International Women's Day 2015
Article Info
The
2015 UN theme for International Women's Day (March 8)—Empowering Women,
Empowering Humanity: Picture it!—envisions a world in which women can
exercise their choices, whether that be participating in politics or
living in a society free from violence and discrimination. This year
marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action, a globally endorsed framework towards advancing
gender equality, human rights, and women's empowerment.
Progress on the health-related recommendations from this
framework has been uneven. Although maternal and child deaths have
fallen since 1995, an unmet need still exists for family planning,
gender-based violence is still a huge unaddressed problem, and deaths
due to pregnancy-related causes still prevail, especially in developing
countries and particularly among the poorest in society, who have no
access to sexual and reproductive health services. On March 9, No ceilings: the full participation project,
an initiative co-sponsored by the Clinton Foundation and the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, will launch the findings and recommendations
from its data-driven assessment of the gains made by women and girls
since Beijing. Interestingly, they will show that gains made in health
and primary education are far greater than in the other areas of
economic participation, leadership, and security. But clearly, far more
progress in health is needed.
At the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (March 9–20), the political declaration
for the 20th anniversary of the Beijing conference will be adopted. The
absence of health in the draft is a concern, and it is weak on human
rights, especially sexual rights, which encompass abuses such as child
marriage, female genital mutilation, and violence. Negotiations on the
post-2015 development agenda have similarly struggled to address these
core issues. Sexual and reproductive health and rights must not be
sidelined again as they were initially in the Millennium Development
Goals. The opportunities offered by UN negotiations this year must not
be squandered if we are to secure actionable commitments that could
yield vast improvements for girls and women everywhere.