Amal Clooney, the British human-rights lawyer, told the Security Council that now is its “Nuremberg moment” to push for prosecuting cases of sexual violence in conflict. Nadia Murad, right, a Yazidi, had been held by ISIS in Iraq. In 2018, Murad won the Nobel Peace Prize with Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese, for their work to end sexual atrocities.
In a refugee camp in South Sudan, people escape the fighting in the country’s civil war, including rampant rape by militias and national armed forces. Members of the UN Security Council are drafting a resolution to strengthen such victims’ rights, but the United States is refusing language on sexual and reproductive health services. GEOFF PUGH
In a refugee camp in South Sudan, people escape the fighting in the country’s civil war, including rampant rape by militias and national armed forces. Members of the UN Security Council are drafting a resolution to strengthen victims’ rights, but the United States is resisting language on sexual and reproductive health services. GEOFF PUGH
A new advocacy campaign started by Madre, an American nonprofit group, aims to introduce women in the developing world to lawmakers in Washington to explain how US foreign policy affects women at the receiving end. Life in Burkina Faso, above, can entail battling bad air, terrorist threats and poor maternal health. DULCIE LEIMBACH
“To reboot the world, we need to change the way we make policies,” says the New York-based advocacy group Madre, whose latest goal is nothing less than to “bring global women’s voices and solutions to progressive policymaking in the US.”
Christoph Heusgen, Germany’s ambassador to the UN and rotating president of the Security Council for April, introduced a German-made hourglass in Council meetings to keep speeches to five minutes each. The Russian ambassador asked in one instance that the timer be laid flat when he spoke. ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
India is swept up in a growing “maternalization” trend: the federal government is offering cash-transfer programs to pregnant women to improve maternal health, sidelining other safety-net programs for women. ADAM JONES/CREATIVE COMMONS
Social policy in developing countries provides crucial assistance to women, but evidence shows that it is increasingly being limited to women who are mothers. India is a vivid case in point.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with President Trump at lunch with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Hanoi, Feb. 27, 2019. Pompeo and Trump marked international women’s month in March by actively eroding the reproductive health rights of women globally. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT
Here’s how the United States government marked the 2019 monthlong celebration of the world’s women in March:
City life in Bangkok, above. A new World Bank report found that work and legal protections are missing in rich and poor countries alike, including the US. Only six nations, all in Europe, scored perfectly in providing women equal legal standing as men across their working lives. UN WOMEN
So how are women doing these days, during the global push for gender equality? Not all that great in work and legal protections, according to a new World Bank report, even in some prosperous countries — including the United States.
Hasmik Egian, center, director of the Security Council Affairs Division of the UN, receiving requests from diplomats who want to speak at the emergency Council session on Venezuela, Jan. 26, 2019. MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO
Jockeying for a two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council starts early — way early. Three countries are already vying for the two open seats in the regional group known as Weog — Western Europe and Others — for the 2021-22 term. The election is June 2020, and the “others” are Australia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand.
Abigail Disney, the filmmaker, in 2009. In an interview about women peacemakers and the current debut of her second documentary series of “Women, War & Peace,” she said: “I’m very consciously trying to interrupt the sleepy narrative of war in the American cultural landscape.” EIRIK SOLHEIM
Abigail Disney is an American filmmaker and philanthropist who founded Fork Films and Peace Is Loud, an advocacy group. She also founded — with her husband, Pierre Hauser — the Daphne Foundation.
