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Gender Equality, Women's
Empowerment, Must Become a Lived Reality for Women in All Countries, UN GA
Third Committee Told by Head of UN WOMEN +
Sixty-fifth
UN General Assembly
Third Committee - 11 October 2010
Head of
Newly Created 'UN Women' Michele Bachelet Addresses Committee; Also Hears
Reports on Violence against Women, Obstetric Fistula, Anti-Discrimination
Committee
Addressing
Member States for the first time as head of the newly created UN Women,
Under-Secretary-General Michelle Bachelet told delegates today that the
establishment of the new entity was a message from the General Assembly that
more needed to be done to make the empowerment of women a reality.
"The
quote that we heard so often at the Summit on the Millennium Development Goals
just three weeks ago — that gender equality and women's empowerment are goals
in their own right and central to all other goals — must be more than a mantra.
It must become a lived reality for women and men and boys and girls in all
countries," she said to the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and
Cultural), as it began its three-day discussion on the advancement of women.
She
acknowledged that the creation of UN Women had been a long journey that brought
together four existing entities — the Division for the Advancement of Women,
the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women,
the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women
(INSTRAW) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). In that
process, three changes had been made that had the potential to deliver
important benefits: gender equality was put on par with other development
priorities by elevating the leadership of UN Women to Under-Secretary-General;
greater coherence among the four entities permitted the bridging of gaps and a
stronger voice in the United Nations response system; and a strong UN Women
served as an advocate for larger financial investments in gender equality.
"We
must reverse decades of accepting minimal resources for work on gender
equality," she said, noting that rarely was more than 6 per cent of
budgets in any given field dedicated to women's empowerment and gender
equality.
While
outlining the major tasks on which she would focus over the next three months,
she stated that the Secretary-General had determined that $500 million would be
required for UN Women's start-up phase — a challenge they intended to meet in
2011 — and that she would be reaching out to Member States to build new
partnerships and secure these new resources. Her first priority would be to
make UN Women operational by 1 January 2011 and to lay the foundation of a new
organization with a new identity and vision. Early focus would be placed on
strengthening UN Women's capacity in the field, in order to deliver where need
was the greatest and to respond to demands for enhanced support of Member
States.
During a
question-and-answer session, delegates, such as the representatives of the
European Union and India, asked how UN Women planned to coordinate with other
United Nations agencies dealing with women, to which Ms. Bachelet replied that
strategic planning would be at the heart of UN Women's work in the first months
of 2011 and that UN Women would work within the United Nations systems as other
agencies, such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), continued addressing issues relating to women's and girls'
empowerment.
Cooperation
would not only be enhanced at the headquarters level, but the "gap of
coordination" would be bridged on the ground, particularly with regard to
responding to sexual violence, she said. "One area that has clearly moved
to the centre of global and local attention is ending violence against
women," she added, calling on the Third Committee to continue its work in
that area and on trafficking in women and girls, and pledging UN Women's
support at the national level to strengthen the implementation of Member State
recommendations.
Rashida
Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, also addressed the
Committee, discussing her first thematic report to the Human Rights Council,
which focused on the issue of reparations to women victims of violence. She
stated that the due diligence obligation to reparations remained grossly
underdeveloped, with little attention devoted to reparations at a substantive
and procedural level. Her report also recommended that an independent body
responsible for women's rights and gender equality be created with the legal
authority to solicit accountability from relevant ministries and agencies.
In the
question-and-answer period, when asked by the representative of Swaziland about
the role of the family in overcoming gender-based violence and programs to help
the family through education or other means, Ms. Manjoo said that they needed
to go back to the grass-roots level, as Ms. Bachelet had stated, because, while
there had been a huge focus on laws and policies, they had not looked at the
"lived realities" of women or addressed implementation gaps or social
and economic gaps.
Also
speaking today were Purnima Mane, Deputy Executive Director of the United
Nations Population Fund, who presented the report of the Secretary-General on
supporting efforts to end obstetric fistula, and Xiaoqiau Zou, Vice-Chair of
the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (on behalf of
the Chair of the Committee), who each had question-and-answer periods with
delegations following their statements.
The
representatives from Yemen (on behalf of the Group of 77 and China), Belgium
(on behalf of the European Union), Guyana (on behalf of CARICOM), Chile (on
behalf of RIO Group), Malawi (on behalf of the African Group), United Republic
of Tanzania (on behalf of Southern African Development Communities),
Netherlands, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Egypt, China, Jordan, Sudan, Mexico,
Cuba, Venezuela, Bahrain, Israel and Brazil also spoke.
The
Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 12 October to continue its
consideration of the advancement of women and to hear the introduction of five
draft resolutions on social development.