women

Researcher Rebecca Adami in the UN News radio studio at UN Headquarters in New York.
UN News/Paulina Greer

Human Rights declaration 'wasn’t going to be much of anything', men said

5 December 2018
Interviews

Women have left an indelible mark on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but when they first started working on it, men were “thinking that the declaration wasn’t going to be much of anything." That's according to Stockholm University researcher, Rebecca Adami, whose book "Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" was launched this week at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York.  Ms. Adami spoke with UN News's Paulina Greer.

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In Mexico City, an artistic installation consisting of a number of signs of Venus, representing women, stresses the magnitude of femicidal violence. (March 2018). Femicide is too often ignored, warns UNODC's Global Study on Homicide 2019.
UN Women/Dzilam Mendez

Increasingly under attack, women human rights defenders need better back up

28 November 2018
Human Rights

A group of United Nations human rights experts issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling on States to live up to their commitments to protect women human rights defenders, as they come under increasing attack, and with inadequate protection.

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder (center) speaks at press conference in Geneva.
UN Geneva/Sarah Mbengue

Lowest rate of wage growth since 2008; gender ‘injustice’ continues: ILO chief

26 November 2018
Interviews

Take-home pay around the world is growing at its slowest rate since the 2008 global financial crisis, the head of the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Monday.

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Graphic illustrating the #HearMeToo campaign
UN Women

Ending inequality means ending ‘global pandemic’ of violence against women – UN chief

19 November 2018
Women

Until women and girls can live free of fear, violence and insecurity, the world cannot pride itself on being fair and equal, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, marked annually on 25 November.

Deb Haaland, New Mexico Democrat politician and one of the first Native American Women ever elected to the House of Representatives in the US Congress. (November 2018)
Michael Anaya Gorman

UN gender agency hails record-breaking number of women in new US Congress as ‘historic victory’

8 November 2018
Women

The record number of women who stood as candidates in the United States Congressional elections this week marks an “unprecedented” advance “critical for the achievement of gender equality and sustainable development,” the UN gender equality agency, UN Women, said in a statement on Thursday.

2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nadia Murad, is the UNODC Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. In this photo from 2017, she is participating in a panel discussion at UN Headquarters in New York.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías

Nobel Peace Prize goes to UN Goodwill Ambassador and Congolese doctor, highlighting sexual violence

5 October 2018
Women

Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who helps victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

NASA astronaut Serena Auñon-Chancellor (right) with her fellow crew members of the International Space Station (ISS), on a live in-flight call to UNISPACE+50 on 20 June 2018.
Screen video capture

Talents of women in space vital ‘to imagine the future’

17 August 2018
UN Gender Focus

UNISPACE+50, the fourth conference of the United Nations on the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space, was held in Geneva from the 18th to the 21st of June.  The need for more women and girls to take part in STEM studies - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - was foremost on the minds of many participants, as Fatima E Mendez has been finding out, in our latest UN Gender Focus podcast, from UN News.

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Nahla Haidar, expert member of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, speaks at a press conference in Geneva, 23 July 2018.
UN News/Daniel Johnson

Promising signs from Palestine bid to promote women’s rights, says UN rights expert

23 July 2018
Interviews

Promoting the rights of women in the Occupied Palestinian Territory “is not going to be easy” but the political will is there to bring about change, a leading UN-appointed expert said on Monday. It marks the first time that the Palestinian Authority, which administers much of the occupied West Bank, has worked directly with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW member Nahla Haidar talked to UN News.

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Women who have survived brutal violence during conflict in South Sudan shared their stories with a visiting delegation headed by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, 3 July 2018.
UN Photo/Isaac Billy

Hearing ‘horrific’ testimonies from rape survivors in South Sudan, UN envoy says they yearn only for peace

12 July 2018
Peace and Security

Since the start of the conflict in South Sudan, widespread and systematic sexual violence has been a pervasive tactic of war and terror, said a high-level United Nations envoy, after visiting the war-torn country and hearing “horrific” testimonies.

The Foreign Minister of Sweden, Margot Wallström (l) and the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, visit a women’s craft fair at Bamo Dan Jari village in the north-west of Niger.
UNICEF Niger/Islamane Abdou

‘Listen to girls and women’ in countries on brink of ‘hope and despair’: Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister

9 July 2018
Interviews

The views of women and girls are crucial to the future of countries like Niger, which has been described as being on the cusp of “hope and despair”, according to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and President of the Security Council, Margot Wallström. Daniel Dickinson asked her about the importance of seeing conditions in the field for themselves.

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