action to accelerate the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, and to support the role of civil society organizations and youth.

Our humanitarian responses to COVID-19, our economic stimulus packages, our reinventions of working life and our efforts to create solidarity across social and physical distance – these are all chances to build back better for women and girls.

For success, we need to work together on these transformative actions. In 2019, we launched a global campaign called Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights for an Equal Future, with a call for renewed commitment by governments in partnership with civil society, academia and the private sector.

It included clear timelines, responsibilities and resources towards realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an ambitious long-term framework that included goals to achieve universal gender equality.

On October 1, 2020, when a High-Level Meeting on the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action is convened by the President of the General Assembly, Member States can put into action their commitment toward a more gender-equal world.

On this important anniversary, let us reaffirm the promises the world made to women and girls in 1995. Let us draw on the activist spirit of the Beijing Conference and commit to forging new alliances across generations and sectors to ensure we seize this opportunity for deep, systemic change for women and for the world.

Excerpt:

Sahle-Work Zewde, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

By Sahle-Work Zewde and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2020 (IPS)

Twenty-five years ago, thousands of representatives adopted the Beijing Declaration, one of the most progressive universal agreement to advance women’s rights.

The Beijing Declaration built on the human rights inscribed in the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979, whose articles 7 and 8 clearly states the need for removing all discriminations preventing women from leadership.

On September 1995, the Beijing Platform of Action took full ownership of the human rights agenda initially contained in CEDAW, advanced women’s rights and strongly reaffirmed the universal commitment to women’s power and leadership. Women took ownership of the human rights agenda and redefined it to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment would be at its core.

At the time, world leaders committed to the extraordinary Platform for Action with tangible and ambitious commitments in strategic areas, from peace to development, and designed roadmaps to get us there.

Since 1995, the world continued the march to make the world more gender equal and to enhance women’s leadership and participation in peace, security and development processes.

In 2000, following decades of advocacy led by women civil society organizations and women human rights activists, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1325, the global commitment to ensure that women are systematically and sustainably integrated into peace and security processes.

The international community furthered the women, peace and security agenda in 2009 by recognizing the harmful impact of sexual violence in conflict on women and communities, making this scourge punishable under International Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law.

In the last twenty-five years, African women have made substantive progress in political, economic and social arenas but also have faced numerous constraints.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The positive picture reflects enhanced political and legislative leadership to ensure that women do have a seat at the table of key decision-making processes.

Today, Rwanda has the highest percentage of women members of parliament in the world: 61%. Namibia, Senegal and South Africa follow closely with at least over 40% of women holding seats in Parliament.

Ethiopia not only made great strides by electing its first female President in October 2018, but Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also raised the bar high for national governments by ensuring a gender equal cabinet with 50% of its members being women.

Across Africa, women have taken the seat at the top table, including President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, President Joyce Banda of Malawi, President Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic and President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim of Mauritius.

More women are being elected in public office or appointed to ministerial positions. These changes have not happened by coincidence but as the result of deliberate policy decisions and grassroots action.

In many cases, this transformation was realized through hard-fought constitutional amendments and parity legislation aimed at reserving the necessary space for women and youth.

At continental level, the African Union has developed an extensive and progressive body of legal instruments as well as innovative solutions and platforms in its various thematic areas of work. The years 2010-2020 marked the African Women’s Decade.

The AU Strategy for Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment (2018 – 2028) is informed by global standards that include instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs – whose Goal 5 is on “Gender Equality”).

Other human rights instruments of the African Union such as the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights consider women’s rights as an integral component of the key rights. The AU has appointed Heads of State as champions and leaders to push for implementation of commitments under various thematic areas of the work of the Union.

Despite these great achievements, we must admit that the world – and we as leaders – did not keep our promise to ensure that every woman and girl, wherever she may live, could be assured to enjoy her full human rights reach her full potential.

The reality is that we have failed women and girls. Some of the best minds remain excluded because we failed to provide access to education to all women and girls. Many of the potential pillars of our societies remain marginalized because we failed to properly address and eradicate gender inequality and violence against women.

Our continent is lagging behind in creating the peaceful and developed societies we seek to realize, in part, because we failed to offer women and girls the necessary opportunities and tools, which would allow them to thrive and be full contributors.

And despite the elections of some women to high and highest offices, and existing legislative and legal frameworks, by and large, across Africa women are still struggling to gain a seat at the decision-making table or in peace and security processes.

Despite the existing evidence revealing that gender perspective drives the sustainability of peace and security processes, there is still a blunt implementation gap in terms of ensuring women’s participation in peace processes.

The evidence is staggering, with women constituting about 4% of signatories of peace agreements, 2.4% of chief mediators, 3.7% of witnesses or observers to peace negotiations, and 9% of negotiation team members. . Today, Africa currently counts one female Head of State (Ethiopia), four Vice-Presidents (The Gambia, Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia) one Prime Minister (Namibia).

This stark reality is a daily reminder that we cannot slow down our efforts. We must accelerate our efforts against the pushbacks. Women’s meaningful participation and leadership are crucial in the effective functioning and sustainability of our communities and our world.

To achieve this, a top-down approach is not sustainable to build the necessary transformative change. If the promise made is to be delivered, women and youth must be front and center and the drivers of the positive change we all aspire.

In this spirit, on 2 June 2017 African women leaders – I among them – came together as a movement to launch the African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) and its Call to Action, backed by the African Union and the United Nations through UN Women.

Our Network aims to advance, train and support female leaders across sectors and generations in Africa. The AWLN is pushing for policies and programmes that empower and enable women on the continent across the political, economic and humanitarian fields to reach their full potential.

Since June 2017, the African Women Leaders Network has achieved key milestones, from bolstering the voices of African women leaders across generations on the ground to enhancing their participation and leadership in key decision-making processes.

The Network committed to push and deliver on the commitments made in UN Security Council resolution 1325 by October 2020, its 20th anniversary and to be in solidarity with the women and communities in conflict and post-conflict situations throughout Africa.

Since 2017, the AWLN conducted joint UN-AU solidarity missions to revitalize women’s participation and leadership in peace, security and development in Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Niger Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan. The missions brought much needed political attention to the situation on the ground, while promoting women’s meaningful participation as mediators in all efforts of conflict-resolution, sustainable development, peacebuilding and humanitarian interventions.

The AWLN redefines the faces and structures around power and leadership – considering each and every woman or girl a leader, standing up for her human rights, may she be a Head of State or a grassroots activist working for peace and development, an entrepreneur or a schoolgirl with a dream.

We support the advancement of African women through six (6) flagship projects in peace and security, governance, finance, agriculture, young women’s leadership and social mobilization. The Network further provides peer learning, experience sharing and cross-generational dialogues in order to bolster women’s contributions to building and sustaining peace, sustainable economies and social transformation.

Women are making a crucial difference in the lives of the people they serve at local level. In this spirit, the AWLN national chapters are the cornerstones of movement building for the Network and support its localization at grassroots level and represent a major milestone benefiting all African women and ensuring that their voices are better heard, and their issues better addressed, in order to increase women’s ownership in the transformation of the continent and the 2063 Agenda “The Africa We Want.”

Since 2017, the AWLN has established 11 national chapters in (chronologically) the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Seychelles, Ethiopia, Liberia, Morocco and Cameroon.

