In progress at UNHQ

Press Conference


The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was ready to resume full responsibility for security in the earthquake-devastated country, as non-Mission troops began withdrawing, the top United Nations official there said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Calling for the speedy establishment of a United Nations-backed mechanism to monitor and investigate laws discriminating on the basis of gender, the head of the global civil society organization Equality Now said at Headquarters today that ensuring equality before the law would go a long way towards ending the legal discrimination that still condemned so many women worldwide to poverty and continuous abuse.
Having suffered an earthquake of “historical proportions”, Chile was returning to normality though it faced huge reconstruction needs, Heraldo Muñoz, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said at a Headquarters press conference today. “Chile’s standing up; we’re recuperating slowly,” said Mr. Muñoz, who was joined by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and Amir Dossal, Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Partnerships.
Ahead of International Women’s Day, commemorated annually on 8 March, the United Nations top adviser on gender issues said today that the occasion provided an opportunity to celebrate women’s advancement since the adoption of the landmark 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and emphasize the need for continued vigilance to help all countries promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Women office-holders were making steady progress in the political arena, but not nearly enough, said Anders B. Johnsson, Secretary-General, Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), at the launch of a poster-sized map entitled “The World Map of Women in Politics 2010”, issued by the IPU today alongside findings from a recent survey on progress and setbacks of women in parliament.