UN Women looks to chalk out path to gender equality

NEW DELHI : Among the several issues discussed at the first regular session of the executive board of United Nations (UN) Women held on February 12, the member state of Norway expressed concerns over the staff’s workload. Judging by the year ahead, the employees of this UN entity should buckle up. The year 2020 will not only mark 10 years of UN Women, but also quarter of a century since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action considered to be one of the most progressive blueprints for women’s rights - was released at the fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.

To that end, UN Women has asked its regional offices to create reports on the status of women in the past 25 years. A global report will be released at the opening of next year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), whose theme fittingly, is ‘Beijing+25’. The CSW is an intergovernmental body of the UN Economic and Social Council, which, since 1996, has annually reviewed the implementation of the declaration.

India, too, will work on such a report, said Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-ngcuka, an undersecretary general at UN who was in Mumbai earlier this week to release the film Son Rise by filmmaker Vibha Bakshi.

Speaking to HT, Mlambongcuka laid out UN Women’s plans over the next few months, and also spoke about the Me Too movement and its repercussions on UN. “In Delhi, we will meet our government partners, though we know they are very busy right now, because of elections. But, definitely, I want to make sure that election or no election, they do their Beijing+25 review. Also, I hope we can get them to also think of what the new parliament will do for gender equality, to address violence against women,” she said before visiting the city on Wednesday.

The regional reports will look at issues such as laws that address gender equality, the norms and stereotypes women still face, women’s economic well-being, and women’s leadership. The global report will look at the trends that emerge from various regional reports.

The last is of particular concern as India, with over 415 million women voters, gears up for the upcoming general elections. Although voting patterns over the years show an increase in the number of women who vote, parliamentary representation continues to remain low — in the 1952 Lok Sabha, 4.2% out of 489 members were women; currently, of the 543 members, only 11.2% are women. One of the main demands of women politicians across parties has been reservation of parliamentary seats. “Can you imagine in the world, if in every decision-making body, in private sectors, in government or community, adequate number of women participate and make decisions?” asked Mlambo-ngcuka.

A real example of how representation changes lives can be gleamed from the Me Too movement in Hollywood, she said.

“If women had not increased in the institutions in Hollywood that oversee the industry, Me Too would not have been a reality. We have been able to see the consequence for perpetrators of violence and sexual harassment in those institutions, because inside the boardroom are women who do not sweep these issues under the carpet. Women are heard, women are believed, and that’s immediately given us a reality we didn’t have.”

The UN has not been exempt from the global movement in which women spoke out against the harassment they face. The Safe Space: Survey on Sexual Harassment in our Workplace, which came out in January, found that of the over 30,000 respondents admitted to being sexually harassed in the past two years. UN is addressing this, said Mlambo-ngcuka. “We are changing policies. We also have a significant number of women in the senior management too — 50%. We expect these issues to be on the table, within the agencies and across the system.”