The Network, with the support of UN Women and the AU, plans to have a total of 25 national chapters established by March 2020, in line with UN Women’s Generation Gender Equality Campaign, and to ensure that a critical mass of women is leading the movement throughout the continent.

We are working closely with women’s groups, the UN System, the African Union and development partners to ensure that, beyond women’s participation, all efforts are undertaken to create a conducive environment for women empowerment and the protection of their rights and freedoms.

We encourage all African Member States to speed up the process and to offer the necessary support to women and young people coming together for Africa’s transformation. The time for action is now to build irreversible positive changes for gender equality in Africa.

In 2020, 25 years after the Beijing Declaration and 20 years after Security Council resolution 1325, it is clear that we must accelerate our efforts, move faster on the roadmap towards the targets we want to reach, and deliver tangible actions for the people we serve.

As I write these words, we are still very far away from achieving gender parity and full women’s empowerment in Africa. We must build on the positive strides that we have made so far to achieve this urgent ambition.

As African women, we call on all African men – leaders in politics and business, elders and young, neighbors in our cities and villages, fathers, brothers and sons – to join women in a great partnership for human rights, peace and development.

We call on them to lead and invest in change at a national level with the African Women Leaders Network National Chapters and women’s movements for peace to address the gender equality gaps that we know persist.

Africa has already adopted strong protocols, including the Maputo Protocol, and instruments that bind us, and through which Heads of State and Government have already agreed on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. Women must be meaningfully included in peace, security and developments negotiations and in the politics of their country.

We are asking all our allies to use their power and influence to support African women in taking their rightful place in the next chapter of the continent and building a future where women and girls can live out their lives freely, in purpose and happiness.

The movement of African women across the continent is a rally for action. A movement to ensure that leaders keep on their commitments and promises.

It is time for action.

Together, we can unite for Africa’s transformation.

Excerpt:

Great strides have been taken to empower women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing adopted an ambitious global agenda to achieve gender equality twenty-five years ago. Gender parity has been achieved in primary education. Maternal mortality has been halved. Today, the region’s governments are committed to overcoming the persistent challenges of discrimination, gender-based violence and women’s unequal access to resources and decision-making.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

First, we must end violence against women, such a severe human rights violation which continues to hinder women’s empowerment. As many as one in two women in the region have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in the last 12 months. Countries in the region have adopted laws and policies to prevent and respond to violence against women. This is progress on which we must build. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2015 adopted the Convention against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and a Regional Plan of Action on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 2018. Free legal services, hotlines and digital applications to report violence, and emergency shelters and safe spaces for survivors are increasingly common. New partnerships are underway challenging stigma and stereotypes, working directly with boys and men. However, more investment is needed to prevent violence, and to ensure all women and girls who experienced violence will have access to justice and essential services.

Second, women’s political representation must be increased in Asia and the Pacific. Our region’s representation rates are behind the global average. Only one in five parliamentarians are women in Asia-Pacific. Despite governments committing to gender parity in decision making 25 years ago in Beijing, the region has seen the share of women in parliament grow at just 2.2 percentage points annually over the past two decades. We must therefore look to where faster progress has been made. In several countries, quotas have helped increase the number of women in parliament. These need to be further expanded and complemented with targeted, quality training and mentoring for women leaders and removing the barriers of negative norms, stigma and stereotypes of women in politics and as leaders.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

Next year will mark the convergence of the 25 years of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the five-year milestone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Investments and financing for gender equality need to be fully committed and resourced to realize these ambitious targets and commitments. Our hope is that the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference for the Beijing+25 Review will help provide the necessary momentum. Now is time to craft priority actions for change and accelerate the realization of human rights and opportunities for all women and men, girls and boys. Let us remain ambitious in our vision, and steadfast in our determination to achieve gender equality and women empowerment in Asia and the Pacific.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, and
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women

Credit: UN Women

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2019 (IPS)

If I could have one wish granted, it might well be a total end to rape. That means a significant weapon of war gone from the arsenal of conflict, the absence of a daily risk assessment for girls and women in public and private spaces, the removal of a violent assertion of power, and a far-reaching shift for our societies.

Rape isn’t an isolated brief act. It damages flesh and reverberates in memory. It can have life changing, unchosen results—a pregnancy or a transmitted disease. Its long-lasting, devastating effects reach others: family, friends, partners and colleagues.

In both conflict and in peace it shapes women’s decisions to move from communities through fear of attack or the stigma for survivors. Women and girls fleeing their homes as refugees also risk unsafe transport and insecure living conditions that can lack locked doors, adequate lighting and proper sanitation facilities.

Girls married as children in search of increased security at home or in refugee camps can get caught up in legitimized conditions of rape, with little recourse for those wishing to escape, such as shelter and safe accommodation.

In the vast majority of countries, adolescent girls are most at risk of sexual violence from a current or former husband, partner or boyfriend. As we know from our work on other forms of violence, home is not a safe place for millions of women and girls.

Almost universally, most perpetrators of rape go unreported or unpunished. For women to report in the first place requires a great deal of resilience to re-live the attack, a certain amount of knowledge of where to go, and a degree of confidence in the responsiveness of the services sought – if indeed there are services available to go to.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Credit: UN Women

In many countries, women know that they are overwhelmingly more likely to be blamed than believed when they report sexual assault, and they have to cope with an unwarranted sense of shame. The result of these aspects is a stifling of women’s voices around rape, significant under-reporting and continuing impunity for perpetrators.

Research shows that only a small fraction of adolescent girls who experience forced sex seek professional help. And less than 10 per cent of women who did seek help after experiencing violence contacted the police.

One positive step to increase accountability is to make rape universally illegal. Currently more than half of all countries do not yet have laws that explicitly criminalize marital rape or that are based on the principle of consent.

Along with criminalizing rape, we need to get much, much better at putting the victim at the centre of response and holding rapists to account. This means strengthening the capacity of law enforcement officials to investigate these crimes and supporting survivors through the criminal justice process, with access to legal aid, police and justice services as well as health and social services, especially for women who are most marginalized.

Having more women in police forces and training them adequately is a crucial first step in ensuring that survivors begin to trust again and feel that their complaint is being taken seriously at every stage of what can be a complex process.

Progress also requires that we successfully tackle the many institutional and structural barriers, patriarchal systems and negative stereotyping around gender that exist in security, police and judicial institutions, as they do in other institutions.

Those who use rape as a weapon know just how powerfully it traumatizes and how it suppresses voice and agency. This is an intolerable cost to society. No further generations must struggle to cope with a legacy of violation.

We are Generation Equality and we will end rape!

Excerpt:

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Michael Kaufman
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 12 2018 (IPS)

For most people, the annual G7 meeting may just seem like an expensive photo-op that doesn’t connect with any concrete change in people’s lives. But for us, appointed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to sit on his G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, it was a unique opportunity to push for strong commitments for girls’ and women’s rights.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at the G7 summit last week.

There is unprecedented momentum and support for gender equality and women’s rights. With the universal adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, which put gender equality at the center, and the global attention brought by #MeToo and related campaigns on ending sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women, support for improving outcomes for girls and women has never been so high.

The explosion of discussions in our offices and shop floors, our boardrooms and locker rooms, our dining rooms and bedrooms must come right to the G7 table. It is therefore significant that leaders spent two hours discussing gender equality and that it was also part of other discussions.

