Women need to be “front and centre” of the pandemic recovery as a matter of economics, efficiency, effectiveness and social resilience, the UN chief told the women’s commission on Tuesday.
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact on women and girls, and the fallout has shown how deeply gender inequality remains embedded in the world’s political, social and economic systems, UN chief António Guterres said in his address to the Commission on the Status of Women, on Monday. This year’s Commission will focus on charting a global roadmap towards achieving full equality in public life but, as Mr. Guterres recalled in his speech, gender equality in all walks of life is a long way off and has been further undermined by the pandemic.
Despite constraints imposed by the new coronavirus disease, activists for gender equality gathered at UN Headquarters on Monday for the latest session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), to reinforce the message that women’s rights are human rights.
Journalists can help advance women’s rights by moving from a “protectionist approach to a more human rights approach” in their reporting, according to gender equality advocate Geetanjali Misra.
There has been a “serious regression” in the political power of women across the world in recent years, UN General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa told delegates to the annual summit of women activists at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
The situation for women in Sri Lanka is not optimal. However, grassroots organizations, such as the Women and Media Collective, are working hard to remedy that – challenging patriarchal norms and advocating for policy change.
