This year, as every year, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was full of rich sessions, discussions and side events revolving around this year’s theme: Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Changing World of Work. Amidst the various sessions, the UN also organized a townhall meeting with the new Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday, March 17.
Two of FAR’s steering committee members (SC) got to speak at this town hall meeting. Hibaaq Osman, from Karama, Egypt, spoke powerfully about the critical need to increase women’s participation at all decision making tables – a promise long overdue, she reminded the audience: “It is a great shame that in 2017 women are still marginalized, excluded from the essential task of building peace….from our perspective, in the Arab region, where are the women in the peace process?” Watch the video.
SC member, Dinah Musaderwezo, executive director of FEMNET, also spoke and in her speech, pointed out the urgent need to have gender equality. “Africa loses $50 billion every year due to systemic gender inquality and even that is a conservative estimate…my question to you, Mr.Secretary General, is what is the UN going to do to end this systemic inequality today?”
Watch the video.
Find out more about the townhall meeting.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.