As the richest economies in the world, G7 countries can bring about far reaching systemic changes envisaged in the global agenda for sustainable development. The impact of G7 countries goes well beyond their borders. We have told leaders that they must use this unique footprint for the benefit of women and girls.

Together with the Gender Equality Advisory Council, we have put forward a comprehensive set of recommendations.

As a foundation, it is critical to eliminate discriminatory legislation which persists in G7 countries and around the world. We also called for the removal of barriers to women’s income’s security and participation in the labour market.

Concrete measures, such as legislation and implementation of pay equity can close the wage gap between men and women. And the jobs of the future, whether it is in the digital economy or artificial intelligence, must help close – not further widen – the gender gap.

For most women, the challenge of balancing productive and reproductive lives creates a “motherhood penalty” that triggers major setbacks for women in the economy. G7 leaders can shape an economy that closes the gap between women and men through affordable childcare, paid parental leave, and greater incentives for men to do half of all care work.

Addressing violence against women in the workplace is critical. Employers, shareholders, customers, trade unions, Boards, Ministers all have an obligation to make workplaces safe, hold perpetrators accountable and end impunity.

The emerging International Labour Organization’s standard to end violence and harassment at work should be supported to drive greater progress in this area.

None of this will happen without the full participation and voice of women at all decision-making tables. We applaud the increasing numbers of countries with gender equal cabinets. We need more countries to follow suit, as well as the private sector.

Because men still disproportionately control our political, economic, religious, and media institutions, they have a special responsibility to actively support policies and cultural change. Men’s voices and actions, including those of our predominately male political leaders, are critical because they have such a big impact on the attitudes and behavior of other men.

We welcome the announcement by Canada, the European Union, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the World Bank of an investment of nearly US$ 3 billion for girls’ education, including the single largest investment in education for women and girls in crisis and conflict situations. This is a significant step forward to build a foundation for greater progress.

In our own work, as the Executive Director of UN Women, and as a writer and activist focused on engaging men to promote gender equality and end violence against women, we’ve been witness to dramatic changes over the past few decades. The courage of individual women and the leadership of women’s movements have meant that patriarchy is being dismantled in front of our eyes.

But greater leadership is required. A strong commitment by G7 leaders to take this agenda forward beyond the Summit can push forward the most dramatic and far-reaching revolution in human history. The one that will make gender inequality history.

Excerpt:

Young school girls organize themselves before the March to End Gender-Based Violence in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. One sign reads: "Refrain from using abusive language for Women and Children". Photo: UN Women/Deepika Nath

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
NEW YORK, Nov 22 2017 (IPS)

The initial response to the outpouring of ‘#MeToo’ around the world has been of outrage at the scale of sexual abuse and violence revealed. The millions of people joining the hashtag tide showed us how little they were heard before. They poured through the floodgate, opening up conversations, naming names and bolstering the frailty of individual statements with the robustness of a movement.

This virtual class action has brought strength to those whose stories would otherwise have not been told. Sexual violence in private almost always ends up as one person’s word against another, if that word is ever spoken. Even sexual violence in public has been impossible to call out when society does not view rape as a male crime but as a woman’s failing, and views that woman as dispensable.

We are seeing the ugly face of violence brought out into the light: the abuses of power that repress reporting and diminish the facts, and that exclude or crush opposition. These acts of power draw from the same roots, whether they concern the murder of a woman human rights defender standing up against big business interests in the Amazon basin, a young refugee girl forced to have sex for food or supplies, or a small business employee in London forced out of her job for being ‘difficult’, after reporting the sexual misconduct of her supervisor. In each case, and over and over, these acts of abuse have stemmed from a confidence that there will be no significant reprisal, no law invoked, no calling to account.

But everyone has the right to live their life without the threat of violence. This holds for all people, no matter what their gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity or caste, and irrespective of their income level, sexual orientation, HIV status, citizenship, where they live, or any other characteristic of their identity.

Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. There are many ways to prevent violence in the first place and to stop cycles of violence repeating.

As a society, we can support the passing and implementation of laws to protect girls and women from child marriage, FGM, domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, and we can agitate for their impact to be properly monitored and evaluated.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director. Credit: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz.

The provision of essential services for survivors of violence must be comprehensive, multi-sectoral, non-judgmental, of good quality and accessible to everyone, with no exceptions. These services are the frontline of response to those whose lives have just been ruptured; they must have the survivor’s dignity and safety as central concerns.

Prevention of violence must begin early. The education system and teachers themselves are at the forefront of children and young people learning to carry forward the principles of equality, respect and non-violence for future generations. This takes appropriate curricula and role model behaviour.

What #MeToo has shown clearly is that everyone has a part to play in changing our society for the better. We must speak out against harassment and violence in our homes, workplaces, in our institutions, social settings and through our media. #MeToo has also shown us that no one is immune. All institutions need to be aware of the potential for violence to occur among their staff. With that knowledge, we must take steps to prevent it, and at the same time be well prepared to respond appropriately.

In this broad effort to end violence against women and girls, we see men as playing a vital role in bringing change. Challenging sexism, male dominance and male privilege as society’s norm starts with modeling positive masculinities. Parents can instill principles of equality, rights and respect as they raise their sons; and men can call out their peers for the behaviours that are now being understood as the unacceptable tip of the harassment iceberg.

At the heart of today’s theme of ‘leaving no one behind’, is leaving no one out. This means bringing women and girls as equals into everything that concerns them, and planning solutions to end violence with those who have been previously dismissed, sidelined or excluded.

As a global community, we can act now to end violence against women and girls, to change institutions and work together to end discrimination, restore human rights and dignity, and leave no one behind.

Excerpt:

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20 2017 (IPS)

The pain and anger of more than a million people who tweeted #MeToo in the last week have crowded social media with personal stories of sexual harassment or assault.

This virtual march of solidarity marks both the urgency of finding a shared voice and the hidden scale of assault that did not previously have a register. When women are almost invisible, when they are not really seen, it seems that people do not have to care what happens to them.

Protesters gather outside the Lahore Press Club in the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province on July 12, 2016 to demand justice for victims of sexual violence. Credit: IPS

What we are seeing currently, as women build and reinforce each other’s accounts, and as men join in to acknowledge their role, is a validation of the rightness of speaking out. We are seeing also the strength in numbers that comes from accumulated individual experiences that are characteristically undeclared.

As the crowd builds of those telling their story, we see a picture of real life begin to emerge. A critical mass is growing that proves how much goes wrong when people can act with impunity in a culture of silence.

The online wave joins the other mass movements collectively expressing women’s activism: the Latin American ‘ni una menos’ marches to protest violence against women and particularly against the least privileged; the women’s marches that took place across the world earlier this year in support of women’s rights and other freedoms; and the marches in Poland and Ireland against abortion bans.

The blanket of silence has also shielded perpetrators of assaults on LGBTI communities and others who are more vulnerable for reasons of ethnicity, poverty, or age. These women are the ones most affected, least visible and have the most to gain from the collective strength of voices building peer pressure and culture change.

After all, it was Tarana Burke, a New York community organizer serving young women of colour who originated ‘me too’, and her friend Alyssa Milano who picked it up and became the catalyst for the billions who have now been reached by its message.

The full and free participation of women in society, in politics, and in the workplace is essential for women’s voices to be heard and for their rights to be respected. The more women there are who take on senior representation roles across public and private sectors, the more opportunities there are for change in the culture of invisibility and impunity, where more powerful men are able to prey on women. Sexual and all other forms of harassment at work, home and outside the home are not acceptable and must not be ignored.

