Making the United Nations Relevant to all People– As delivered –
Statement by H.E. Mrs. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly
8 March 2019
Mr. Secretary-General, António Guterres, thank you for being a champion of women’s rights,
Madam Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed,
Madam Executive Director, UN Women,
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,
Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations and Chair of the 63rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women,
Ms. Maria Luiza Viotti, Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-Generalm
Ms. Venus Ilagan, Secretary-General, Rehabilitation International,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Queridas Hermanas,
I am so grateful to UN Women for convening this event, and for the crucial work you all do every day for women and girls around the world.
International Women’s Day is an opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made on gender equality and women’s empowerment. It is a day to express solidarity with the feministas – women and men – who continue to fight discrimination. And it is a day, I confess, I approach with mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it is important that we celebrate the gains we have made. Last year, Barbados, Ethiopia, Georgia, Romania and Trinidad and Tobago welcomed their first female leaders. Uruguay saw its first conviction for femicide. Bangladesh banned the degrading “two-finger” test in rape trials.
At the UN, thanks to the Secretary-General’s leadership, gender parity was achieved within the senior management team, among the heads of UN country teams, and the heads of regional economic commissions. And from Kansas to Kabul, women around the world continued to raise their voices under banners like #MeToo, #NiUnaMenos and #WhereIsMyName?
On the other hand, nearly four decades after the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted, nearly 25 years after the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we are still not even close to equal.
Excellencies,
Each year, International Women’s Day brings with it a list of depressing statistics.
Some 16 million girls will never set foot in a classroom. One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence. Over 70 percent of people trafficked are female.
On pretty much any measure of development, women are behind. Add in factors like ethnicity, poverty or disability and the figures are even worse. For example, women with disabilities are twice as likely to suffer physical violence. More than half of all poor rural women lack basic literacy skills.
These statistics are shocking. But they will come as no surprise to half the people in this room.
Every woman and girl knows that her lived reality is very different to that of her father or brother. For us, simple things – going to school, deciding what to wear, using the toilet, meeting a male friend – can be matters of life and death.
Dear friends,
The first International Women’s Day celebrations took place over 100 years ago. How much longer can the world afford to leave our potential untapped?
We have just 11 years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. According to the World Bank, limited educational opportunities for girls are robbing the world of between 15 and 30 trillion dollars in lost productivity.
We desperately need to close the gender education gap and get more women into science and technology. We need more inventors like Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad, who – at the age of just 16 – found a way to convert plastic waste into biofuel and Kiara Nirghin, who – also at the age of just 16 – used orange peel to develop a low-cost material to help soil retain water. Kiara is here with us and it is excellent that this event, and CSW, are putting emphasis on female innovators.
Excellencies,
Supporting innovation, ensuring that the needs and experiences of women and girls are embedded in urban planning, in new technologies – these are practical steps that UN agencies, that governments and communities can take.
But clearly, we need to look beyond policies. Several countries have had decades of equal pay legislation. But the gender pay gap will only close in 2086 at the current rate of progress.
Every woman and girl knows that her lived reality is very different to that of her father or brother. For us, simple things – going to school, deciding what to wear, using the toilet, meeting a male friend – can be matters of life and death.
So, what can we do?
I believe that there are two things we should prioritize.
First, boosting the number and diversity of women in leadership positions. Just 20 countries have female leaders. Less than a quarter of parliamentarians are women. Just five percent of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs.
On 12th of March, I will be holding a high-level event on Women In Power, bringing together female world leaders and youth leaders, to get them working collectively – across generations, regions and sectors – on this goal.
Second, increasing our support to grassroots organizations. Time and again, we have seen that bold action by leaders requires pressure from below. That was the case with women’s suffrage, with the landmine ban, with the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons adopted just two years ago.
We need to make sure that funding goes to those who really know what is needed on the ground; and whose actions guarantee enduring transformation.
Dear friends,
Next year, the international community will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. And rightly so.
But we should also feel a sense of shame. For too many women, the vision of Beijing remains a distant dream. And the gains we have made are under threat, from factors such as discrimination, violence and soaring inequality.
So, I hope that the coming months will see the global movement for gender equality grow stronger. We must show our impatience and anger. We must take the fight into our communities, and into the corridors of power.
Let us not forget Audre Lorde’s powerful words: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
Thank you.
