U.N. Chief Says World Is ‘300 Years Away’ From Gender Equity And Women’s Rights Are ‘Vanishing Before Our Eyes’

Topline

Decades of global progress on women’s rights are “vanishing before our eyes,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned in an emotional speech at a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday afternoon, just two days ahead of International Women’s Day, arguing sexual abuse, a lack of educational and employment opportunities and the rollback of reproductive rights have pushed the goal of gender equality “300 years away.”

Key Facts

Guterres argued women’s rights are being “abused, threatened and violated around the world,” in his speech on the first day of a two-week series of discussions led by the Commission on the Status of Women.

In his speech, Guterres called for “urgent action to equalize power” by increasing education and employment opportunities for women and girls “particularly in the global south,” promoting women’s participation in science and technology and creating a “safe digital environment for women and girls.”

Specifically, he pointed to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where he said “women and girls have been erased from public life”—the U.N.’s internal organization U.N. Women had found human rights violations against women “mounted steadily” one year after the Taliban took control of the country in 2021, while girls have been barred from attending school past the sixth grade and women have been ordered to cover their faces in public and stay at home unless of a case of necessity.

Guterres also called out inequities in other areas of employment, including in artificial intelligence, where he said just one in five employees is a woman, and in science, with women accounting for just 3% of Nobel Prize winners in science categories, blaming those inequities on “centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes.”

He also pointed to a decline in sexual and reproductive rights, which he said are being “rolled back” in some countries around the world, and though he did not mention the United States by name, his comments come after the Supreme Court last June overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving women’s access to abortion up to individual states, including 14 states that have implemented full or partial bans.

Crucial Quote

“As technology races ahead, women and girls are being left behind,” Guterres said, adding, “artificial intelligence is shaping our future world, let’s hope it will not be shaped in a totally gender-biased way.”

Key Background

In Ukraine, investigators have found widespread instances of sexual abuse by Russian forces, following the Kremlin’s invasion of the country last year, including rape and forced nudity—Russian officials have denied allegations its troops have committed human rights abuses on civilians. A U.N. report released in November found instances of Russian troops targeting girls as young as four years old and as old as 80. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, women have been banned from attending universities and high schools, restricted their employment and forced them to cover their faces while in public. Guterres had previously pledged not to “abandon the people of Afghanistan,” while speaking to the Security Council in January.

Tangent

A coalition of nearly 200 human rights organizations wrote a letter to the U.N. last week, arguing recent abortion restrictions in the U.S. could result in “devastating human rights implications,” as well as restrict women’s access to healthcare and privacy, and threaten women’s lives “on a massive scale.” In addition to the 14 states where abortion is either banned or restricted, seven more have proposed bans that are now blocked in state court.

Surprising Fact

Pharmacy giant Walgreens announced last week it will stop selling abortion pills in several states where the pills are legal after a group of 20 states attorneys general wrote to the company, threatening litigation if the company began distributing the pills.

Further Reading

U.S. Abortion Bans Are A ‘Human Rights Crisis’ That Violate International Law, Groups Tell UN (Forbes)

Gender equality still ‘300 years away’, says UN secretary general (The Guardian)