Casual indifference, and people saying “it’s nothing” have to stop. The number of men who have joined this campaign is promising but far from being enough (30 per cent in one report). It has already been too long that permissive blindness is the norm.

This is about both women and men changing their response to acts of sexual aggression and acting in solidarity to make it visible and unacceptable. Good men should not be quiet spectators.

We need to have all women empowered to speak, their rights and bodies respected, and behaviours established and entrenched as normal that let no one off the hook. No more impunity.

We salute the thousands of women who have been fighting against all violations of women’s and girls’ rights and call for renewed investment in the fight to end all violence against women.

Excerpt:

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 2017 (IPS)

What makes a young girl believe she is less intelligent and capable than a boy? And what happens when those children face the ‘hard’ subjects like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)? A recent study, ‘Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests’ showed that by the age of 6, girls were already less likely than boys to describe their own gender as ‘brilliant’, and less likely to join an activity labelled for ‘very, very smart’ kids.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

So, how do we change this, and what should girls learn now that sets them up to thrive in a transformed labour market of the future? The answer is not simply more and better STEM subject teaching. They must also learn that girls have an equal place in that future. This isn’t a given. A major and underestimated obstacle for girls in STEM is the stereotype that has been created and perpetuated that boys are better at these subjects and careers.

Not only do we have to ensure that children enter and stay in education, we must equally pay close attention to what they are learning. The changing future of jobs means that fields of study for children now in school should include equipping them for ‘new collar’ jobs in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Jobs that do not exist today may be common within the next 20 years, in the green economy, or areas like robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and genomics.

The media plays a powerful role in biases, with the power through effective storytelling to reinforce negative perceptions and norms or to set the record straight and create new role models. ‘Hidden Figures’, Margot Lee Shetterly’s book, that tells the ‘untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race’ is now released as a film and brings recognition to those who were doubly invisible at NASA—as women and as black women. Making accomplished women scientists visible is important for the accuracy of news and of history. It is also an essential part of building further scientific success.

Census data in the United States of America shows that women comprise 39 per cent of chemists and material scientists, and 28 per cent of environmental scientists and geoscientists. These are not the equal proportions that we ultimately want—but they are far higher levels of success in science than fiction tells us. Alarmingly, best-selling movies have tended to significantly underrepresent the facts. A 2015 global study supported by UN Women showed that, of the onscreen characters with an identifiable STEM job, only 12 per cent were women.  This tells us that women are still hidden figures in science—and it has a chilling effect on girls’ ambitions.

According to a 2016 Girl-guiding survey, fewer than one in ten girls aged 7 to 10 in the UK said they would choose a career as an engineer or scientist. Un-learning this bias and changing the stereotypes is not a simple matter, yet it’s essential if we are to see boys and girls able to compete on a more equal footing for the jobs of the future. This goes hand in hand with the practical programmes that teach immediately relevant skills.

UN Women is working with partners around the world to close the gender digital gap. For example, in Moldova, GirlsGoIT teaches girls digital, IT and entrepreneurial skills and specifically promotes positive role models through video; similarly in Kenya and South Africa, 20 Mozilla Clubs for women and girls teach basic coding and digital literacy skills in safe spaces.

We need to deliberately and urgently un-stereotype the ecosystems in which children play, learn and grow up. Across the world, in schools, at home, in the work place and through the stories we tell—we all need to reflect and enable a world where girls can thrive in science, so that their success becomes as probable as they are capable.

*This article is being published in advance of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, 11 February

Excerpt:

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director. Credit: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz.

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 1 2016 (IPS)

The drugging, abduction and violent gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil calls us all to turn the tide of sexual violence against women and girls in Brazil and in every country in the world.

Her silence was broken by the men who boastfully posted their images of the rape, deepening her abuse by showing her body to the world, in the confident expectation of approval by their peers and impunity from punishment. This is Brazil’s moment to shake that confidence to its core and reassert the rule of law and its respect for human rights. This is the time for zero tolerance for violence against women and girls.

The men’s casual expectation of zero retribution reflects the impunity known by most rapists across the world. Their confidence illustrates a climate of normalized abuse, a culture of daily violence against women and girls, and a stark failure of justice. It is estimated that only 35 per cent of rape cases in Brazil are reported. Even so, the Brazilian police record a case of rape every 11 minutes, every day.

The Brazilian teenager did not get medical attention until after her attack was made public. Fear, shame or hopelessness contribute to the gross under-reporting of sexual violence. Far too few women and girls are getting the help they need—and to which they are entitled—to support healing and protect them from unwanted pregnancy as well as from HIV or other sexually transmitted infections.

One simple fact illustrates this: alongside the horrifically high rates of sexual violence experienced daily by women and girls in Brazil and throughout the region, 56 per cent of pregnancies in Latin America and the Caribbean are unplanned or unintended. Women and girls need access to the full range of reproductive health services and rights at all times.

Attention to the critical lack of access to these services in Brazil and elsewhere has sharpened even further in the light of the unprecedented spread of the Zika virus. The risks are highest for the most vulnerable, who are unable to protect themselves adequately against infection, nor against unwanted pregnancy—especially in the context of rape. There has never been a more urgent time for action against sexual violence and for women and girls to be able to confidentially and easily access the health services they need. Both legal and medical structures need to be mobilized to deal with the cases that already exist and strong action taken to build comprehensive services for survivors.

This one case throws into stark relief the daily discrimination and intimidation experienced by women and girls, not just in Latin America, but all over the world. Violence against women and girls deeply damages our societies, our economies, our politics and our long-term global potential. It constrains lives, limits options, and violates human rights. In all its forms, from physical brutality against women human rights defenders like Berta Cáceres, who was murdered in western Honduras in March, to the character assassination of female political figures, it plays out daily in visible and invisible ways, and diminishes us all. It is both why increased representation of women in leadership positions is so important, and why it is so difficult to achieve.

The intensity of protest in Brazil trending through social networks reflects the deep anger against the unrecognized or undeclared abuses that have suppressed or extinguished so many women’s lives. For so many years the struggle of women’s movements, only now governments share their vision of a world without violence by 2030. The young girl in the news commented: “It does not hurt the uterus, but the soul because there are cruel people who are getting away with it.”

Zero tolerance needs the full weight of the laws already in place to track down, prosecute and punish perpetrators. From the highest levels of government, through the police, lawyers and the courts, all need to act with renewed responsibility and accountability for what is happening to women and girls and understand its real cost and consequences.

Most important of all, this is a situation for every man and boy to consider, and to decide to take a stand to change and positively evolve the ‘machismo’ culture. This must not wait another day.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director.

Excerpt:

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 2015 (IPS)

We have recently celebrated the peace deal struck between the government in Colombia and the main guerrilla group. The deal reached on justice issues represents the clearest sign yet of a possible end to five decades of conflict.

Less is said about the multiple constructive ways in which Colombian women have participated in, and influenced, these negotiations or mobilized for peace, including the many meetings held by women survivors with the women in both negotiating teams.

Similarly, few people know that last year also saw the end of another decade-long conflict in the Philippines between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the result of peace talks where more than a third of negotiators were women. This was far from the norm of official peace talks, which are typically either all-male affairs or include very few women.

