Commission on the Status of Women

Gender equality and women’s empowerment must be at the heart of efforts to address the world’s most critical emerging challenges, including climate change, delegates told the Commission on the Status of Women today.

The plight of women in situations of armed conflict should remain at the forefront of the international community’s agenda, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today as it continued its general debate.

Violence against women and girls remained pervasive and widespread throughout the world, with no one country able to say that it had eradicated those “abhorrent” crimes, ministerial-level speakers said as the Commission on the Status of Women continued its general debate today.

The urgency of integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment as a stand-alone goal, as well as a cross-cutting element of the post-2015 development agenda, dominated the second day of the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, with some speakers suggesting specific ways of advancing the overarching spirit of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

“As women thrive, so will we all,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as he opened the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women today, marking two decades of progress that he warned had been “unacceptably slow” in achieving gender equality since the historic adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995.

Gender equality and women’s empowerment must be achieved in order to realize the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals and accelerate sustainable development beyond 2015, the Commission on the Status of Women declared today as it concluded its fifty-eighth session by recommending the adoption of agreed conclusions outlining the most pressing areas for action.

Too many women and girls were forced to drop out of school, to toil in precarious jobs or to give up control over their own bodies, especially when harmful practices were carried out in unsafe and unhygienic conditions, sometimes in the name of culture, representatives of non-governmental groups told the Commission on the Status of Women today.

The importance of inspiring young girls to not only study, but to take up careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics was the focus of two panel discussions in today’s meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women.

While attempts to level the gender playing field had already resulted in more robust development gains in the past decade, that element must be central to the post-2015 agenda, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today, as some 60 speakers took the floor, including several Ministers who detailed their countries’ successes and the challenges.

While countries were on track to meet several of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, progress on those related to women and girls was uneven at best, ministers and other senior officials told the Commission on the Status of Women today, urging that more be done to accept women as equals in all areas of life.