Tag Archives: gender equality

The UN Sustainable Development Goals: Let’s Step it Up For Gender Equality!

October 24, 2016 at 10:50 AM
UNPhoto/Sylvain Lietchti

UNPhoto/Sylvain Lietchti

By Nicole Van Huyssteen, Women’s Human Rights Co-group

Sixteen years ago, 189 world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the Millennium Declaration, which set out a series of eight time-bound targets with an overall goal of reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions by the year 2015. These targets — which became known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — formed a blueprint which committed all nations and leading development institutions to a new global partnership to galvanize unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

What’s next for women’s rights? Have your say!

March 17, 2015 at 12:06 PM

 

IWD-WRRHR5This month we celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8 and the kick-off of the 59th UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Both of these events happen every year. But this year is special.

2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the landmark framework on women’s health and rights. This is where our rallying cry, “women’s rights are human rights,” originated (though the concept has been around a lot longer than 20 years!). It’s also the basis of our My Body My Rights campaign, which seeks to accelerate progress on comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, issues that still have a long way to go. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Discrimination is not natural; it is learned: Ending violence against women

November 25, 2014 at 12:08 PM

VAW3

Sometimes when I’m in a group of women, I find myself silently ticking us off by sets of three: one, two, three; one, two, three.  Statistically, I know, 1 in 3 of us will be raped, beaten, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.  Such statistics can often ring hollow, but when I count off in my head, I’m thinking of real women; real lives; real suffering. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Game On for Saudi Women

July 27, 2012 at 3:37 PM
Saudi woman driver

Scores of brave Saudi Arabian women have been defying a long-standing ban on them driving. © Private

Saudi women just took one step closer to the finish line — as the 2012 Olympics are set to begin in London today, Saudi women will be competing for the first time. But there is still a long way to go for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, a country where women can now carry the Olympic flag, but not the keys to the car.

Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, a judo competitor, and 800 meters runner Sarah Attar will be the first Saudi women ever to participate in the Olympics. Just two weeks before the start of the games, Saudi officials finally ended their long resistance and joined Qatar and Brunei in sending female athletes to compete in the games for the first time.

With Saudi’s last minute decision, the 2012 Olympics in London mark the first Olympics where every country will have at least one female athlete competing. A country where girls’ sports and gyms are officially banned in public schools, Saudi Arabia will now cheer for their first female athletes representing the Kingdom. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST