WUNRN
CHALLENGES OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT
& EQUALITY
Julia Kallas - IPS -
interviews LAKSHMI PURI, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and
deputy executive director of U.N. Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender
Equality and the Empowerment of Women
- Today, approximately 125
countries have laws that penalise domestic violence – a great advance from a
decade ago. Yet 603 million women around the world still live in countries
where domestic violence is not a crime, and up to seven in ten women are
targeted for physical or sexual violence, or both.
One
organisation that has worked for the past two years to protect and empower
women is U.N. Women, the United Nations Entity for
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Lakshmi Puri, deputy executive
director of the organisation, described what it has achieved so far.
”U.N. Women is today a
coherent, unified organisation that has achieved concrete results that go
from…enhancing women’s voices in decision-making in communities, to leveraging
and influencing national and international planning processes,” Puri told IPS.
But as the statistics indicate,
much more remains to be done before women’s rights are fully realised. Puri
spoke to IPS correspondent Julia Kallas about the achievements, challenges,
expectations and future of U.N. Women. Excerpts from the interview follow.
Q: U.N. Women turns two
in January. What have been some high points since the founding of U.N. Women?
A: U.N. Women has heavily
emphasised increasing women’s political participation. Women must have a say in
the decisions that affect their lives and their communities. Our efforts in 14
countries contributed directly to five countries’ increasing the number of
women elected to office. And in one year the number of countries with women
comprising at least 30 percent of parliament has risen from 27 to 33.
We are also actively supporting
women’s representation at the local level. In
To enhance women’s
participation in peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery, U.N. Women has
successfully advocated for an agreement to earmark at least 15 percent of all
U.N.-managed peacekeeping funds for programmes on gender equality.
Women’s economic empowerment is
another key area of our work. Financial security gives women the independence
they need to take informed decisions for themselves and their families. So our
interventions try to enhance governments’ abilities to improve women’s access
to assets, markets, services and decent work.
Ending violence against women
remains a top priority. It is a scourge of pandemic proportions, affecting up
to 70 percent of women and girls. U.N. Women is working in 85 countries to
prevent violence in the first place, to end impunity for these crimes, and to
expand essential services to survivors.
Gender equality and women’s
empowerment remains a universal challenge and requires actions by all. We know
there is still a long road ahead, but we are on the right track. We are working
with and in all countries to carry out our universal mandate and we are
constantly making progress.
Q: What do you consider
the greatest challenges for U.N. Women and women around the world next year and
beyond?
A: Many obvious gaps remain in
protecting women’s human rights and in advancing their rightful role in
development, peace and security. In 2012, our priorities were to make a renewed
push for women’s economic empowerment and political participation.
In the months ahead, we will
focus on ending violence against women. Next March, the focus of the U.N.
Commission on the Status of Women will be to tackle violence against women and
girls. Expectations are high for governments to agree on strengthened
international frameworks to end violence against women and girls.
In this context, U.N. Women
launched COMMIT, an initiative that encourages governments to implement
international agreements on ending violence against women and commit to new,
concrete steps to end it.
Funding is another challenge we
face. Women still constitute a majority of the world’s poor. They are directly
and indirectly affected by the financial and economic crisis, as is funding for
U.N. Women and women’s organisations around the world. We need all donors to
prioritise funding for gender equality and women’s empowerment at this critical
time.
In addition to being the right
thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do, as evidence shows that investing
in women’s empowerment will have an exponential impact on social and economic
development.
Q: As emerging economies
such as the BRICS (
A: Some countries have shown
deep commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment and have adopted
special policies and measures to rectify deep rooted poverty, customs- and
tradition-related biases and gender stereotyping.
Yet we have seen that economic
growth does not necessarily translate to greater gender equality. In middle
income countries – including the BRICS – remain large numbers of poor people. A
disproportionate majority of them are women. As a result, governments,
including the BRICS, continue to proactively address this issue.
Q: What are your
expectations for getting a comprehensive gender perspective into a post-2015
development framework and the Sustainable Development Goals that are currently
being negotiated?
A: What we need is a truly
transformative development agenda that can drive change on systemic issues and
structural causes of discrimination, including unequal power relations, social
exclusion and multiple forms of discrimination.
The framework should therefore
focus on women’s rights, eliminating gender-based violence, promoting sexual
and reproductive health and rights, access to essential infrastructure and
services and political and economic empowerment – all in the broader context of
poverty eradication.
The framework should also
recognise that gender inequality is the mother of all inequalities. It is not
yet clear what the format of the post-2015 development framework will be, but
in any case, U.N. Women advocates for a strong focus on gender equality and
women’s empowerment.
If we are about to turn a new
leaf in terms of a more sustainable, equitable and people-centred development
model and framework, we need to empower and fully tap the talent and potential
of half of humanity.