The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, warned today that “at the current rate it will take 300 years to achieve equality between men and women”, on the eve of International Women’s Day, which is commemorated on March 8.
“The progress made in decades is evaporating before our eyes,” Guterres continued at the opening of a meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, focused on the technological gap, the AFP agency noted.
After recalling the situation in Afghanistan, where women and girls have been “erased from public life”, the UN chief warned that women’s reproductive and sexual rights in many parts are “in decline”, not counting the risks of being kidnapped, assaulted in some countries, even by the police, he added.
The Covid-19 pandemic, the conflicts from the Ukraine to the Sahel (in North Africa) affected and continue to affect women and girls “first of all”.
“The patriarchy fights back, but we will respond,” Guterres emphasized, and assured that the UN “remains on the side of women and girls around the world,” because “we will never give up fighting” for their fundamental rights, he specified.
Added to this is the fact that “misogynistic misinformation and falsehoods” on social networks aim to “silence women and force them out of public life.”
“The stories may be false, but the damage is very real,” he recalled, following urging to “change” the “international frameworks, which are not adapted to the needs and aspirations of the world’s women and girls”, where there are countries that “oppose the inclusion of the gender perspective in multilateral negotiations”.
On the topic of the meeting, Guterres said that promoting women’s contributions to science, technology and innovation “is not an act of charity or a favor for women.”
From their access to online medical services, banks and financial resources, secure digital platforms or technology, the benefits “are for everyone,” he said.
“Without the insight and creativity of half the world, science and technology will realize only half their potential,” he warned.
Lastly, he recalled that of the 3 billion people who are still not connected to the Internet, the majority are women and girls from developing countries.
Telam Agency
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