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Women's rights: Engaging the other half of the population
Women's rights: Engaging the other half of the population
The empowerment of women must be the foundation for development across the world.
Last updated: 24 Sep 2014
Babatunde Osotimehin
Dr Babatunde Osotimehin is a UN Undersecretary-General and Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
Leaders at this year's UN General Assembly will focus on challenges such as terrorism, climate change and the spread of Ebola. They will also reflect on progress made since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, a groundbreaking moment for women and their right to control their lives and fertility.
But the 20-year review takes place against a backdrop of ongoing violence against women, and attempts to take back control of their bodies. What we are seeing in the news every day is the very visible perpetration of that violence. And the ongoing moves to take away women's choices and access to contraception and family planning are a grave threat to women's rights, health and freedom, and the well-being of communities and nations around the world...
...We have to ask ourselves how far we have come when one in three women worldwide will be subjected to physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. And we know that this violence only increases in times of conflict.
Who among us is not horrified by the stories of women in Iraq and Syria fleeing the brutality of ISIL insurgents, of displaced women in camps in South Sudan who are afraid to go to the toilet for fear of being raped, of the schoolgirls in Nigeria who remain missing after being abducted months ago by Boko Haram. I could go on. Violence against women occurs to varying degrees in all countries. The list of the crimes and violations committed against women and girls is endless and senseless, and so is the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators....
MORE at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/women-rights-engaging-other-hal-201492311459792341.html
