UN Women Asia and the Pacific

Ayesha Amin, from Pakistan, is a tech and gender activist and the founder Baithak—Challenging Taboos. Photo courtesy of Ayesha Amin

Expanding FemTech to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights

Ayesha Amin is a tech and gender activist and social entrepreneur from Pakistan. She is the founder of the youth- and women-led organization Baithak—Challenging Taboos ... Learn more

In Focus: CSW67 (2023)

The sixty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place from 6 to 17 March 2023 ... Learn more

Athuraheem Habeeba. Photo: UN Women Sri Lanka/Ruvin De Silva

Treading towards a secure future by threading needles and trading produce

The purple and yellow sequinned fabrics that remain just out of focus behind Habeeba almost seem like a metaphor for what she strives to reclaim in her life ... Learn more

nanasegarhm Rangithakaladevi and her mother. Photo: UN Women Sri Lanka/Raveendra Rohana

“It brings much joy when you see your childhood hobby becoming your source of income”

Gnanasegaram makes products from palmyra, Northern Province of Sri Lanka. She recently attended entrepreneurship training given by UN Women as part of a project ... Learn more

Children play outside Marjan’s quarters in a refugee village in Peshawar. Opportunities for socio-cultural activities to engage youth and children are limited but living in close quarters have allowed them to retain a sense of kinship. October 2022. Photo: UN Women Pakistan

Hardship and Joy in an Afghan Refugee Camp in Peshawar

“There was a mehndi and hairstyling competition in the festival. I felt so much joy when I won two prizes,” Marjan giggled shyly. During dialogues with the Afghan and Pakistani host community ... Learn more

Enumerator Velangilala Paletu’a (right) visits the home of Eseta Uasila’a. Photo: UN Women/Montira Narkvichien

“Even though people on the island have hardship … they are ready to deal with future mishaps from climate change or natural disasters.”

Velangilala, among 27 enumerators of Tonga Statistics Department tasked with doing the first survey on gender and environment in Tonga ... Learn more

Highlights

In-Focus: International Women’s Day 2023

The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023 (IWD 2023) is, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.” ...

GenderNet Bootcamp

GenderNet Bootcamp, a collaboration between UN Women Asia-Pacific, UNESCAP, LinkedIn, the 30 for 2030 Network, and digital transformation and inclusion experts to offer a tech aspire to learn and exchanges space targeting youth on Wednesday, 8 March 2023 ...

Navanita Sinha, Head of Office a.i., (left) and Murari Prasad Khanal, Acting Secretary, National Human Rights Commission Nepal (right) sign the MoU on Strengthening Collaboration to Advance Gender Equality and Human Rights. Photo: UN Women/Subeksha Poudel

Strengthening Collaboration to Advance Gender Equality and Human Rights

UN Women and the National Human Rights Commission, Nepal (NHRC) signed a five-year-long memorandum of understanding (MoU) to strengthen collaboration to advance gender equality and human rights in Nepal...

UN Women, UNEP and Sweden Renew Commitment to Support Women’s Resilience to Disasters and Climate Change

With a total of USD 7 million in funding, the next five years of the project EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies (Phase II) will leverage women’s knowledge, capacities and skills towards adapting to and mitigating climate change with a focus on Bangladesh, Cambodia and Viet Nam ...

Experts discuss how to address the gender digital divide

“The consultation shed light on gender differences in interactions with technology and provide a platform to share knowledge on the connections between gender equality, innovation and technology,” said Jeongshim ...

Matafolau Fa’aoa of the Government’s Department of Statistics. Photo: UN Women/Montira Narkvichien

“It’s really important to hear the voices [of] males and females and their unique experiences with the environment.”

The United Nations is marking the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence from 25 November to 10 December 2022, under the global theme set by the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE campaign: “UNiTE! Activism To End Violence Against Women and Girls!” ...

More news

Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

The decree barring women in Afghanistan from working in non-governmental organizations is yet another stark violation of women’s rights

Statement by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous on the Taliban prohibition of women working with national and international non-governmental organizations ... More

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Live streaming

SET Thailand | Ring the Bell for Gender Equality 2023

[Thai/ภาษาไทย] Live from the Stock Exchanges of Thailand. Thursday 9 March 2023, 09:30 – 11:30 A.M.

Featured video

Violence against women is not just a women’s issue but also everyone’s issue

[Bahasa with English subtitle] Indonesian influencers delivered a strong message to end violence against women and girls. In the video, the influencers emphasize the importance of everyone speaking out, solidarity with survivors and advocates, and acts to stop normalizing violence against women and girls.

Featured publication

Gender-related killings of women and girls (femicide/feminicide)

Global estimates of gender-related killings of women and girls in the private sphere in 2021 Improving data to improve responses. The gender-related killing of women and girls is the most brutal and extreme manifestation of such violence. The findings of this report show that in 2021, around 45,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by intimate partners or other family members. This means that more than five women or girls are killed every hour by someone in their own family. While these numbers are alarmingly high, the true scale of femicide may be much higher ... Read more