One week into the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting, it seems possible that the negotiations will once again end at an impasse.
Michelle Bachelet, the head of UN Women, has indicated that she’s willing to compromise with the world’s most conservative regimes and water down the UN’s commitment to women’s rights. She shouldn’t.
This week, an international team of experts, in conjunction with the WHO and the UN Environment Programme, released a report declaring hormone-disrupting chemicals a “global threat” that should be addressed.
Access to family planning services is a long-recognized basic human right… but we have a long way to go to ensure everyone has access.
Can we do anything useful to stop sexual assault in conflict, and, if so, is the United Nations the entity to do it?
You may ask: what exactly is “women’s empowerment” and how can we support this effort to promote sustainable development in a comprehensive and long-term way, while at the same time respecting human rights?
Not only is the Rio +20 outcome document, “The Future We Want,” silent on sexual and reproductive rights, but during the negotiations many of the EU and G77 countries who have been progressive on these issues in the past were completely silent.
While the last hours of negotiations unfold, we begin to look forward to future demographic trends and how to turn them into dividends rather losses.
Today I participated in an extraordinary side-event on “Rio+20 and Women’s lives: A Cross-General Dialogue” at the Ford Foundation Pavilion. This event was very intimate, it drew you in, with women’s personal stories for Rio+20 and beyond.
Today, here at the BEMFAM clinic in Cachoeirinha Favela in Rio de Janeiro, youth were having a very animated discussion about how they viewed sexuality, reproductive health, being young, and their feelings and emotions about this period in their life.
