UN Gender Focus

As women fight for gender parity in and out of the workforce a new study shows that in most of Europe, women are slowly catching up to men.

But just as gender similarities are an asset to the world of work, are there female perspectives that men don’t share, which provide unique and useful insight?

Pushing back against fear and rumour is a “continuous effort" on the part of individuals and groups who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Intersex, according to one leading activist in the Caribbean region, where discrimination continues to be rife.

Welcome to the ‘UN Gender Focus’ podcast.

For this first episode of 2018 we’ll hear from Nafissatou Diop of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) about international efforts to stamp out the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

2017 was a watershed year for women and women’s rights around the world.

From the Global Women’s March last January, to the #MeToo movement, women around the world stood up and demanded their right to be heard.

They insisted on the right to thrive in an environment free of violence, discrimination, harassment and stigmatization.

“Many girls” want to “raise their voice”: Afghan radio journalist

Radio Sana is the only radio station run by women in the Northern City of Pul-e-Khumri in Afghanistan. Meena Mostayed is the head of the radio station and jointly with her four other women reporters is running the hard daily job of reporting in the station. In March 2017, Shamsuddin Hamedi spoke with Ms Mostayed and one of its journalists, Sadaf Ahamdi, a member of the Afghan Women Journalists Union. Via interpreters, Ms Mostayed tells us what motivated her to open the radio station and to work in radio.

UN advocate to give voice to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse

Transforming those who have suffered sexual exploitation and abuse perpetrated by UN personnel from victims into survivors, is the goal of the first-ever official appointed to advocate on their behalf.  Jane Connors took up the post of UN Victims’ Rights Advocate in August and undertook her first field visit two months later.  She has already visited the UN’s peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic (CAR), and this week she was in South Sudan.  They are two of the four countries where the majority

The International Day for the Eliminationof Violence against Women

It’s time to take collective action to end violence against women and girls for good, at every level of society across the world.

Creator of the multiple Emmy award-winning television series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Bruce Miller, hopes his show becomes “irrelevant very quickly.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Miller took part in the UN event “UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women and Girls,” insisting that women everywhere have the right to a life free of abuse.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is set in a dystopian society in the not-too-distant future, where women are completely subjugated to men.

It’s time to take collective action to end violence against women and girls for good, at every level of society across the world.

That’s the emphatic message delivered by UN chief António Guterres on Wednesday, at an event to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The Secretary-General said every woman and girl had the right to a life free from violence, while more than one in three, are victims of a violent act at some point in their lives.

“We will not allow ourselves to be limited":Gender Advocate Award Winner

The vision of gender in peacekeeping will change “One woman at a time.  That’s the optimistic view of the recipient of the United Nation’s Military Gender Advocate of the Year award, Major Seit-be-basto Pearl Block from South Africa, who serves as an Information Operations Officer with the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MONUSCO.  Major Block’s outstanding work includes developing a mission-wide SMS campaign on conflict-related sexual violence reaching communities who would otherwise not b