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
The intensifying controversy over decriminalizing “sex work” has prompted the head of UN Women to declare its neutrality on the subject, possibly further enflaming the dispute as preparations marking women’s rights begin for 2020. CREATIVE COMMONS
Scenes from a UN women, peace and security in Mali event, with Margot Wallstrom, Sweden’s foreign minister, one of the speakers, Oct. 22, 2015. Wallstrom, who created the world’s first feminist foreign policy, has left the Swedish ministry after five whirlwind years. Her “political engagement,” she said in an interview with PassBlue, is hardly over. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s top diplomat to the UN, briefing the media, Oct. 16, 2019. Russia and Iran have been vigorously protesting US visa denials to dozens of their diplomats. Our new podcast episode explains their strategy. LOEY FELIPE/UN PHOTO
While Turkey has carried out its plan to invade northeast Syria and the United Nations Security Council has failed to react in a unified way, Russia and Iran have been making their own moves in the UN headquarters in New York, to achieve a political goal: disrupting crucial General Assembly committees.
A coalition of civil society organizations is petitioning UN Women, which is devoted to promoting gender equality worldwide, to think twice about supporting the decriminalization of prostitution, as UN preparations begin to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing women’s rights conference in 2020.
A group of civil society organizations is warning that a growing global movement to decriminalize and rebrand prostitution as “sex work” could lead to more, not less, violence against the world’s most vulnerable women and girls.
Women in Uruguay preparing to participate in an International Women’s Day march, 2019. New global plans are underway to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing conference advancing women’s rights in 2020, including events to be held in Mexico, France and New York. The efforts will not be easy. CREATIVE COMMONS
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.
Koki Muli Grignon, a Kenyan diplomat, center, who managed the negotiations on the final document summarizing the annual UN meeting on women’s rights, told delegates that she had been sent nearly 1,000 text messages attacking her because of her work leading the debate. LAURA E. KIRKPATRICK
Ana Menéndez, a former Spanish diplomat, leads the UN’s internal gender parity strategy and oversees the institution’s policymaking. In an interview with PassBlue, she said that the UN stands for certain “values,” and an integral part of those beliefs is gender equality. Here, she attends a UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting, March 2019. AMANDA VOISARD/UN WOMEN
