Although West Africa and the Sahel continues to face unprecedented security challenges, it is still “a land of immense opportunities”, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Tuesday. In her briefing, Giovanie Biha, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Officer-in-Charge of the UN Office for the region, UNOWAS, urged ambassadors to continue […]
A child or young person died every 4.4 seconds in 2021, and millions more could lose their lives by 2030 unless all women and children have access to adequate healthcare, two new detailed UN reports published on Monday 9th January, 2023 have revealed. In 2021, an estimated five million boys and girls died before their […]
This essay is part of a series highlighting global human rights trends in 2022. Read more here. We know progress is never linear, and defense of human rights can be a difficult task. Women’s rights gains, however, are particularly fragile. Often disguised in concepts that are presented as harmless, such as the protection of the family […]
Female genital mutilation is a practice deeply rooted in cultural traditions around the world. The World Health Organisation defines it as comprising all procedures that involve removal of parts of the external female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The cut is practised for various reasons. Some communities use it as a rite of passage. Some […]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Dec 2022 (IPS) – In September 2021, in the midst of a pandemic-related lockdown, a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Colombo, Sri Lanka was married off by her relatives to a much older man. A local women’s rights group reported this case to the national child protection authorities, however, because child marriage is […]
Zimbabwean women embrace jobs in the mining sector, thanks to incentives provided by the government and mining companies Sporting a designer work suit, helmet and 14-pound hammer resting on her shoulder, 46-year-old Petiner Makupa seems to be pondering her next move as she sets off for work one morning. As the country grapples with economic […]
The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023 (IWD 2023) is, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality […]
In the last of our Year In Review features, we honour the work of activists helping to protect women’s rights, which once again, came under attack in many countries throughout 2022. It often takes considerable bravery to stand up for the rights of women. The UN, which is committed to empowering women and girls, works […]
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has singled out Gender Parity as one of his key priorities in his second term in office, beginning 2023. Describing it as “a strategic goal of the Organization,” he pointed out some of the “notable advances achieved in the past five years.” Gender parity, he said last week, has been reached […]
Top UN agency officials and civil society organization heads joined forces on Thursday to urge Afghanistan’s de facto authorities to reverse their ban on women working for NGOs that provide aid relief. “Banning women from humanitarian work has immediate life-threatening consequences for all Afghans,” they insisted. Some aid programmes have already had to stop temporarily, owing to a […]
