New Urban Agenda guarantees rights of women and girls

The rights of women and girls to enjoy full equality, living in safe and sustainable cities, are "guaranteed" under the New Urban Agenda adopted at the UN's Habitat III conference. That's according to Deputy Executive Director of UN Women Lakshmi Puri who has been attending the global summit in Quito, Ecuador, designed to rethink how we live in towns and cities. She said governments around the world now needed to follow through on the promises made to implement the New Urban Agenda on behalf of women, alongside the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Matthew Wells asked her how important cities were to the UN's gender equality mission.

Yazidis in Iraqi city of Mosul face an uncertain future

Ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq, such as the Yazidis, face an “uncertain future” with the ongoing liberation of Mosul, a women’s rights activist has warned. Ameena Saeed Hassan, a Yazidi from Sinjar in Northern Iraq, spoke at the UN’s headquarters about the persecution of her people by the terrorist group ISIL, also known as ISIS. Many women and girls from the minority group remain in ISIS captivity where they are subjected to “unimaginable horrors”, a UN human rights panel recently found. Priyanka Shankar has been speaking to Mrs. Hassan and the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN about this situation.

Making sure women and girls are included in Haiti hurricane response

Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, some girls living in displacement camps resorted to trading sex in order to meet their basic needs. This is one example of how natural disasters have a disproportionate effect on women, according to the UN’s gender entity, UN Women. As Haiti emerges from the wreckage of Hurricane Matthew, which hit earlier this month, the agency is working to make sure women’s voices are included in the response. Dianne Penn asked UN Women representative in Haiti Anthony Ngororano why he says natural disasters and other crises are not “gender neutral.”

Presenter: Dianne Penn

Production Assistant: Sandra Guy

Duration: 10'00″