UN Women
- Barbara Crossette
- • October 17, 2019

A group of civil society organizations is warning that a growing global movement to decriminalize and rebrand prostitution as “sex work” could lead to more, not less, violence against the world’s most vulnerable women and girls. The critics are…
- Categories: Human Trafficking, Women
- Stéphanie Fillion
- • June 10, 2019

Twenty-four years ago, the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, yielded a bold declaration from 189 countries calling for improving the rights of women across the globe. Now, plans to mark the 25th anniversary of Beijing are…
- Categories: Gender Violence, US Foreign Relations, Women
- Jeroen Spangenberg
- • April 1, 2019

So how are women doing these days, during the global push for gender equality? Not all that great in work and legal protections, according to a new World Bank report, even in some prosperous countries — including the United…
- Categories: Human Rights, Women
- Laura E. Kirkpatrick
- • March 24, 2019

“Hold the line” was the frequent refrain heard during the contentious negotiations swirling around the annual meeting at the United Nations ensuring the rights of women. Delegates from the UN’s 193 countries were urged by conference leaders to remain…
- Categories: US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • March 19, 2019

Ana Menéndez is a former Spanish diplomat who oversees the gender parity strategy at the United Nations, working directly for Secretary-General António Guterres for a year and a half now on one of his main priorities at the institution….
- Categories: Secretary-General, US-UN Relations, Women
- Barbara Crossette
- • March 18, 2019

Serious flaws in the system for tracking progress on the Sustainable Development Goals have been uncovered in a newly published collection of stunning, provocative research by eminent developing policy specialists. They are finding that the lofty visions that produced…
- Categories: Health and Population, SDGs
- Laura E. Kirkpatrick
- • March 7, 2019

More than 10,000 people will soon converge on the United Nations for its annual Commission on the Status of Women conference, providing a unique forum to gauge progress and to press for the rights of women and marginalized populations…
- Categories: Gender Violence, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women
- Barbara Crossette
- • August 8, 2018

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has nominated Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, to become the next UN high commissioner for human rights. The nomination has been sent to the General Assembly for approval. Bachelet, who is 66,…
- Categories: Human Rights, Secretary-General, Women
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • May 31, 2018

Michelle Bachelet ended her second term as president of Chile on March 11, 2018. Her first term, from 2006 to 2010, was marked by an ambitious social and economic agenda advancing women’s rights and better health care. Her cabinet…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Human Rights, Latin America, SDGs, Women
- Ladan Osman
- • May 19, 2018

In scriptures, poetry, constitutions and leaders’ pledges to protect all members of the state, women are often listed with children or others rendered “vulnerable” by circumstance. The woman citizen is imagined as less adult. Is it possible that vocabularies…
- Categories: Africa, Gender Violence, Women
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • March 12, 2018

As women across the world battle systemic harassment and worse abuses for merely being female, the United Nations has opened its annual gathering of women in one of its biggest conferences of the year. This time, the 12-day meeting…
- Categories: Gender Violence, Human Rights, Secretary-General, Women
- Bertrand Ramcharan
- • February 28, 2018

There is still a long way to go to uphold the rights of women worldwide, and UN Women, a department of the Secretariat, is now carrying the torch in this struggle. It builds on the efforts of the UN…
- Categories: Human Rights, International Justice, Women
- Stéphanie Fillion
- • February 12, 2018

After years of civil war, Somalia is beginning to build democratic institutions with support from the West, even as horrific violence repeatedly strikes the capital, Mogadishu. Help from foreign countries and regional groups — such as the European Union,…
- Categories: Caribbean, Governance, Latin America, Women
- Chris Gelardi
- • January 19, 2018

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has agreed to chair the board of the World Health Organization’s Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health after she finishes her government role on March 11. The announcement came after a Jan. 10 meeting…
- Categories: Health and Population, Women
- Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss
- • December 7, 2017

GENEVA — Change is in the air again on First Avenue. Among numerous reform options being bandied about, none will be more consequential than those on financing the United Nations system. There are the sledgehammer arguments: drastic slashes in…
- Categories: UN Agencies