Their participation was built on a long history of women’s leadership at the local and national levels in the Philippines over the years, including under the leadership of two women presidents who both invested political capital in resuming negotiations with the rebel group.

As tensions threaten Burundi’s fragile peace, Burundian women quickly organized themselves in a nationwide network of women mediators to quell or mitigate the myriad local disputes and prevent escalation. In 129 municipalities across the country, they addressed, by their count, approximately 3,000 conflicts at the local level in 2015, including mediating between security forces and protesters, advocating for the release of demonstrators and political prisoners, promoting non-violence and dialogue among divided communities, and countering rumours and exaggerated fears with verifiable information to prevent widespread panic. UN Women has been proud to support these efforts.

These are not isolated stories.

A comprehensive study prepared for the 15th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325, a landmark resolution that recognized the role of gender equality and women’s leadership in international peace and security, makes the strongest case to date that gender equality improves our humanitarian assistance, strengthens the protection efforts of our peacekeepers, contributes to the conclusion of peace talks and the sustainability of peace agreements, and accelerates economic recovery after conflict.

It compiles growing evidence accumulated by academic researchers that demonstrates how peace negotiations influenced by women are much more likely to end in agreement and to endure. In fact, the chances of the agreement lasting 15 years goes up by as much as 35 per cent.

Where conflict-affected communities target women’s empowerment they experience the most rapid economic recovery and poverty reduction and greatly improved broad humanitarian outcomes, not just for women and girls but for whole populations.

In a world where extremists place the subordination of women at the centre of their ideology and war tactics, the international community and the UN should place gender equality at the heart of its peace and security interventions. Beyond policies, declarations and aspirations, gender equality must drive our decisions about who we hire and on what we spend our money and time.

It is clear that we must strive for tangible changes for women affected by war and engage the grossly underused capacity of women to prevent those conflicts. Countries must do more to bring women to the peace table in all peace negotiations. Civil society and women’s movements have made extraordinary contributions to effective peace processes.

We know that when civil society representatives are involved in peace agreements, the agreements are 64 per cent more likely to be successful and long-lasting. It is time to put a stop to the domination of peace processes by those who fight the wars while disqualifying those who stand for peace. It is time to stop the under-investment in gender equality.

The percentage of aid to fragile states targeting gender equality as a main goal in peace and security interventions is only 2 per cent. Change requires bold steps, and it cannot happen without investment.

Now that time has come. On 25 September, the countries of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which expresses determination to “ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality” and to “foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies that are free from fear and violence”.

Two days later, 72 Heads of State and Government attended our Global Leader’s Meeting to underline top-level support for gender equality and commit to specific action. And on 13 October, the Security Council will celebrate the 15th anniversary of resolution 1325 and inject new energy, ideas and resources into women’s leadership for peace.

In a world so afflicted by conflict, extremism and displacement, we cannot rely only on the ripples of hope sparked by the extraordinary acts of ordinary people. We need the full strength of our collective action and the political courage of the leaders of the international community. Anniversaries, after all, must count for more than the passing of years. They must be the moment for us to turn words into action.

(End)

Excerpt:

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 13 2015 (IPS)

The Women’s World Cup has shown people everywhere what women athletes are all about: skill, strength, unity and determination. I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the winners – the team from the United States – and to all others who participated. You are inspiring millions of women and girls around the world to pursue their goals and dreams.

Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo: Marco Grob

Women are far more visible in sports today than at any previous point in history. The Women’s World Cup, as just one example, reached tens of millions of viewers, breaking television ratings records. The teams in that event were doing more than adroitly blocking a pass or scoring a goal.

They were challenging stereotypes and demonstrating women’s leadership and other abilities that can readily translate into many other domains. Perseverance and team spirit, among other values, can take women far in business, politics, scientific research, the arts and any other field.

As inspiring as the Women’s World Cup is, however, it also reminds us that gender inequalities still plague professional sports. For example, the women were required to play on artificial turf, which is often regarded as more physically punishing than natural grass – the surface favoured by athletes and provided when male teams play.

And there is the name itself—the World Cup is assumed to be for men, while women require the qualifying “Women’s” to describe their event.The total payout for the Women’s World Cup was 15 million dollars, compared with 576 million dollars for the last men’s World Cup—40 times less.

Women players also face a huge pay gap. The total payout for the Women’s World Cup was 15 million dollars, compared with 576 million dollars for the last men’s World Cup—40 times less.

The winning women’s team received two million dollars in prize money, whereas the winning men’s team took away 35 million dollars. The losing U.S. men’s team was still awarded 8 million dollars—four times as much as the champion U.S. women’s team.

Similar pay gaps occur across other professional sports – with the exception of tennis, which since 2007 has awarded equal prize money at all four Grand Slam tournaments. That should be the model to which all other sports aspire. All sports federations should close the gap and put women and men, in this and all other respects, on an equal playing field.

Deeply entrenched, discriminatory notions of women’s diminished status, whether the issue is a playing field or a paycheck, harm individual women and girls. They are denied their rights and blocked from achieving their full potential. Such norms also undermine sport itself, tarnishing notions such as fair play and open competition.

It is time to overturn the barriers and stereotypes, because every step to do so is a step towards gender equality and women’s empowerment. Many women athletes, especially in sports not traditionally considered “feminine”, lead the way, with grit and grace.

Sports programmes have been successful in reducing restrictions on mobility and social isolation that many women and girls experience, particularly those who live in poverty, and who might otherwise be mainly confined within their communities and families.

Through sport, women and girls can find safe places to gather, build new interpersonal networks, develop a sense of identity and pursue new opportunities, often in the process becoming more engaged in community life.

Governments, the United Nations, civil society, the sport movement and others have recognized the contribution of sports to the social, economic and political empowerment of women and girls. Now is the time to act on this recognition.

Women and girls should be encouraged to explore sports, and anyone who would like to participate should be able to do so. In some cases, this may require increased investments; in others, a rebalancing of resources to ensure equal opportunities for men and women, girls and boys.

Sport and the pursuit of gender equality can be mutually reinforcing — through the creation of role models, the promotion of values and powerful outreach. Both can generate a dream and drive people to strive for change, unleashing tremendous benefits for individuals and for our societies at large.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo Courtesy of UN Women

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 2015 (IPS)

Our world is out of balance. It is both wealthier and more unequal today than at any time since the Second World War.

We are recovering from a global economic crisis – but that recovery has been jobless. We have the largest cohort ever of educated women, yet globally women are struggling to find work. Unemployment rates are at historic highs in many countries, including those in the Middle East and North Africa, in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as in southern Europe.Our globalised economy seems to be working at cross-purposes with our universal vision of women’s rights; it is limiting, rather than enabling them.

Where women do have jobs, globally they are paid 24 per cent less than men, on average. For the most part, the world’s women are in low-salaried, insecure occupations, like small-scale farming, or as domestic workers – a sector where they comprise 83 per cent of the workforce.

Why isn’t the global economy fit for women?

In our flagship report Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights, we investigate what this failure means – and propose solutions.

We take a fresh, holistic look at both economic and social policies and their implications for the entire economy. We look particularly at the ‘invisible’ economy of unpaid care and domestic work that anchors all economies and societies.

Conventional measures like GDP have historically been blind to a large proportion of the work women and girls do, and unhearing of the voices of those who would wish to allocate public resources to their relief, for example through investments in accessible water and clean energy.

