I am delighted to be here at this screening of “A Journey of a Thousand Miles”.

Rarely do we get to see the reality of the lives and work of UN peacekeepers.

This excellent documentary provides an intimate insight into the challenges our female UN Police officers face in the field.

The Bangladeshi women portrayed in this film are true agents of change.

Their stories demonstrate the very spirit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

They show us how peace and security are advanced when all members of society enjoy equal protection, equal participation and equal opportunities.

Since I became Secretary-General I have been a proud advocate for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

I have emphasized the critical role of women in forging peace and re-establishing trust in security services after conflict.

That is why we launched a global effort in 2009 to recruit more female police officers into UN peace operations.

Today, UN Police has more than 1,300 female blue berets.

These brave, disciplined and inspirational women are deployed around the world – from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Haiti to Mali and Liberia – as individual police officers or as part of Formed Police Units.

They are doing hard-nosed police work – training their national counterparts on investigations, forensics, transnational organized crime and crowd control.

They also help the United Nations in its efforts to combat sexual exploitation and abuse.

Policing is an essential component of ensuring peace and security.

I urge all Member States to invest in the UN Police and to send the head of their national police to participate in the UN Chiefs of Police Summit, in June, here in New York.

This important forum provides a unique opportunity to promote the links between UN policing and national police services and to learn from different policing approaches.

I thank our female Bangladeshi peacekeepers and others like them, deployed in difficult places around the world, for their sacrifices and their service to peace.

And I thank the filmmakers of “A Journey of a Thousand Miles” for sharing their inspiring story.

Wherever they are deployed, our female police officers protect and inspire local populations and serve as role models for gender equality.

I hope we can increase their numbers even further.

When girls see what women can do, they learn to believe that they can follow the same footsteps.

This is a lesson that we must all learn as we work to create a world of dignity, security and opportunity for all.

As Secretary-General, whenever I have been travelling, whenever I have been meeting with world leaders – Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers or Defense Ministers, I have many different agenda topics, starting from sustainable development, climate change, all very serious topics of crisis – Middle East, Syria etcetera. But one thing which I always almost never forget is asking world leaders to provide more women police officers. We have enough male police officers and male soldiers, but we are seriously lacking the very well trained female police officers whose work has been tested and is much appreciated by local people. That is the main reason why we are having this video screening, and I hope we will be able to count on Member States to provide their well-trained female police officers 1to protect many vulnerable people, particularly women and girls.

I thank you for your commitment.