UN report indicates that many women are still being suppressed

UN WOMEN executive director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says there are concerted efforts to deny women’s agency and their right to make their own decisions, in the name of protecting “family values”.

This came following the release of UN Women’s new flagship report, “Progress of the World’s Women 20192020: Families in a Changing World”, published yesterday.

The report examined how transformation in families impacted women’s rights, and reveals that most countries can afford family-friendly policies.

As women’s rights have advanced over the past decades, families around the world have become a place of love and solidarity, but also one where fundamental human rights violations and gender inequalities persist, according to the report, which puts forth a policy agenda to end gender inequalities within families.

Globally, a little over one-third of households are couples living with children. Extended families including other relatives are almost as common (27%).

The vast majority of lone-parent families, which were 8% of households, were led by women, often juggling paid work, child-rearing and unpaid domestic work.

Same-sex families were found to be increasingly prevalent in all regions.

“Around the world, we are witnessing concerted efforts to deny women’s agency and their right to make their own decisions, in the name of protecting ‘family values’.

“Yet, we know through research and evidence that there is no ‘standard’ form of family, nor has there ever been,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka.

“This report counters that pushback by showing that families, in all their diversity, can be critical drivers of gender equality, provided decision-makers deliver policies rooted in the reality of how people live today, with women’s rights at their core.”

According to the report, families could be places of care, but could also bring conflict, inequality and, far too often, violence.

Today, three billion women and girls live in countries where rape within marriage is not explicitly criminalised.

But injustice and violations took other forms as well, the report said. In one out of five countries, girls did not have the same inheritance rights as boys, while in others (a total of 19 countries) women were required by law to obey their husbands.

Around one-third of married women in developing countries also reported having little or no say over their own health care.

Women continued to enter the labour market in large numbers, but marriage and motherhood reduced their labour force participation rates and the income and benefits that came with it, according to the report.

Globally, just over half of married women aged 25-54 were in the labour force, compared to two-thirds of single women, and 96% of married men, the report shows.

The report sheds some positive light on parental leave, with an increase in its uptake by fathers, particularly in countries where specific incentives, such as “daddy quotas” were in place that reserved a non-transferable portion of their leave for them on a “use it or lose it” basis.

The report also puts a spotlight on the challenges women and their families face when they migrate.

It calls on policymakers, activists and people in all walks of life to transform families into places of equality and justice where women can exercise choice and voice, and where they enjoy physical safety and economic security.

Some of the recommendations include: amending and reforming family laws to ensure that women can choose whether, when and who to marry, and to include the possibility of divorce, if needed, and provide women with access to family resources.