Message from the Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees
on International Women's Day

To commemorate March 8, International Women's Day this year, the United Nations Family has chosen the theme of Gender and the Millennium Development Goals: Education, Health and Poverty Eradication. In September 2000, all Member States of the UN endorsed the eight Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), which are specific, time-bound commitments for the promotion of equitable and sustainable development in the 21st century. A gender equality perspective is recognised as a path to realising this vision of a better world, and is thus acknowledged as critical to attaining all eight Goals, as well as being one of the specific Goals.

International Women's Day is always an opportunity to take stock of the progress and the persisting challenges related to the advancement and empowerment of women and girls. This year UNHCR will use its gender equality lens to look at two issues related to the MDGs - increasing protection of refugee women and girls through education and the progress made in putting women staff into decision-making positions in UNHCR.

Education and literacy are key for empowering women and preparing girls for future roles. Globally, for the years 2000-2001, the ratio of boys to girls enrolment in UNHCR-assisted education programmes alone has averaged 42% female to 58% male¹. A further breakdown of these broad enrolment trends suggest that the gap in the ratio of boys to girls in education widens as the grade of education increases. Thus, whilst 41% of beneficiaries of UNHCR-assisted primary education programmes in 2000 were female, the proportion dropped to 33% at the level of secondary education². In 2002, of 75 country programmes reviewed, the proportion of female students in primary education was 39%, whilst this percentage dropped further to 29% at the secondary level³.

These figures confirm the need to strengthen partnerships and bolster efforts to promote girls education in UNHCR-assisted and other programmes which address the needs of refugees, if we are to meet the target - outlined in the Millennium Development Goals for narrowing the gender gap in primary and secondary education by 2005, and for ensuring that by 2015, all children complete a full course of primary education.4

Parental attitudes towards their girl children, dependence on the labour of girl-children, psychological and sexual harassment of girls in school, early marriage, teenage pregnancies, inability of girls to access sanitary materials, absence of female role models in the classroom and lack of separate toilet facilities for boys and girls are all factors that can influence whether or not girls enrol and remain in school. In some circumstances, girls (and boys) are susceptible to military recruitment as a result of lack of, or limited education or vocational training opportunities.

In various operations around the world, efforts are being made by UNHCR and its partners to remove persisting obstacles to girls' education. These important contributions need to be strengthened and replicated wherever possible. They include the establishment of co-study groups by girls, recruitment of female teachers and classroom assistants, distribution of sanitary napkins to girls, targeting girls for scholarships opportunities to increase their participation in formal education, provision of child-care facilities for adolescent mothers, educating boys to support girls' participation in schools and building alliances with parents to promote their daughters' education. Many of the above measures are the result of consultations with young people – a strategy that must be continued.

The recently completed evaluation and assessment of UNHCR's policy commitments to meet the rights and protection needs of refugee children and refugee women, as well as that of the community services function, all underline the need to focus more attention on addressing protection needs of adolescent girls in the future. Building partnerships to promote girls' education constitutes an important step in meeting this recommendation.

In refugee communities UNHCR works to ensure that women are represented equally in decision-making structures. These efforts can be related to a commitment to improving the representation of female staff at the highest level of decision-making in UNHCR. In this regard, the global picture to date of women represented at the most senior levels of the Organisation (P5-D2) averages 25%. Working to achieve gender parity in the representation of women at the highest levels of decision-making is a challenge which requires continued and focused attention.

The MDGs are an important vehicle to address this challenge. These are not new goals – they reiterate the need for further progress in some of the 12 areas in the Beijing Platform for Action and they also support the goals of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Some of the 48 indicators will help to measure progress in women's legal rights, literacy and participation in public life and decision-making.

On this International Women's Day, let us re-commit ourselves to challenging gender inequalities wherever they occur. This is the most secure path to strengthening protection of refugees and for meeting the targets of the Millennium Development Goals.

I wish you all a memorable International Women's Day.

Mary Ann Wyrsch

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