What's New

Despite constraints imposed by the new coronavirus disease, activists for gender equality gathered at UN Headquarters on Monday for the latest session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), to reinforce the message that women’s rights are human rights. 

On this International Women’s Day, the United Nations issues a call to action on women’s rights and gender equality in Lebanon.

The benefits of gender equality are not just for women and girls, but “for everyone whose lives will be changed by a fairer world”, the chief of UN Women said in her message for International Women’s Day (IWD) at UN Headquarters on Friday, being celebrated in New York, ahead of the official day.

School closures in 13 countries linked to the COVID-19 virus epidemic have disrupted the education of more than 290 million students, a record number, the UN education agency UNESCO said on Thursday.

The UN Secretary-General said on Thursday that he hoped the latest ceasefire agreement between Russia and Turkey to end fighting across Syria’s stricken Idlib region, would finally lead to “an immediate and lasting cessation”, that would protect civilian lives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his opposite number in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reportedly agreed to begin the cessation of hostilities around Idlib, at midnight on Thursday, local time, agreeing also establish a security corridor and joint patrols.

Despite decades of progress in closing the gender equality gap, close to nine out of 10 men and women around the world, hold some sort of bias against women, according to new findings published on Thursday from the UN Development Programmme (UNDP).

Women's Rights in Review, 25 years after Beijing takes stock of how the landmark gender equality plan, the Beijing Platform for Action, is being implemented and calls for greater parity and justice.

Difficult winter weather conditions, road congestion and military manoeuvres are restricting humanitarian aid delivery to desperate civilians in the Syrian province of Idlib, where a Government operation to weed out extremists has uprooted nearly one million people since December. 

Women and children account for more than 80 per cent of the displaced, who are running out of safe places to escape the heavy air and ground strikes. 

Twenty-five years after the historic Beijing women’s conference in China – a milestone in advancing equal rights – violence against women and girls is not only common, but widely accepted, a new UN report revealed on Wednesday.

The United Nations is “determined to stand by” civilians across Syria’s war-torn northwest, as “a grave humanitarian crisis” continues, the UN emergency relief chief said on Tuesday.

Speaking from Hatay, along the Turkish side of the border with Syria, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock, said that displaced civilians were “struggling to survive in horrific conditions”.