The UN has announced the launch of a new body to combat gender inequality around the world.
Last Friday, the General Assembly voted unanimously in favour of setting up UN Women, merging four current UN bodies in order to promote empowerment and stamp out inequalities in a variety of fields – with a likely budget of $500 million.
According to the new UN Women website, the agency:
“…will be a dynamic and strong champion for women and girls, providing them with a powerful voice at the global, regional and local levels.”
Commencing operation in January 2011, it hopes to support member states in their efforts to create more equal societies and provide ways of monitoring the progress being made, making sure that goals are achieved.
The decision comes after years of reports showing that inequality continues to be a major problem in the majority of countries. So much work to empower and benefit women is going on around the world and indeed, has been for many decades. But as the UN now acknowledges, gender inequality still runs deep in the majority of societies, affecting areas such as education, jobs, healthcare, politics and the media.
As part of a Facts and Figures section of the UN Women site, it is highlighted, for example, that women are more likely than men to have low paid and vulnerable jobs, earning 17% less than men overall. Every year an ‘unacceptable’ number of women and girls die due to complications arising during pregnancy and childbirth. Among women aged 15-44, acts of violence are a bigger cause of death than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. The use of sexual violence as a weapon of war means that hundreds of thousands of women have been raped during conflicts.
The list of statistics covering all areas of public and personal life is a depressing one and serves to highlight the work that still needs to be done.
Politicians and women’s rights advocates have greeted the announcement with enthusiasm, noting that it marks a step forward, away from the male-dominated UN of old. They agree that equality, as a basic human right, should be imperative as a goal for governments.
The decision to set up UN Women has come at a time when a new global survey of support for gender equality has just been published.
The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, conducted in April and May and reported by the New York Times, surveyed people in 22 countries and found that while respondents expressed support for equality, many still believe that men should be given preferential treatment when it comes to jobs, education and working outside the home.
Almost everywhere, a majority said they believe in equality, that women should be able to work outside the home and that a marriage where both partners share financial and household responsibilities is most satisfying.
But in some countries, it is still felt that it is more important for men to attend university and that men having jobs should be a priority.
For example in Egypt and Jordan, 75% and 68% of men respectively said it should be more important for them to have jobs than women and 92% and 77% respectively also said that their sex should be more entitled to a job in times of economic hardship. This view was held by a majority of respondents in 11 of the 22 countries.
Despite the widespread support for equality, the survey has shown that women in all countries recognise that there is still much more to be achieved. Although 100% of French women and 99% of French men claim to support equal rights, 75% claimed that men in France have a better life than women.
And 72% of American women who support equality say more changes need to be made to further the rights of women - while just 55% of men believe that is the case.
The results of the survey make interesting reading and it’s encouraging to see support for equality, but just as the creation of UN Women has highlighted, it also shows that there is still a long way to go before women across the globe will benefit from advances in their rights and empowerment.
Image via scazon’s Flickr