Women

UN Global Compact/Chae Khin for Joel Sheakoski Photography

Despite progress, companies face gender equality ‘backlash’: UN business body

18 March 2019
Global

Although the drive to reach gender equality has picked up speed, and diversity initiatives have been put into place in companies and organizations, a significant level of resistance and backlash remains, according to a leading UN business group.

UNHCR/Egor Dubrovsky

In tech-driven 21st century, achieving global development goals requires closing digital gender divide

15 March 2019

Bridging the ‘gender digital divide’ is about more than ensuring that women and girls have basic access to the Internet and cell phones; it means providing training so they have the skills to use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to their benefit, and taking active measures to boost the numbers of women in ICT leadership positions, including in academia and entrepreneurship.

UN Women/Amanda Voisard

‘Power is not given, power is taken’, UN chief tells women activists, urging push-back against status quo

13 March 2019
Global

After hearing from many of the world’s top women politicians on Tuesday in a session on “Women in Power”, Secretary-General António Guterres, held a Town Hall meeting for civil society activists where he underscored the importance of women seizing the initiative in the struggle for gender equality.

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Easing fears and promoting gender equality in Chad’s girls-only classrooms

28 February 2019
Africa

A teacher holds up a drawing of an adolescent girl who has just been caught unawares by her first menstruation cycle, while at school. She’s addressing neat rows of young women sitting in class, in the town of Bol, in Chad.

© UNICEF/UN0264160/Hubbard

Pregnant, nursing women can now be given Ebola vaccine, UN health agency announces

21 February 2019
Africa

Reversing an earlier decision, the World Health Organization (WHO) now recommends vaccinating pregnant and breastfeeding women against the Ebola virus.

UN Women Viet Nam/Pham Quoc Hung

More women and girls needed in the sciences to solve world’s biggest challenges

11 February 2019
Global

Many of the world’s biggest problems may be going unsolved because too many women and girls are being discouraged from the sciences.

UN Photo/Antonio Fiorente

Female African coders ‘on the front-line of the battle’ to change gender power relations: UN chief

9 February 2019
Africa

Young female African coders are “on the front-line” of the battle to change traditionally male power relations and bring about a more equitable balance between men and women, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said during his visit to Ethiopia to attend the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

UN Women/Sandra Kreutzer

FROM THE FIELD: Free tutorials in Mali, ‘a life-saver’ for Fatouma

17 January 2019
Africa

After fleeing her home in Macina, a small village in central Mali, where she was due to be forced into marriage against her will, 16-year-old Fatouma took shelter with her brother.

Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun

Saudi woman seeking asylum in Thailand ‘now in a secure place’ says UNHCR

7 January 2019
Global

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Monday that 18-year-old Saudi national Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun, who had been stranded at Bangkok airport after fleeing her family in Kuwait, saying that she would be killed if forced to return, was “now in a secure place”.

UN Women/Carlos Rivera

FROM THE FIELD: Heeding the call for women’s rights around the planet

3 January 2019
Global

Women and activists have been reflecting on the progress made across the world in 2018 in reducing discrimination and inequalities based on gender and what hopes they have for 2019.