New Global Goals Cannot Be Achieved Without Ensuring Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment – UN Secretary-General
Full Article - http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsId=51987#.Vggil63ovmI
27 September 2015 – As world leaders continued their Summit on the Sustainable Development Goals, UN Women and China co-hosted a landmark event today on gender equality and women’s empowerment at which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that the new Global Goals could not be achieved “without full and equal rights for half of the world’s population, in law and in practice.” …….
http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2015/9/press-release-global-leaders-meeting
World Leaders Agree: We Must Close the Gender Gap
Historic gathering boosts political commitment for women’s empowerment at the highest levels.
27 September 2015 - New York — Today, some 80 world leaders are convening at the United Nations to personally commit to ending discrimination against women by 2030 and announce concrete and measurable actions to kick-start rapid change in their countries. The event marks a historic first, with pledges delivered by Heads of State and Government. No other single issue is to receive this level of political attention at the UN Summit held from 25-27 September to adopt Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals.
Written By: Suzanne Ito
The world too often neglects the human rights of adolescent girls. People take advantage of their lack of power and political voice, their isolation amid restrictive social norms, and their limited access to financial assets and protection under the law. Consider that 14,000,000 girls are married as children each year despite international agreements that condemn the practice. Putting girls at the center of the next generation of global development goals provides a framework for ensuring that girls’ human rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled.
That’s why the International Women’s Health Coalition joined more than 25 of the world’s leading organizations, using their vast years of experience working with girls and the best evidence available, to develop The Girl Declaration, written by girls, for girls, and for the world. We asked 508 adolescent girls living in poverty in 14 countries around the world about their hopes and dreams, the challenges they face in their lives and the solutions they think are most important.
22 Sep 2015 - The traditional medical view of risks associated with giving birth sometimes clashes with what women themselves perceive.
In the Netherlands, some women go against medical advice in choosing homebirths, because they consider the biomedical model of birth as being risky. They see it as a model in which they have less autonomy and free choice (and in which more intervention during labour is required). In this case, home is seen as a safer haven than the health system. (Study by Lianne Holten from VU University Amsterdam)
While actors in the health system are only required to consider the risks associated with the delivery itself, in Malawi, women are faced with a number of complications to consider and manage when deciding whether to give birth at home or at a hospital (e.g. family responsibilities, distance to facility, etc.). In order to improve safer motherhood messages it is important to understand how the women themselves perceive risk. (Research by Isabelle Uny - Queen Margaret University)
Prepared for the Panel on Political Will and Public Will – Fine Tuning for Gender Advocacy, UN Human Rights Council Session 29. Geneva, June 22 2015.
Dr. James F Oehmke[1], Ph.D.
Dr. Lori Post[2], Ph.D.
Background
Contemporary society is increasingly concerned with the right to be free from victimization because of one’s gender, sexuality or other personal, religious, cultural, and ethnic characteristics. In some agricultural and rural economies, women are marginalized through restricted access to economic opportunity compared to their male counterparts.[3] For example, women entrepreneurs in rural areas operate farms on a smaller scale and earn less money than males for equal output. This is hypothesized to be the result of social norms that inhibit women’s entry into some sectors and male capture of successful larger enterprises (Costa and Rijkers). In many countries, women have less access to land because of legal and social restrictions, and in some cases are removed from the family farm by force, coercion, or are legally expelled based on existing legislation returning land tenure to the patrilinear family in the event the husband dies. In agricultural trade, women can face legal hurdles including limited access to passports and prohibitions against entering into contracts (EAT), as well as disproportionate bribes and extortion by sexual coercion (CCGD).
To mark the opening of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, taking place in New York on 25-27 September, UNRISD is happy to announce a new Beyond 2015 Brief: The Sustainable Development Agenda-From Inspiration to Action.
The SDGs stand a chance of hitting the ground running. Even before they are put before the UN General Assembly, politicians, policy makers, civil society, business and the media have been reacting positively to the new sustainable development agenda.The agenda is indeed to be welcomed. It responds to the exploding social, economic, political and ecological inequities and the destructive forces of climate change that we face today. It acknowledges the urgent need to invest far more holistically, strategically and comprehensively in the social sector to overcome immense poverty, hunger and social exclusion challenges. It could usher in eco-social policies—bringing together socioeconomic and environmental policies—to deliver genuinely transformative results in terms of human well-being and rights-based, inclusive development.
