Women’s equality is central to all human rights, to human dignity and to our collective future.
It is the foundation of the Universal Declaration, which opens with this simple statement: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights.”
And yet achieving this self-evident equality is an apparently never-ending challenge.
International Women’s Day reminds us of the patriarchal power dynamics, old and new, that hold our world back from fulfilling the rights of all women and girls – and realizing the full potential of humanity.
We need to bring an end to patriarchy, and toxic masculinity, in the 21st century. Women’s equality is essential to justice – above all, justice for the millions of individuals concerned.
It is also vital to development and to peace.
When women and girls’ equal access to education, employment, decision-making and public participation is blocked, that country’s entire economy, and all of society, are throttled. Violence and instability rise.
Societies that oppress women are underdeveloped and more prone to conflict and chaos, and this correlation is no coincidence. No society can thrive if it holds back half of its people and stifles half of its talents.
Women and girls are active and powerful agents of change, and the full realisation of their rights benefits everyone.
And yet we are seeing efforts to push back women’s rights in every region — underpinned by authoritarian or patriarchal narratives that normalize misogyny, and affirm that women and girls must be essentially restricted to caregiving, reproduction and the family, regardless of their own desires.
At the UN Human Rights Office, we see this in our work every day.
In particular, we’re witnessing a many-pronged effort to control women’s sexuality and choices about their own bodies by restricting and even criminalizing sexual and reproductive rights — particularly access to safe and legal termination of pregnancy.
We also see constant efforts to deny girls and women the right to make their own choices about their lives – such as whether and where to work, their sexuality, or whether and who to marry.
Digital technologies have also become vehicles for particularly vicious and hateful abuse of women and girls online. This is especially the case for women who are in the public eye, and women human rights defenders. The digital space has yet to undergo a much-needed feminist revolution – and it must.
Let me make something else clear. Women’s equality is not going to destroy the institution of marriage, the family, or religion, as some claim.
It enriches every aspect of culture and society.
Women’s rights are about the core of what it is to be human: respect for an individual’s freedom to make choices. And that freedom is part of every culture and mainstream belief.
I honour the human rights struggle of generations of women and girls without whom the human rights movement would be unrecognisable. I and my Office will leave no stone unturned to help every society realize their equality and rights.
