United Nations: A woman is killed every 10 minutes by a partner or family member

Thirty years after world leaders adopted a historic blueprint to achieve gender equality a new United Nations report says womens and girls rights are under attack and gender discrimination remains deeply embedded in economies and societiesThe report released Thursday by the UN agency focused on womens rights and gender equality found that nearly onequarter of governments worldwide reported a backlash to womens rights last yearDespite some progress including on girls education and access to family planning UN Women said a woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by a partner or family member and that cases of conflictrelated sexual violence have increased by 50 per cent since 2022 The report released ahead of International Womens Day on Saturday also noted that only 87 countries have ever been led by a womanGlobally womens human rights are under attack UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres said in a statement Instead of mainstreaming equal rights were seeing the mainstreaming of misogynyHe said the world must stand firm in making human rights equality and empowerment a reality for all women and girls for everyone everywhereThe 189 countries that attended a 1995 Beijing womens conference adopted a landmark declaration and 150page platform for action to achieve gender equality calling for bold action in 12 areas including combating poverty and genderbased violence and putting women at top levels in business government and at peacemaking tablesIt also said for the first time in a UN document that human rights include the right of women to control and decide on matters relating to their sexuality including their sexual and reproductive health free of discrimination coercion and violenceIn the new review which includes contributions from 159 countries UN Women said countries have taken many steps forward on gender equality and womens rights in the past five years but that such rights still are facing growing threats worldwideOn the positive side the report said some 88 per cent of countries have passed laws to combat violence against women and established services to help victims in the past five years Most countries have banned workplace discrimination and 4437 are improving the quality of education and training for girls and women it saidYet gender discrimination is deeply embedded with wide gaps in power and resources that restrain womens rights the report saidThe weakening of democratic institutions has gone hand in hand with backlash on gender equality UN Women saidIt warned that antirights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key womens rights issues and seeking to block or slow legal and policy gains they cant roll backUN Women said almost 25 per cent of countries reported that backlash on gender equality is hampering implementation of the Beijing platformAccording to the report women have only 64 per cent of the legal rights of men and while the proportion of female lawmakers has more than doubled since 1995 threequarters of lawmakers are still menUN Women also said women aged 15 to 24 lag behind other age groups on access to modern family planning maternal mortality ratios have remained almost unchanged since 2015 and 10 per cent of women and girls live in extremely poor householdsThe UN agency said cases of conflictrelated sexual violence have increased 5037 since 2022 iquest and women and girls are victims of 95 per cent of these crimesUN Women executive director Sima Bahous said that based on the reports findings the agency has adopted a roadmap to bring the world closer to the UN goal of achieving gender equality by 2030It calls for a digital revolution ensuring equal access to technology for all women and girls investments in social protections including universal health care and quality education to lift them out of poverty and zero violence against girls and women The roadmap also includes equal decisionmaking power for women and financing for iquestgenderresponsive humanitarian aid in conflicts and crisesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever