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<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1058021?utm_source=UN+News+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c4acdfa02f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_25_08_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fdbf1af606-c4acdfa02f-105792637" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:blue">https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1058021?utm_source=UN+News+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c4acdfa02f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_25_08_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fdbf1af606-c4acdfa02f-105792637</span></a></p>
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<i><span style="font-size:14.0pt">UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WARNS OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS COMPLACENCY</span></i></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.6pt;">UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachele addresses the High-level segment of the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council in
Geneva.</span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#737373">25 February 2020 -
</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#4D4D4D">Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has warned against complacency on women’s rights at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing
Declaration, a landmark agenda for the empowerment of women.</span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Ms. Bachelet, taking part in a panel discussion, held at the UN <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/Home.aspx" target="_blank" title="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/Home.aspx" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">Human
Rights Council</span></a> on Tuesday, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25607&LangID=E" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">said</span></a> that the <a href="https://beijing20.unwomen.org/en/about" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">Beijing
Declaration</span></a> should be celebrated but noted that the Plan of Action agreed at the event is still unfinished.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">According to Ms. Bachelet, the risks of setbacks to women’s rights are real, and growing. The rights chief noted that, whilst the Beijing conference is recognized as a demonstration
of strong collective commitment to human rights, the scenario 25 years later is quite different.</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:#1C2022"></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#1C2022">We must resist all challenges to the hard-won affirmation of what we know: women’s rights ARE human rights, and they are not negotiable. Human dignity cannot be dissected,
compartmentalized, compromised – nor can it be a privilege of few.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IStandWithHer?src=hash" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">#IStandWithHer</span></a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Beijing25?src=hash" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">#Beijing25</span></a>
<a href="https://t.co/Ex9DrWZyq7" target="_blank" title="https://twitter.com/UNHumanRights/status/1232376578501414915" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">https://</span><span style="color:#2B7BB9">twitter.com/UNHumanRights/</span><span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">status/1232376578501414915 </span><span style="color:#2B7BB9">…</span></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#1C2022"></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">"Women's rights are threatened and attacked" on many fronts, she warned, adding that there over this period there has been “a backlash and the resurgence of gender inequality
narratives based on age-old discrimination”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">However, for the UN human rights chief, women's rights are not negotiable: "they cannot be an optional policy, subject to the changing winds of politics," she warned. According
to Ms. Bachelet, the women’s rights agenda must not be torn apart by the establishment of a hierarchy between what is acceptable and what is deemed “too sensitive”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Ms. Bachelet called on the international community to “resist any challenge to a hard-won affirmation, namely that women’s rights are human rights. "Human dignity cannot be dissected,
compartmentalized, negotiated, nor be the privilege of the few," she said.</span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#0072BB">Guterres concerned by setbacks to women’s rights</span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">However, Ms. Bachelet declared that the gains made since the 1995 declaration were nothing less than revolutionary: “although we are still far from parity, the number of women
national parliamentarians has almost doubled. More than 150 countries now have laws on sexual harassment. The number of child marriages has decreased worldwide”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">The High Commissioner highlighted the progress noted in the recording of data on violence against women worldwide. In addition, the percentage of women in gainful employment has
increased, and more than 140 countries guarantee gender equality in their constitution.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Ms. Bachelet also welcomed the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1057961" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">speech</span></a> delivered
to the Human Rights Council by UN <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/" target="_blank" title="António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">Secretary-General António
Guterres</span></a> on Monday.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">As part of his Call to Action for human rights, Mr. Guterres called on every country to “support policies and legislation that promote gender equality, to repeal discriminatory
laws, to end violence against women and girls and to strive for equal representation and participation of women in all areas”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">In his speech, Mr. Guterres also worried about “setbacks to women's rights, alarming levels of feminicide, attacks on women's rights defenders, and the persistence of laws and
policies that perpetuate submission and exclusion”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“Violence against women and girls”, he said, “is the most widespread human rights violation”.</span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#0072BB">Women’s rights progress ‘slow and uneven’</span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Ms. Bachelet affirmed that the Beijing agreement was neither a coincidence nor an accident, but rather the result of deliberate action by governments, civil society and other
partners.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“Over the past 25 years, we have built up good practices and are well equipped to speed up progress even more,” she said, asking stakeholders to rediscover the “unity and vision,
as well as the purpose and determination that prevailed in Beijing”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Executive Director of <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">UN-Women</span></a> reported
“slow and uneven progress” on women’s rights, including the gap in the labour market.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“Although the employment rate has decreased in recent years, many women are employed and doing unpaid domestic work”.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Violence against women and girls persists, and remains a globally endemic crisis, she said, adding that more measures must be adopted, and Member States must reaffirm forcefully
the commitments made in the Beijing Platform for Action.</span></p>
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