women

In Haiti, a Result of Peacekeepers Who Abuse Their Power: ‘Petits Minustahs’

In 2017, a contingent of UN peacekeepers in Haiti holding a closing ceremony to their operations and the start of peacekeepers’ overall withdrawal from the country that year. New research focusing on how sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers in Haiti has affected women and girls there has revealed a nuanced situation linked to extreme, pervasive poverty. LOGAN ABASSI/UN PHOTO

Despite Years of Pledges and Plans, Gender Gaps Persist on a Global Scale

This year, the status of women on many fronts, from political involvement to personal justice, will be evaluated in international forums. It is widely recognized, for starters, that women in poor countries need more access to information on basic health care for themselves and their families. Here, polio vaccination in Afghanistan. CREATIVE COMMONS

Rosemary DiCarlo, the Top-Ranking American at the UN, Describes Her Work Crisscrossing the World

Rosemary DiCarlo, the highest-ranking US official at the UN, is the first person to lead the newly created Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Being the first woman in the post, she said, is a “heavy burden,” as she acts as a model for aspiring men and women at the organization. JOE PENNEY

Mixing Politics and Religion, the US Stalls UN Work on Women’s Rights

President Trump with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, at the 74th session of the General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2019. Melania Trump is in the center. The US is blocking progress on women’s reproductive rights globally. ARIANA LINDQUIST/UN PHOTO
It did not take long after the 74th General Assembly session opened this fall for the Trump team to signal that its strategy in key United Nations meetings would be to act as uncooperative and obstructive as possible, especially on human-rights agendas.

At the Nairobi Summit, Spotlighting the Reproductive Rights of Women and Girls

At the Nairobi summit marking the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population Development, a session focusing on indigenous women and girls featured Tarcila Rivera Zea Chirapaq of Chirapaq, a nonprofit group in Lima, Peru.
NAIROBI, Kenya — More than 6,000 delegates in the population development sector are gathering in the Kenyan capital here this week to renew the promise made to girls and women 25 years ago in Cairo.

Margot Wallstrom’s Feminist Foreign Policy for Sweden Catches On Globally, She Says

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