UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called himself “a proud feminist” and said all men should support women’s rights and gender equality.
His statement was loudly applauded by hundreds of women and a sprinkling of men at the opening of the annual two-week meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, a UN body that Guterres called “vital to end the stereotypes and discrimination that limit women’s and girls’ opportunities.”
Changing the unequal power dynamic is “the greatest human rights challenge of our time” and a goal that is “in everyone’s interests,” he said.
“Discrimination against women damages communities, organizations, companies, economies and societies,” he said. “That is why all men should support women’s rights and gender equality, and that is why I consider myself a proud feminist.”
As examples of the male-dominated world and culture that need changing, he said: “Women are pioneering scientists and mathematicians, but they occupy less than 30 percent of research and development jobs worldwide.”
Despite women being accomplished artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers, this year, 33 men took home Oscars to only six women, he added.
The theme of this year’s UN meeting, which ends on Friday next week, is “Empowering Rural Women and Girls,” whom Guterres called “particularly marginalized.”
According to UN Women, rural women do much of the work, but fare worse than rural men or urban women.
“Less than 13 percent of landholders worldwide are women, and while the global pay gap between men and women stands at 23 percent, in rural areas, it can be as high as 40 percent,” UN Women said.
Irish Ambassador to the UN Geraldine Byrne Nason, the commission chair, said its work would focus on these women “who are furthest behind” and are “disproportionately affected by violence, poverty, climate change and hunger.”
“We want to make a difference. We have had enough rhetoric. Time is up for the debates that are long on promises and short on delivery,” Byrne Nason said.
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told the opening session that nearly one-third of employed women work in agriculture and there are 400 million women who are farm workers.
“Half of rural poor women in developing countries have no basic literacy, and 15 million girls of primary school age will never, never get the chance to learn to read or write in primary school,” she said.
A rural girl is “twice as likely to be married as a child” compared with an urban girl, she added.
Progress toward gender equality is slowing and some gains are even reversing, Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
She pointed to the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report, which found the gender gap widening in health, education, politics and the workplace for the first time since its research started in 2006.
“It predicts that it will take — and listen to this — 217 years before we achieve gender parity,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
“It has never been so urgent to hold ourselves and leaders accountable for the promises to accelerate progress,” she said. “The ‘Me Too’ movement and ‘Time’s Up’ has also showed us change can happen fast, and that women must be believed. This is a moment that we intend to sustain for all.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in