We suggest the need to apply a human rights lens to economic problem-solving. We propose specific, evidence-based solutions for action by both government and the private sector, to shape progress towards decent, equally paid jobs for women, free from sexual harassment and violence, and supported by good quality social services.

Our public resources are not flowing in the directions where they are most needed: for example to provide safe water and sanitation, quality health care, and decent child- and elderly-care services. Yet water is essential, families still have to be nourished, the sick still have to be tended, children brought up, and elderly parents cared for.

Where there are no public services, the deficit is borne primarily by women and girls. This is a care penalty that unfairly punishes women for stepping in when the State does not provide resources and it affects billions of women the world over.

Data from France, Germany, Sweden and Turkey suggest that women earn between 31 and 75 per cent less than men over their lifetimes. We need policies that make it possible for both women and men to care for their loved ones without having to forego their own economic security, success and independence.

Our globalised economy seems to be working at cross-purposes with our universal vision of women’s rights; it is limiting, rather than enabling them. Where there is no choice, there are few rights.

But there are solutions. The report proposes a number of specific ways in which to mobilise resources to pay for public services and social transfers: for example by enforcing existing tax obligations, reprioritising expenditure and expanding the overall tax base, as well as through international borrowing and development assistance.

Global corporations also have a central role to play by being employers that offer equal pay and opportunities. Shareholders can and should ask corporations to act with responsibility to the countries in which they operate. Annual tax revenue lost to developing countries due to trade mispricing, just one strategy used by corporations to avoid tax, is estimated at between 98 and 106 billion dollars. This is nearly 20 billion more than the annual capital costs needed to achieve universal water and sanitation coverage.

With the right mix of economic and social policies, governments can make transformative change: they can generate decent jobs for women and men and ensure that their unpaid care work is recognised and supported. Well-designed measures such as family allowances and universal pensions can enhance women’s income security, and their ability to realise their potential and expand their life options.

Finally, macroeconomic policies can and should support the realisation of women’s rights, by creating dynamic and stable economies, by generating decent work and by mobilising resources to finance vital public services.

Ultimately, upholding women’s rights will not only make economies work for women, it will also benefit societies as a whole by creating a fairer and more sustainable future.

Progress for women is progress for all.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Girls attend school in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2015 (IPS)

If we look at the headlines or the latest horrifying YouTube clip, Mar. 8 – International Women’s Day – may seem a bad time to celebrate equality for women.

But alongside the stories of extraordinary atrocity and everyday violence lies another reality, one where more girls are in school and more are earning qualifications than ever before; where maternal mortality is at an all-time low; where more women are in leadership positions, and where women are increasingly standing up, speaking out and demanding action.How much would it really cost to unlock the potential of the world’s women? And how much could have been gained!

Twenty years ago this September, thousands of delegates left the historic Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing on a high. The overwhelming feeling was that women had won a great victory. We had indeed – 189 world leaders had committed their countries to an extraordinary Platform for Action, with ambitious but realistic promises in key areas and a roadmap for getting there.

If countries had lived up to all those promises, we would be seeing a lot more progress in equality today than the modest gains in some areas we are currently celebrating. We would be talking about equality for women across the board – and we might be talking about a saner, more evenly prosperous, more sustainably peaceful world.

Looking today at the slow and patchy progress towards equality, it seems that we were madly ambitious to expect to wipe out in 20 years a regime of gender inequality and outright oppression that had lasted in some cases for thousands of years.

Then again – was it really so much to ask? What sort of world is it that condemns half its population to second-class status at best and outright slavery at worst? How much would it really cost to unlock the potential of the world’s women? And how much could have been gained! If world leaders really saw the Beijing Platform for Action as an investment in their countries’ future, why didn’t they follow through?

Some women are taking a seat at the top table. There were 12 female Heads of State or Government in 1990, and 19 in 2015. But the rest are men. Eight out of every 10 parliamentarians worldwide are still men.

Maternal mortality has fallen by 45 per cent; but the goal for 2015 was 75 per cent. There are still 140 million women with no access to modern family planning: the goal for 2015 was universal coverage.

More girls are starting school and more are completing their education; countries have largely closed the “gender gap” in primary education. Many more girls are entering secondary school too, but there is a wide gap between girls’ and boys’ attainments.

More women are working: Twenty years ago, 40 per cent of women were in waged and salaried employment.  Today that proportion has grown to some 50 per cent. But at this rate, it would take more than 80 years to achieve gender parity in employment, and more than 75 years to reach equal pay.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo Courtesy of UN Women

This year marks a great opportunity for the world’s leaders, and a great challenge. When they meet at the United Nations in New York in September, they will have the opportunity to revisit and re-commit to the goals of Beijing.

Today, we call on those leaders to join women in a great partnership for human rights, peace and development. We call on them to show an example in their own lives of how equality benefits everyone: man, woman and child. And we call on them to lead and invest in change at a national level to address the gender equality gaps that we know still persist.

We must have an end point in sight. Our aim is substantial action now, urgently frontloaded for the first five years, and equality before 2030. There is an urgent need to change the current trajectories. The poor representation of women in political and economic decision-making poses a threat to women’s empowerment and gender equality that men can and must be part of addressing.

If the world’s leaders join the world’s women this September; if they genuinely step up their action for equality, building on the foundation laid in the last 20 years; if they can make the necessary investments, build partnerships with business and civil society, and hold themselves accountable for results, it could be sooner.

Women will get to equality in the end. The only question is, why should we wait? So we’re celebrating International Women’s Day now, confident in the expectation that we will have still more to celebrate next year, and the years to come.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

A women-led village council in rural Bangladesh prepares a “social map” of the local community. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
SANTIAGO, Feb 27 2015 (IPS)

This weekend, at the invitation of President Michelle Bachelet and myself, women leaders from across the world are meeting in Santiago de Chile. We will applaud their achievements. We will remind ourselves of their contributions. And we will chart a way forward to correct the historical record. History has not been fair to women – but then, women usually didn’t write it.

This meeting will be an opportunity to take a hard look at the world that is, and the world that will be. The case is urgent, not only for individual women and their human right to equality, but for everyone. The “perfect storm of crises” as one expert has called it, threatens food, energy and water supplies. It threatens political and economic stability in all our countries. It could upend any prospects for balanced and sustainable development.

On the other hand, mobilising the potential of women and maximising their contribution will turn aside some of the worst effects of climate change and help ensure food and water supply; will help correct massive economic inequality between the few and the many; will mitigate conflict and political instability, and help to build lasting peace. Women’s rights are human necessities.

At the heart of our discussion is how to put more women in positions of power. Across the 192 U.N. member countries:

• Only 19 women are heads of state or government;
• One in five parliamentarians are women;
• One in 20 city mayors are women;
• One in four judges and prosecutors, and
• Fewer than one in 10 police officers are women.

Women leaders are just as hard to find in economic life – only one in five board seats in major companies are held by women. And this is despite evidence of increased company earnings when women are on the board!

So how do we get there from here? We already have a road map. It was agreed by 189 world leaders back in 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Countries have made a good start with better overall education and health care for women; but they haven’t followed through on the rest of the package, especially political participation and economic empowerment. At the present rate of progress, it will take 81 years for women to achieve parity in employment. Women, and their countries, can’t wait that long.

