Nepal’s hospitality and entertainment sector includes dance restaurants, singing or “duet” restaurants, open restaurants, and the smaller snack bars known as cabin restaurants, as well as massage parlours. The workplaces in this sector are sometimes registered and sometimes not, but the women who work there are almost always unregistered. In researching women who work in the small bars and massage parlours...

Donica Pottie, Canadian Ambassador to Thailand, participated as a young diplomat and activist in the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in China, which resulted in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. As the global community prepares to mark 25 years of the Declaration in 2020, she spoke about the challenges facing the new generation of advocates fighting for gender equality and the empowerment...

Gerifel Cerillo is the coordinator of Tanggol Bayi, the Association of Women Human Rights Defenders in the Philippines. In February 2019 she attended the Regional Civil Society Strategizing Workshop in Bangkok for the 63rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women and Beijing + 25 Review. This year’s CSW is focused on social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure. Cerillo’s organization works mostly with the urban poor in and around...

As NGOs or youth representatives, we do not have such a loud voice among the governmental delegations in New York. But it is good for us to negotiate with some of the governments. Some are more supportive than others, of course, but for example Australia and Nepal are really pushing for our agenda in their meetings. And if the right recommendations are then adopted, then this makes it easier for Y-PEER to then deal with other governments...

Every year thousands of activists from civil society organizations around the world come to New York to take part in the Commission on the Status of Women, the global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women...