women and girls

Students in grades 1 to 6 have restarted school in Herat, Afgahnistan, but girls in grades 7-12 have not been attending classes.
© UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

Afghanistan: Girls’ education must be a given, urges deputy UN chief

24 September 2021
Human Rights

Ensuring all Afghan girls can be educated must be “a zero condition” for the Taliban, before international recognition of their de facto authority, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Friday.

Young women and girls carry water in Nigeria (file photo).
World Bank

Conflict, climate crisis, threaten fragile gains to advance women and children’s health

25 September 2020
Women

Fragile gains made over the past decade to advance women and children’s health are threatened by conflict, the climate crisis and COVID-19, according to a new report from Every Woman Every Child, released on Friday.

Masha Khromchenko stands in the kindergarten classroom that took a direct hit from a shell in the Luhansk region, Ukraine. (23 September 2018)
UNICEF/Christopher Morris

Security Council demands an end to attacks on schools worldwide

10 September 2020
Peace and Security

The Security Council on Thursday demanded a halt to attacks on schools, together with students and teachers in conflict zones around the world, in a presidential statement coinciding with the first International Day to Protect Education from Attack.

On 23 April 2020, a child washes dishes in the Maarat Misrin camp north of Idlib, Syrian Arab Republic.
© UNICEF/Omar Albam

Women and girls deserve more protection in emergencies, UN rights council hears

13 July 2020
Human Rights

The collective impact of climate change, COVID-19 and conflict mean that well over 200 million people will likely need humanitarian assistance by 2022, the UN’s deputy rights chief said on Monday.

In 2016, UNFPA and UNICEF launched a global programme to tackle child marriage in twelve of the most high-prevalence countries, including Nepal.
UNFPA-UNICEF/Kiran Panday

Harmful practices rob women and girls of ‘right to reach their full potential’

30 June 2020
Women

Urgent, and accelerated action is needed to end female genital mutilation, child marriage, and other “harmful practices” and abuses carried out against women and girls, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), said on Tuesday, in its latest major report on the state of the world’s population. 

A medical team which treats obstetric fistula at Al Thawara Hospital in Yemen
©UNFPA Yemen

Yemen: UN Population Fund stresses women’s needs, amidst world’s worst humanitarian crisis 

4 March 2020
Women

Intense clashes in Yemen’s Al Hazam City, this month have caused massive displacement with an estimated 1,800 families forced to flee their homes, according to a flash update from UN humanitarian coordination office, OCHA.  

A schoolgirl in Uganda interacts with classmates.
© UNICEF/Zahara Abdul

Day of the Girl Child spotlights 25 years of progress, with more on the horizon

11 October 2019
Human Rights

The world’s one billion young girls, are being celebrated on Friday as an “unscripted and unstoppable” force for change, with 11 October designated each year the International Day of the Girl Child.  

Children at a school tent in the northern Idlib, Syria. Humanitarian emergencies deprive children of health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and other basic needs.
© UNICEF/UN0248372/Watad

Thursday’s Daily Brief: dire living conditions in Idlib, migrants at US southern border, end in sight for trachoma, Human Rights Council

27 June 2019
Humanitarian Aid

This Thursday, we cover: the dire humanitarian situation in Syria’s Idlib; living conditions at the US-Mexico border denounced by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF); trachoma-related blindness on the verge of being eliminated; and updates from the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The UN Trust Fund in support of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse has supported women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo receive vocational trainings like mushroom farming. (October 2018)
MONUSCO/Michael Ali

Righting a wrong: UN Fund helps thousands of sex abuse survivors rebuild their lives

21 June 2019
UN Affairs

About 3,340 women, children and men, many of whom are victims, have been given support to recover from or help put an end to the scourge of sexual exploitation or abuse (SEA) by United Nations personnel, thanks to a Trust Fund established in 2016. On Friday, a meeting was held at UN Headquarters in New York, to report on the progress and impact made, and collect new pledges from Member States.

A family in Syria flees a conflict zone in the back of a truck near Kafr Lusein in May 2019.
© UNICEF/Ahmad Al Ahmad

Tuesday’s Daily Brief: Bicycles for the environment, new leader for the UN General Assembly, UN values, Ebola, Syria and Libya

4 June 2019
Climate and Environment

This Tuesday, we cover: Bicycles in China; a new President elected for the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, to start in September; vital food crops destroyed in Syria; migrants and refugees in Libya’s detention centres; Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo surpasses 2,000 cases; and the UN deputy chief in London pushes for UN values.