Two years ago, South Africa’s government announced it would scrap taxes on sanitary pads from April of the following year. It was part of its plans to address an issue now referred to as period poverty and for which online and offline protests are frequent in South Africa. Period poverty is simply the inability to...
DDP Patience Baffoe – Bonnie, a member of the Women’s Commission of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) has emphasized that women and girls must be active participants and leaders in sports organisations, clubs and federations. She noted that the impacts of COVID-19 are already being felt very hard by women and girls in many areas...
The Generation Equality Forum—a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France in partnership with civil society—today announced the leaders of the Generation Equality Action Coalitions, to achieve gender equality and all women’s and girls’ human rights. The Action Coalitions will deliver concrete and transformative change for...
Statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women Date: Thursday, July 2, 2020 UN Women is 10 years old today. On 2 July 2010, the General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution to merge four parts of the United Nations system into the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of...
Simple interventions can be put in place to cut down on child mortality: Leading causes of death in children under-5 years are the following: Preterm birth complications Pneumoniae Birth asphyxia Congenital anomalies Diarrhoea Malaria More than half of these early child deaths are preventable or can be treated with simple, affordable interventions including the following:...
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. Every year, millions of girls are subjected...
We’re in the midst of climate crisis – it’s not theoretical anymore. And though some of the world’s finest minds are working hard on strategies to stave off the worst effects of the looming disaster, they often overlook a powerful climate solution: gender equality. Women make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force in...
In just six months the COVID-19 pandemic has travelled the world, profoundly testing the resilience of even the most advanced health systems, and causing massive shocks to national economies. It has also deepened systematic and structural racial, ethnic and gender inequities everywhere. As the pandemic hit and countries grappled with how best to address the...
Date: Friday, June 26, 2020 Today we commemorate the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco. It is the text that formalized the fundamental concept of the United Nations, “We, the peoples’. It set out the determination of those peoples to avoid future wars, and reaffirmed the...
KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Data shows that in some humanitarian settings, there has been a drastic increase in online searches and requests for help due to gender-based violence (GBV) since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Lebanon, after the implementation of a hotline, IRC saw the number of women and girls seeking support more...
