President Carlos Alvarado Quesada of Costa Rica wore a mask during his entire video speech to the UN General Assembly high-level debate this year. Of 190 leaders who spoke, only 9 were women. JOHN PENNEY
Vice President Epsy Campbell Barr of Costa Rica. She was among the numerous women vice presidents from Latin America who spoke at the UN’s Beijing+25 commemoration on Oct. 1.
The first lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton, addressing the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, Sept. 5, 1995. Twenty-five years later, a prominent American feminist asks in an essay, where do women stand now? (Hint: She’s optimistic.) MILTON GRANT/UN PHOTO
The 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing; the United States sanctions the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court; dissecting the failed ambitions of the US effort to force the UN mission in Lebanon to be more aggressive.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland, June 15, 2020, in Helsinki. One major gain for women since the 1995 Beijing conference on gender equality has been a rise in female representation in national legislatures. Only 21 countries, however, have female national executives, the author notes. LAURI HEIKKINEN/GOVERNMENT OF FINLAND
UN Women’s executive director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ncguka, speaking at the Commission on the Status of Women’s annual meeting in March 2020, at UN headquarters. The conference had been cut to a single day from 11, as the Covid-19 virus began racing from China to the rest of the world. Now, the Generation Equality Forum is postponed until 2021. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN
UN Women is postponing two long-planned international meetings designed to give civil society groups a leading role in advancing gender rights 25 years after a landmark 1995 Beijing conference on women.
UN headquarters in New York, during the opening of the General Assembly’s annual debate, above, September 2019. The Generation Equality Forum scheduled for May in Mexico City, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing conference on women’s rights, is likely to be postponed or cancelled. AMANDA VOISARD/UN PHOTO
Another highlight of the year marking the 25th anniversary of a breakthrough international conference in Beijing on women’s rights has fallen victim to the global march of the new coronavirus, Covid-19.
Grammy Award-winning singer and a goodwill ambassador for Unicef, Angélique Kidjo performing at an event for International Women’s Day, March 2020. This year was supposed to be a time for heralding women’s rights, but so far that is not working out. ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
This year was intended to be a celebratory time for women: the 25th anniversary of the momentous Beijing conference on women’s rights and how to advance them. It isn’t working out that way, however, as a global health crisis and disagreements among advocates for women rewrite the script.
A participant at the 2019 annual women’s rights meeting at the UN in New York. This year’s preparations for the gathering, held in early March, have already forced diplomats working on a political declaration to take sides in promoting or excluding certain rights. AMANDA VOISARD/UN WOMEN
The annual Commission on the Status of Women, 2019. This year’s meeting, March 9-20, could be as contentious on such sensitive topics as reproductive health rights as they were last year. This time, however, the session reviews the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the global blueprint for empowering women. Serious gaps remain on gender equality. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN
A detail from a mural being painted on a memorial for victims of Guatemala’s civil war, San Juan Comalapa, 2018. As UN-led global commemorations push ahead on women’s rights and equality in 2020, a set of six “action coalition” themes was announced by UN Women. Not everyone is happy with the topics. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN
