CSW 59 Wraps up as Delegates Look Towards 2016

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka speaks at the Commission on the Status of Women, which ended its 59th session in New York last week. Credit: UN Women/Ryan BrownBy Josh ButlerUNITED NATIONS, Mar 23 2015 (IPS)The Commission on the Status of Women, one of the biggest events on the calendar for United Nations headquarters in New York City, is over for another year. For two weeks, thousands of delegates, dignitaries, ambassadors, experts, and activists flooded the city, with more than 650 events, talks, briefings, meetings, presentations and panels all striving for the same goal – “50:50 by 2030,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the CSW’s goal for gender equality within 15 years, at the official opening of the commission.Soon-Young Yoon, U.N. Representative of the International Alliance of Women and Chair of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, estimated more than 11,000 people took part in CSW 59.“This was the largest feminist movement at the U.N. in New York, ever,” she told IPS.“It was more than double the number we usually get.”Yoon attributed the huge attendance to well-documented attempts to scale back women’s rights worldwide in the last year, including fundamentalist activities in the Middle East and Africa, the kidnapping of 270 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram, and a growing culture of hostility and harassment of women online.“Against all this, the women’s movement has stepped up. The CSW is a pilgrimage for the int...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Active Citizens Armed Conflicts Civil Society Conferences Democracy Development & Aid Featured Gender Gender Identity Gender Violence Global Governance Globalisation Human Rights Indigenous Rights IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse Source Type: news