women's rights

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.

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

A first-time voter with her ID card at a polling booth during national elections in 2014, in Sikkim. This year’s national election in India spans 39 days across April and May. A new book reveals that 21 million women are not registered to vote, reflecting social resistance to women doing so.
Every national election in India is numerically mind-boggling, and this year is no exception. More than 800 million registered voters are expected to participate in an election spanning 39 days from April 11 to May 19.

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

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are meant to improve the lives of everyone universally, but the system tracking their progress is showing flaws resulting from politics and a heavy reliance on numbers. Women offering food at Cuba’s Independence Day celebration, Caimito, 2015. JOE PENNEY
Serious flaws in the system for tracking progress on the Sustainable Development Goals have been uncovered in a newly published collection of stunning, provocative research by eminent developing policy specialists.

In August, 2017, more than half a million Rohingya refugees flooded across the border from Burma to Bangladesh to escape violence in Rakhine State, including pregnant women and children. The United States gave about $28 million in food and other goods, but the government’s global gag rule banned family planning aid, violating women’s rights, say the authors. ASHIQUE RUSHDI/USAID

At the 2018 meeting of the annual UN megaconference on women, a scene of which is captured above, the United States delegation created controversy over its conservative stances on women’s rights. This year, days before the meeting starts, the US has offered scant information on how it will participate, revealing major disorganization in the government. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN

François Delattre, left, the French ambassador to the UN and president of the Security Council for March, with Christoph Heusgen, Germany’s UN ambassador and president of the Council in April. They presented the agenda of the Council’s first twin presidencies to the media on March 1, 2019.