Women

• July 12, 2021

In times of extreme adversity, hope and light can come from unexpected places. In South Sudan — haunted by a war for independence, followed by a civil war and continued unrest in its short history — people can point to one major victory: a first-time women’s soccer league. Started just this year, it is …

Africa, Child Soldiers, Gender Violence, Poverty, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Spirited Demands for Better Lives Dominate the Generation Equality Forum in Paris

Barbara Crossette

• June 30, 2021

The most important day of the widely anticipated United Nations-backed Generation Equality Forum’s second session ended Wednesday night in Paris. But before the dozens of speeches were heard, a gulf emerged among people who at heart all want to make the world a better, safer place for women and girls. On one side of …

Gender Violence, Health and Population, Human Rights, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Despite Merkel’s Endurance as Chancellor, German Women Still Fight for Parity in Politics

Mikaela Conley

• May 17, 2021

BERLIN — In the seating snub heard round the world, the first woman president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was not offered a chair in April while meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and European Council President Charles Michel. Instead, she had to sit on a sofa nearby while the men talked at …

Governance, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Rosalía Arteaga, a Short-Lived President of Ecuador, Wants to Run Against the UN’s Guterres

Stéphanie Fillion

• April 29, 2021

Rosalía Arteaga, a former Ecuadorean president, is planning to enter the race to be the first woman to lead the United Nations and beat the incumbent, Secretary-General António Guterres, through a “people-backed” campaign. The announcement by the Forward campaign, a new movement based in London that is holding open, digital global primaries to find …

General Assembly, Latin America, Secretary-General, Security Council, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Six Latin American Women Who Could Be the UN Leader Down the Road

Maurizio Guerrero

• April 15, 2021

Six Latin American names are being circulated in regional political circles as possible candidates to become the first woman to lead the United Nations, while the current secretary-general, António Guterres, will most likely be re-elected for the upcoming five-year term, starting in 2022. So women appear to be lining up to cast their names for …

Latin America, Secretary-General, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

This Feminist Is Putting Women at the Peace Table

Sonah Lee-Lassiter

• April 13, 2021

In 2010, Maria Victoria (Mavic) Cabrera-Balleza founded an organization to help and advocate for the rights of women and girls globally, but it was her childhood experiences that first politicized her. Martial law was declared by the dictator President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines in 1972, when she was in fourth grade. Born in …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Peace and Security, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Russia, the Current Big Spoiler in Advancing Global Gender Rights

Barbara Crossette

• April 12, 2021

Human-rights advocates around the world are assessing how much lasting damage could still be done to universal human rights after the four-year assault from the Trump administration. Although the Trump years ended with the swearing-in of President Joe Biden in January, civil society organizations and governments understand that an American turnaround could be slow …

Gender Violence, Secretary-General, Security Council, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

At the UN, Mexico Works for Women’s Rights. Back Home It’s a Different Story.

Maurizio Guerrero

• March 29, 2021

Mexico and France are hosting a United Nations forum that aims to accelerate the agenda laid out 26 years ago at the landmark Beijing women’s conference: securing equal rights and equal opportunities for half the population of the world. Beginning in Mexico City on March 29-31 and culminating in Paris in early July, the …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

The Chances for a Woman Leading the UN Soon Are Fading Fast

Sonah Lee-Lassiter

• March 24, 2021

Unless a strong candidate backed by an influential member state comes forward soon, it looks unlikely that Secretary-General António Guterres will be denied a second term and that a woman could be elected to succeed him, starting in 2022. Any challengers for the United Nations’ top leadership post will need to step up in …

Secretary-General, Security Council, US-UN Relations, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Democracy Depends on Women’s Empowerment, Kamala Harris Says in Her UN Debut

Barbara Crossette

• March 16, 2021

Facing a world unsettled and even shocked by what has happened to the United States in recent years and not sure what to expect of Americans now, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke today in clear, reassuring terms to a United Nations audience, tuned in globally. But she warned that democracy everywhere was in peril …

Gender Violence, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Surrogate Motherhood as a Business: New York State Defies a Global Trend

Barbara Crossette

• March 15, 2021

In the middle of the night on April 2, 2020, buried in a 400-page state budget, a provision to make commercial surrogacy legal in New York was adopted despite a campaign against the move by leading advocates of women’s reproductive health and rights. The law took effect on Feb. 15, and surrogate pregnancies became …

Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Women Gain Power in the African Union, While Rwanda’s President Strives for More Too

Barbara Crossette

• March 1, 2021

The African Union, living up to its longtime promise to improve the gender balance in its leadership, has elected the first woman as deputy chair of the organization’s operating commission. She is Monique Nsanzabaganwa, an economist who was deputy governor of the National Bank of Rwanda and earlier Rwanda’s minister of trade and industry. …

Africa, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

What the World Learned About Women’s Talents in a Hellish Year

Barbara Crossette

• February 22, 2021

It was a tough and discouraging year, 2020, for women around the world as they prepare for the 12-day annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women. It begins at the United Nations — mostly virtually — on March 15. Last year, it was canceled, though a large UN forum commemorating the …

Gender Violence, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

US Aid Returns to UNFPA Amid Efforts to End Global Gag Rule Permanently

Barbara Crossette

• January 31, 2021

Fulfilling promises that he made in his 2020 election campaign, President Joe Biden restored United States contributions to the United Nations Population Fund on Jan. 28. Through another executive order, he also overturned crippling US aid restrictions worldwide that had been demanded by anti-abortion lobbies. The Mexico City policy restrictions — also known as …

Gender Violence, Health and Population, Human Rights, US-UN Relations, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

The UN’s First Feminist, ‘Peg’ Snyder, Is Dead at 91

Barbara Crossette

• January 30, 2021

Margaret C. Snyder, the founding director of Unifem, now folded into UN Women, died on Jan. 26, 2021, after a brief illness while staying in Syracuse, N.Y., near her relatives and the city where she was born. “Peg,” as she was known, was 91, days short of her birthday on Jan. 30. Her grandniece, …