Finding strength in struggle for gender equality and human rights
SHOBHA SHUKLA - CNS
Gender equality is a bedrock for advancing progress towards all other SDGs goals and targets and global peace
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The year 2025 marks 30 years since the landmark Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action was adopted in 1995. Despite rising anti-rights and anti-gender pushes, some progress on these bold promises gives hope and strength, to strive for achieving SDG5 fully by 2030 or earlier.
"As we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action this year, we are called to reflect not only on how far we have come but how far we must still go. The Beijing Declaration was a bold promise to the world's women and girls that their rights, dignity and health would be non-negotiable, that promise remains unfulfilled," said Nazneen Damji, Chief (ad interim), Governance and Participation Section, and Senior Policy Advisor, Gender Equality, HIV and Health, UN Women.
"Universal health coverage cannot be truly universal if it does not prioritise gender equality and human rights. Health systems that ignore the unique needs and barriers faced by women and girls are not only unjust, they are ineffective," she said in her video message at a special Side Event alongside WHA78 organised by Global Centre for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), International Planned Parenthood Federation, Fos Feminista, CNS, and partners.
"We are facing a rising coordinated push back on women's and girls' health and rights, particularly their sexual and reproductive health and rights. In just the past few months we have seen drastic funding cuts, impacting not only civil society and governments, but also UN agencies that provide abortion care and life-saving HIV treatment. This is not just a budget issue, it is a crisis of political will. Let us be clear: sexual and reproductive health and rights are not optional, they are fundamental human rights and yet only 56% of married women aged 15 to 49 can make decisions about their own reproductive health. This is not a statistic, it is a reflection of deep-rooted structural inequalities and harmful social norms that continue to deny women agency over their own bodies," said Nazneen Damji of UN Women.
The consequences are devastating:
- Every 2 minutes a woman dies from preventable pregnancy related causes
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