This International Women's Day, a new EUR18.2 million regional programme to improve gender equality and address violence against women and girls is being announced. The new Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls (Pacific Partnership) brings together governments, civil society organisations, communities and other partners to promote gender equality, prevent violence against women and girls, and increase access to quality response services for survivors.
Sister Catharina is popularly known as "Sister Gender" or "Sister of Gender Equality" for her continuous promotion of gender equality in Lampung Province, Indonesia. Sister Catharina, who is a part of Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George, has been a women's rights activist since 1997, supporting in particular women who are victims and survivors of sexual violence, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.
KATHMANDU, Nepal - In her home district in far-western Nepal, 19-year-old Sangita BK needs no introduction. She is well-known as an activist against child marriage. In the last three years, she has - on her own - stopped at least a dozen child marriages.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has denounced the abduction of more than one hundred school girls by suspected Boko Haram insurgents during an attack on an educational institution in north-eastern Nigeria and called for their safe return to their families.
My story starts when I was one week old, when I went through FGM. I have no memory of going through the process, and I didn't know until the age of 15, when I was forced to get married. I came to New York City on Christmas Day when I was 15 years old to marry a man whom I had never met.
The United Nations is launching a 24-hour helpline to enable staff to call out sexual harassment in the workplace, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday. "The helpline is a 24-hour resource for UN Secretariat personnel to speak confidentially with an impartial and trained individual who can provide information on protection, support and reporting mechanisms," said Mr. Guterres in his email sent to staff members.
Pursuing joint efforts against gender-based violence, the European Union (EU) and UN Women today launched a women's rights and empowerment programme aimed at strengthening the resilience of Syrian women and girls and host communities in Iraq, Jordan and Turkey.
In commemoration of the United Nations International Human Solidarity Day, UN Women's HeForShe movement issues an urgent call for men around the world to stand together in solidarity with each other and with women, to end sexual harassment.
The United Nations human rights wing has called on the Latin American nation, El Salvador, to immediately halt the application of a law that unduly penalizes women for abortion-related offenses and to review all cases to ensure their compliance with international human rights standards.
"I was so desperate, I had lost hope. Committing suicide seemed the only escape from the abuse, back then," Fatima* said in an interview earlier this month. "I didn't know how to handle the pain." A mother of eight, Fatima has been married for about two decades.
