Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has clearly outlined her commitment to eliminating this scourge of violence against the women of Bangladesh. Nothing hurts her more, she has said, than violence against women. Her government has enacted several strong policies and action plans to promote gender equality and address violence against women, including the Domestic Violence Protection and Preservation Act 2010, National Women Development Policy 2011, Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act 2012 and the Child Marriage Prevention Act 2017, which clearly demonstrate the will to make changes.

With funding from the Government of Australia, UN Women has trained a group of 14 journalists in Papua New Guinea on how to help promote gender equality and women in leadership, and prevent violence against women and girls during elections. Violence typically flares around elections in Papua New Guinea. Votes are currently being counted from this month’s general election.

About 100 people with disabilities from all provinces of Papua New Guinea gathered in Port Moresby to review the National Disability Policy (2015-2025), and some of them talked about the problems they still faced in their daily lives. The National Capital District Diff-Abilities Advocacy Agency, a non-government organization, organized the 27 June-1 July event with support and funding from UN Women and the Government of Australia.

Reti Khatun is a mother who lives in Kulpala village in Chuadanga, a district in southwest Bangladesh that is extremely vulnerable to climate change and long, devastating droughts in the summer. Her husband cannot work because of a disability, so she is the breadwinner of the family as well as caregiver. She used to clean houses for a living, but people stopped calling her during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Press release] Rising violence and insecurity are forcing women in Myanmar to stay away from jobs and healthcare services, says a new UN survey of over 2,200 women, which signals a deterioration of development gains in the country.

Gender-based violence Rapid Response Teams in 17 communities, led by local police, and consisting of a Women’s Union Officer and a Justice Officer, Youth Union Officer or Community Leader, deliver timely and coordinated responses and protection for women and girls experiencing violence in their communities.

Thirty Bangladeshi journalists have learned from UN Women and Deutsche Welle Akademie trainers how to write about women in more sensitive and empowering ways. The 22-24 June workshop encouraged a “gender-responsive journalism” in which, for example, journalists writing stories about crimes against women protect the woman’s privacy and focus on solutions instead of just preventing her as a “victim”.

Women who are “most disadvantaged” need “equal participation in all relevant planning and decision-making processes,” with regards to multi-stakeholder engagement for climate action, said Saad Alfarargi, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development. This includes in particular “women with disabilities, girls and young women, minority women, indigenous women, and members of other disempowered and marginalized groups,” he said.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation (MWCPA) held a high-level public event today to mark the launch of the national consultations across Fiji to produce a whole-of-government and whole-of-community, evidence-based, measurable, inclusive and funded five-year National Action Plan (2021-2026).

Naiyapak Chaipan works for the 1300 Hotline, managed by the Thai government’s Social Assistance Centre that assists women seeking to leave abusive and violent situations. Ms. Chaipan’s work has doubled as the COVID-19 lockdown and travel restrictions have left many women confined with their abusers at home.

Women’s land rights are key to their economic independence and better decision-making power within families. In many parts of the world, research shows that lack of land rights makes women more vulnerable to gender-based violence. Dhana*, 38, is among the 218 gender-based violence survivors who have received life-saving assistance from the ‘Provision of Emergency Legal Assistance to Survivors of Gender-Based Violence in the COVID-19 Context’ project.

UN Women offices around the world have partnered with tech giants like Google, Twitter and Facebook to provide important information about helpline services for domestic violence survivors.

Subina Shrestha is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker from Nepal. Subina has steered major news coverage, often as the only international broadcast journalist on the scene; and told stories of people whose lives have been affected by natural and human-made disasters - from undercover reporting in Myanmar during cyclone Nargis, to investigating child slavery, and to covering Nepal’s earthquake and its aftermath.

[Prress release] Netflix and UN Women today launched “Because She Watched”, a special Netflix collection of series, documentaries, and films to celebrate International Women’s Day. “This collaboration is about taking on the challenge of telling women’s stories and showing women in all their diversity. It's about making visible the invisible, and proving that only by fully representing and including women on screen, behind-the-camera and in our narratives overall, society will truly flourish,” said Anita Bhatia, UN Women Deputy Executive Director. Created for International Women’s Day.

Every morning at 10 a.m., Sok Sopheap sets off to run errands and pick up her two grandchildren from school in Tropang Thom village, southern Cambodia. Sopheap is in her 50’s – a stage in life when many women in her country might slow down – but like many local women, she is bearing an increasingly heavy burden as a result of climate change. Like other villages in Takeo province, Tropang Thom has been in the grip of an oscillating water crisis.

On 30 March 2016, a senior-level United Nations Delegation led by Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Mr. Miroslav Jenča, held an official full-fledged ASEAN-UN Secretariat-to-Secretariat Meeting with the ASEAN Secretariat leadership, headed by the Secretary-General of ASEAN, H.E. Le Luong Minh, at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. Other senior UN officials participating in the meeting included: Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian...

United Nations Country Team in Pakistan condemns in the strongest terms, the murderous attack on hundreds of people at Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park in Lahore, mainly women and children. All people in Pakistan have the right to peaceful lives. Brutality such as that in Lahore contradicts that universal right. Our thoughts are with the Pakistani people, with the victims and their families.

The Secretary-General strongly condemns the suicide bombing on 27 March 2016 at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in the Pakistani city of Lahore, killing at least 60 people and wounding over 100, including many women and children. The Secretary-General calls for the perpetrators of this appalling terrorist act to be brought swiftly to justice, consistent with human rights obligations. He urges the Government to do its utmost to put in place protective measures to ensure the personal...

The news media play a crucial role in helping people to understand the role of women and women’s issues as countries attempt to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. With that in mind, UN Women recently organized a workshop on this topic for 50 journalists from India, Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The workshop, held on 7-8 December in New Delhi, improved the ability of the print, television and online journalists to hold their countries...

Progress towards equality of men and women in the news media has virtually ground to a halt according to the fifth and largest study on the portrayal and representation of women in the news media. Extensive results of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) released 23 November show that, worldwide, women make up about 50 per cent of the general population but only 24 per cent...