This year, the 20th anniversary of the Beijing conference, the year when the U.N. will adopt sustainable development goals for the next 15 years, offers a unique opportunity to make a new start.

First of all, today’s leaders must make a personal commitment to increase women’s presence in decision-making – not just in their numbers, but in their contributions. There are many ways to do this – quotas and numerical targets for women’s participation; training and mentorship to boost women’s confidence and capacity; private-sector engagement matching public-sector initiatives. Countries will find their own ways, if the will is there.

Employers must ensure equal hiring, payment and promotion policies; support to balance work-life conditions, and give women the opportunity to lead. Managers must learn to welcome women’s input and contribution.

Leaders who lead by example in their daily lives will win allies in every aspect of their work for gender equality. They can win allies in the media too – at least to avoid reflexive disparagement, negative stereotyping and casual sexism; and at best to celebrate the positive and constructive contribution of women leaders, even in the toughest environments.

Then there are many women who struggle and suffer every day. They are the everyday heroines of our age, and their fight for equality deserves a wider audience. We shouldn’t have to wait for another vicious attack or another assassination before we learn their names.

These measures sound ambitious, but they are fully realistic. We know from our own experience in leadership, that we can achieve them all. The 1995 Beijing platform for action is not a “wish list”; it’s a “to do list.” If today’s leaders front-load gender equality, if they start now to make good on those 20-year-old promises, we can look forward to serious progress by 2020, and gender equality by 2030.

“The arc of the moral universe is long,” said Martin Luther King, “but it bends toward justice.” Where women are concerned, we have to bend that arc a lot faster now, to make up for all the years it didn’t bend at all. At stake are not only justice and human rights but also perhaps survival itself.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Excerpt:

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo Courtesy of UN Women

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 2014 (IPS)

As leaders from around the world gather in Lima, Peru this week to discuss global cooperation in addressing climate change, a woman in Guatemala will struggle to feed her family from a farm plot that produces less each season.

A mother in Ethiopia will make the difficult choice to take her daughter out of school to help in the task of gathering water, which requires more and more time with each passing year.Women have proven skills in managing natural resources sustainably and adapting to climate change, and are crucial partners in protecting fragile ecosystems and communities that are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

A pregnant woman in Bangladesh will worry about what will happen to her and her children if the floods come when it is her time to deliver.

These women, and millions of women around the world, are on the front lines of climate change. The impacts of shifting temperatures, erratic rainfall, and extreme weather events touch their lives in direct and profound ways.

For many, these impacts are felt so strongly because of gender roles – women are responsible for gathering water, food and fuel for the household. And for too many, a lack of access to information and decision-making exacerbates their vulnerability in the face of climate change.

Our leaders in Lima this week will meet to lay the critical foundations for a new global agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

They seek to resolve important questions about collective action to reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change, to build resilience in communities to the climate change impacts we can’t avoid, and to provide the finance needed for climate-smart development around the world. It is critical that in all of these efforts, our leaders recognise the importance of ensuring that climate change solutions are gender-responsive.

What does it mean for climate change solutions to be gender-responsive? It means, for example, that in formulating strategies for renewable energy women are engaged in all stages and that these strategies take into consideration how women access and use fuel and electricity in their homes.

It means that vulnerability assessments and emergency response plans take into account women’s lives and capabilities. And critically, it means women are included at decision-making tables internationally, nationally, and locally when strategies and action plans are developed.

Going beyond the acknowledgment that men and women are impacted differently by climate change and thus, the need for climate policies and actions to be gender-responsive, we must also examine and support pathways to greater empowerment for women.

When women are empowered, their families, communities, and nations benefit. Responding to climate change offers opportunities to enhance pathways to empowerment. This requires addressing the underlying root causes such as gender stereotypes and social norms that perpetuate and compound inequality and discrimination.

Examples abound and these include removing restrictions to women’s mobility, providing full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, ensuring access to education and employment opportunities as well as access to economic resources, such as land and financial services.

Enhancing women’s agency is key to a human rights-based and equitable climate change agenda. In September during the U.N. Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York, UN Women and the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice brought together more than 130 women leaders for a forum on “Women Leading the Way: Raising Ambition for Climate Action.”

We heard remarkable stories of women’s leadership in addressing all aspects of the climate crisis.

Women have proven skills in managing natural resources sustainably and adapting to climate change, and are crucial partners in protecting fragile ecosystems and communities that are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Women leaders mobilise communities, promote green investments, and develop energy efficient technologies. Indeed, if we are serious about tackling climate change, our leaders in Lima this week must ensure that women are equal partners and drivers of climate change decision-making.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo Courtesy of UN Women

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, May 19 2014 (IPS)

Nearly 20 years ago, the world came together in Beijing for the Fourth World Conference on Women. There, 189 governments adopted a visionary roadmap for gender equality: the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

More than 17,000 delegates and 30,000 activists pictured a world where women and girls had equal rights, freedom and opportunity in every sphere of life.We must seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to position gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment firmly at the centre of the global agenda.

While much progress has been made in the past two decades, no country can claim to have achieved equality between men and women. It is time for the world to come together again for women and girls and complete this journey.

UN Women is launching a year-long campaign to re-energise the vision laid out at the Beijing Women’s Conference. Our goal is straightforward: renewed commitment, strengthened action and increased resources to realise gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights. We call it: Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture It!

The Beijing Declaration laid out actions to address 12 critical areas of concern for women and girls across the globe.

Governments, the private sector and other partners were urged to reduce women and girls’ poverty, ensure their right to access education and training, safeguard their health – including their sexual and reproductive health, protect women and girls from violence and discrimination, to ensure that technological advances benefit all, and to promote their full and equal participation in society, politics, and the economy.

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action remains the most comprehensive global agreement on women’s empowerment and gender equality. If only it had been implemented!

Notwithstanding, today we can celebrate progress. More girls are going to school. More women are working, getting elected, and assuming leadership positions. But in all regions of the world, and in all countries, women continue to face discrimination because they are female.

We see it every day. In pay inequity and unequal opportunities at work… in stubbornly low representation of women leaders in the public and private sectors… in the continuing scourge of child marriage, and in the pandemic of violence experienced by one in three women globally – a number greater than the population of Europe.

Perhaps even more startling is the fact that if the Beijing negotiations occurred today, they would likely result in a weaker agreement. We all have a responsibility to keep pushing ahead for full implementation, because every time a woman or girl is held back by discrimination or violence, humanity loses.

Since the Beijing Conference, irrefutable evidence has accumulated showing that empowering women empowers humanity.

Picture it!

Countries with higher levels of gender equality have higher economic growth. Companies with more women on their boards have higher returns to shareholders. Parliaments with more women consider a broader range of issues and adopt more legislation on health, education, anti-discrimination, and child support. Peace agreements forged by female and male negotiators last longer and are more stable.

Studies show that for every one additional year of education for women, child mortality decreases by 9.5 percent. Equalising access to resources and services for women farmers would boost output and eliminate hunger for 150 million people. A billion women will enter the world economy in the next decade. With equal opportunities, their impact on our future prosperity will be a global game-changer.

We can and must turn this picture to reality. Right now, every country is working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and to define a new global development plan.

We must seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to position gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment firmly at the centre of the global agenda. It is the right thing to do, and the best thing for humanity.

