Opinion: It’s Time to Step It Up for Gender Equality

Girls attend school in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPSBy Phumzile Mlambo-NgcukaUNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2015 (IPS)If we look at the headlines or the latest horrifying YouTube clip, Mar. 8 – International Women’s Day – may seem a bad time to celebrate equality for women.But alongside the stories of extraordinary atrocity and everyday violence lies another reality, one where more girls are in school and more are earning qualifications than ever before; where maternal mortality is at an all-time low; where more women are in leadership positions, and where women are increasingly standing up, speaking out and demanding action.How much would it really cost to unlock the potential of the world’s women? And how much could have been gained! Twenty years ago this September, thousands of delegates left the historic Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing on a high. The overwhelming feeling was that women had won a great victory. We had indeed – 189 world leaders had committed their countries to an extraordinary Platform for Action, with ambitious but realistic promises in key areas and a roadmap for getting there.If countries had lived up to all those promises, we would be seeing a lot more progress in equality today than the modest gains in some areas we are currently celebrating. We would be talking about equality for women across the board – and we might be talking about a saner, more evenly prosperous, more s...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Active Citizens Aid Civil Society Climate Change Development & Aid Economy & Trade Education Food & Agriculture Gender Global Global Governance Headlines Human Rights IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse Labour Population Poverty Source Type: news