By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK (IDN) — Convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France, in partnership with youth and civil society, the Generation Equality Forum is taking place in Paris, from June 30 to July 2. The Forum will bring together governments, feminist leaders, youth, and change makers from every sector, to announce trailblazing gender equality investments, programmes, and policies. It will mark the beginning of a five-year action journey led by six Action Coalitions and a Compact on Women, Peace and Security, and Humanitarian Action.
Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 3.7 million lives globally and created and exacerbated a gender equality crisis. Even before COVID-19, almost one in three women worldwide experienced abuse; during the pandemic, calls to helplines increased five-fold in some countries. The World Economic Forum estimates that at the current rate of progress, women will not achieve pay or leadership equity with men for at least another 135.6 years.
According to UN Women, the Paris Forum is an inflection point to confront the gender equality crisis and spur major investments, policy, and programmes to advance gender equality and women’s rights.
Together, the Action Coalitions and the Compact have identified the most catalytic actions and targets needed to make irreversible progress by 2026. For instance, policies that recognize, reduce, and redistribute care work and create an additional 80 million decent care jobs; laws that protect 550 million more women and girls from gender-based violence; and doubling the proportion of women working in technology and innovation, while increasing investment in gender-responsive climate solutions.
UN Women has specified seven ways to change the world: 1) End gender-based violence; 2) Guarantee economic justice and rights; 3) Ensure bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights; 4) Feminist action for climate justice; 5) Foster technology and innovation for gender equality; 6) Invest in feminist movements and leadership; 7) Put women in the heart and at the helm of peace, security, and humanitarian action.
Putting an end to gender-based violence is essential for fulfilling the vision of a gender-equal world. An estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life.
What needs to change? More governments must ratify international and regional conventions that prohibit all forms of gender-based violence, and strengthen, implement, and finance evidence-driven laws, policies, and action plans.
Women and girls are particularly disadvantaged in social protection systems. The gender gap in labour force participation has not shifted in 30 years, stagnating at 31 per cent. Young women, aged 15-29, are three times more likely to be outside the labour force and schools than young men.
Transforming the care economy is one key component of guaranteeing economic justice and rights for women and girls everywhere. Women spend, on average, triple the amount of time performing unpaid care and domestic work that men do, so it is essential that labour rights reward and represent care workers. Pay equity and decent work must become the norm. Empowering women and girls to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights and make autonomous decisions about their own bodies free from coercion, violence, and discrimination is an urgent need and critical to achieving a gender-equal world.
Worldwide, 45 per cent of girls and women, aged 15-49, who are married or in unions cannot make decisions about their own bodies, such as deciding about contraception or saying no to sex. Further, women and girls in humanitarian emergencies face specific and exacerbated challenges—60 per cent of maternal deaths happen in countries affected by humanitarian crisis or fragile conditions. A changing climate affects everyone, but it’s the world’s poorest and those in vulnerable situations, especially women and girls, who bear the brunt of environmental, economic, and social shocks and face greater health and safety risks.
Yet, women and girls are underrepresented in advancing climate justice across all levels and sectors, and climate interventions fail to adequately account for women’s and girls’ realities in climate crises, such as violence, healthcare needs, fraught economic resilience, and unpaid care and domestic work.
What would the world look like if women and girls had equal opportunities to access, use, lead, and design technology and innovation? This question is central to the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality, which is set to bridge the gender digital divide across generations, double the proportion of women working in technology and innovation, and eliminate online gender-based violence.
Empowering women and girls to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights and make autonomous decisions about their own bodies free from coercion, violence, and discrimination is an urgent need and critical to achieving a gender-equal world.
Worldwide, 45 per cent of girls and women, aged 15-49, who are married or in unions cannot make decisions about their own bodies, such as deciding about contraception or saying no to sex. Further, women and girls in humanitarian emergencies face specific and exacerbated challenges—60 per cent of maternal deaths happen in countries affected by humanitarian crisis or fragile conditions.
Without increased action to advance feminist movements and leadership, we are far from achieving gender parity in political life. At the current rate of progress, equal gender representation will not be achieved in national legislative bodies until 2063. Feminist leaders, including trans, intersex and nonbinary people, indigenous women, young feminists, and other historically excluded people, have vital contributions to make today.
Two decades have passed since the landmark UN Security Council resolution 1325 was adopted, enshrining the role of women in securing and maintaining peace. Peace and equitable crisis response and disaster prevention are prerequisites for health, human security, and sustainable development. [IDN-InDepthNews – 28 June 2021]
Image credit: UN WOMEN
IDN is the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.
Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You are free to share, remix, tweak and build upon it non-commercially. Please give due credit.