Men and boys, who have been silent too long, are beginning to stand up and speak out for the human rights of women and girls through initiatives like UN Women’s #HeForShe campaign. We call on all men and boys to join us!

Nearly 20 years after Beijing, I believe the world is ready to implement its vision of equality for men and women.

Today we launch a Beijing+20 campaign that will focus on progress, highlighting champions and effective work being done for gender equality. Every country will produce a report on the state of their women and girls, 20 years on. The campaign calls upon leaders and ordinary people alike to recommit and act to turn the vision of the Beijing platform into reality.

From Sweden, where in June people will gather to protect the human rights of women and girls, to September’s Climate Summit in New York, where women heads of State and activists will assert women’s role in protecting our environment, to India, where men and boys will make a show of force for gender equality in November.

And on International Women’s Day on Mar. 8, 2015, people in every country will make their voices heard for a better world.

Together we must achieve equality between women and men. There is no time to waste!

Empowering women, Empowering humanity. Picture it!

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is UN Women’s Executive Director.

Today more than 200 schoolgirls will wake up to another day in an unthinkable nightmare. Three weeks ago, they were seized in the night by armed men dressed as soldiers who said they were there to protect them.

In reality, the men were militant extremists who kidnapped them and set their boarding school on fire. The girls’ whereabouts continue to be unknown. We are racing against time and every moment counts. We need the government of Nigeria to act fast and we need the support of the world.

This happened in Chibok, a town in northeastern Nigeria. Imagine if it had taken place in your community.

This horrific act offends our common humanity and demands global outrage and action. We have a responsibility to rally behind the parents, people and government of Nigeria and bring the girls back home to safety.

The violation of the rights of womenand girls on such a scale, no matter who they are and where they are, requires the whole world to stand up and take action. We are racing against time and every moment counts. We need the government of Nigeria to act fast and we need the support of the world.

We must send the message loud and clear that no girl can be abducted.

Human rights are indivisible and universal. Yet, women and girls continue to be systematically targeted, assaulted, trafficked and enslaved on a massive scale. Globally, one in three women will experience violence in her lifetime.

For women and girls in every country, violence and the fear of violence is a daily reality. In conflict zones and in the presence of armed extremists, violence is an even bigger threat.

The abduction of schoolgirls in Nigeria is shocking and deserves an urgent global response. While some girls escaped, jumping from the jeeps, and made their way home to tell the story, most of the kidnapped girls remain missing.

Their parents, teachers and friends continue to demand their release. Meanwhile, reports are circulating that the girls have been sold as brides and trafficked as sex slaves across Nigeria’s borders. 

In Nigeria and elsewhere, parents and marchers took to the streets wearing red, demanding answers and action. There has been a deluge of social media posts, demanding the girls’ urgent and unconditional release and return home. The hashtags, #BringBackOurGirls and #BringBackOurDaugthers, are spreading around the globe.

These girls were targeted for the simple reason that they went to school. They were exercising their right to education. They were kidnapped by the Islamist group, Boko Haram.

Attacks against children and the targeting of schools cannot be justified under any circumstances and should be condemned by all.

Girls and young women belong in school and should stay there without fear of violence, so they can play their rightful roles as equal citizens of the world. Schools are and must remain places of safety and security, where children can learn and grow in peace.

Women and girls have the right to live free from intimidation, persecution and all other forms of discrimination and to participate fully and equally in public and civic life.

We cannot allow extremists to trample these rights and take us and our societies backwards.

We stand with people worldwide who believe that every person is equal in inherent worth and dignity and human rights. We stand with the parents and families of the abducted girls. If we do not respond effectively, those who prey on women and girls are emboldened to continue their crimes.

The world must come together and make every possible effort to rescue these girls, bring their captors to justice, and, more importantly, do everything in our power to prevent this from happening again.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the Executive Director of UN Women and Babatunde Osotimehin is the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo Courtesy of UN Women

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 2013 (IPS)

When war erupts, women are often the first to experience the harsh brutality and the last to be called to the peace table. A resolution adopted Friday by the U.N. Security Council moves us one step closer to the full participation of women as leaders for peace and security.

By unanimous vote, the Council adopted a resolution that sets in place stronger measures to enable women to participate in conflict resolution and recovery, and puts the onus on the Security Council, the United Nations, regional organisations and member states to dismantle the barriers, create the space, and provide seats at the table for women.Without an invitation, [Malian women] walked into the talks and raised the alarm about the attacks against women and girls.

Despite increases in the numbers of women in politics and in business leadership, very few women have lead roles in formal peace talks, in spite of the significant role they play in community-level reconciliation. Peace negotiations and all institutions linked to conflict resolution remain male-dominated.

Since the end of the Cold War, women have represented only four percent of signatories to peace agreements, less than three percent of mediators of peace talks, and less than 10 percent of anyone sitting at the table to negotiate on behalf of a party to the conflict.

Yet decisions on matters such as power-sharing, natural resource management, electoral systems, land and property restitution, disarmament, justice and reparations can have a profound effect on women’s lives and prospects for lasting peace. These decisions have an impact on women’s political participation, economic and physical security, and on the way war crimes against women are perceived and prosecuted.

In many current conflict resolution processes, such as those for Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, or Somalia, there have been few opportunities for women to participate directly. UN Women hopes that this new Security Council resolution will trigger opportunities for women’s direct engagement, setting priorities for recovery in their countries.

There can be few better investments in building a sustainable peace than involving women. They connect the talks to the lives of those affected by conflict. They help generate broad social buy-in to the peace. U.N. Women therefore invests in building coalitions of women to influence negotiations.

Last year in Mali, for example, after women were routinely targeted when extremist groups took over the northern part of the country, resulting in rape and the removal of women from public office, women were told to stay out of public space. With men fleeing from attacks and forced recruitment to rebel forces, women were left to head households with no means of seeking water or food, or of reaching to the outside world for help.

This story is not unusual. Nor is what happened next. Women across Mali demanded inclusion in the conflict-resolution efforts that began immediately in nearby Burkina Faso. In response, UN Women began convening huge meetings of women from civil society and government leaders from across the country to set out their own priorities for peace and demand a space at the peace table.

UN Women arranged for four women peace leaders to fly to the peace talks in Ouagadougou. Without an invitation, they walked into the talks and raised the alarm about the attacks against women and girls and the dire situation facing them in refugee camps and in towns occupied by armed forces. They demanded inclusion in efforts to stop the fighting so their needs could be addressed and their human rights protected.

Security Council resolution 2122 spells out specific measures to protect women’s rights, including their right to sexual and reproductive health. It outlines measures so that delegations to peace talks, post-conflict national leaders, peacekeepers, mediators, foreign ministers and their staff put into action the commitments set out in Security Council resolution 1325, the first one calling for women’s engagement in conflict resolution, adopted 13 years ago.

This is important because sometimes it takes a woman to make a difference. It was not until there were more women in international criminal tribunals that there was a significant increase in indictments listing sexual violence as a war crime.

And the U.N.’s appointment of a woman lead envoy for conflict resolution – Mary Robinson, Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region – has brought a new approach to mediation. In her first months of taking office, she convened a massive conference of women leaders from across the region in Bujumbura to guide her work and the way forward.

With today’s resolution, the Security Council is recognising something very important: that gender-based inequality, just like poverty, is an injustice that fuels conflict and undermines peace, and that gender equality and women’s full participation are critical to international peace and security.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is Executive Director of UN Women.