Women accuse UN over equal rights

More than 240 women from at least 50 countries accused UN secretary-general Kofi Annan yesterday of paying lip service to gender equality but failing to take action to promote women and their rights.

In an open letter to Mr Annan, the women said they were “disappointed and frankly outraged” that strengthening the UN machinery focusing on women is not a central part of its reform agenda.

They also expressed deep concern “that the position of women in high-level UN posts has stagnated”.

Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, said: “We are really disappointed that once more we have to be here asking: ’Where are the women? Where’s the money? Where’s the commitment in concrete terms?’

“Although we’ve had a lot of rhetorical commitment to women’s rights, it still hasn’t made it on to the big agenda of UN reform.”

At the 1995 UN women’s conference in Beijing, and at the 10-year review last year, commitments were made by the United Nations and governments to achieve equality of the sexes.

Ms Bunch said: “If we’re really going to say that women’s equality is at the centre of the 21st century, then it’s time to have a new look at UN reform from the eyes of women.”

The women who signed the letter are attending the 50th session of the Commission on the Status of Women and come from more than 70 organisations.

They urged Mr Annan in his address to the commission tomorrow, which is International Women’s Day, “to announce concrete proposals for advancing gender equality” and strengthening the UN bodies that work for women’s rights.

June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation, said women attending the commission’s two-week meeting “are demanding that in … this critical time of UN reform, that women be seated at every decision-making table in these discussions and that the women’s equality agenda be adressed”.

The letter noted that a high-level panel appointed recently to study how the UN system deals with development, humanitaran assistance and the environment has only three women out of 15 members.

This week, the UN announced an all-male shortlist for the new executive director of the UN Environment Programme, despite a campaign by women’s groups to appoint a woman.

Ms Zeitlin singled out Norway’s former development and aid minister Hilde Johnson as very well qualified for the job.

“This disparity between men and women at the UN is getting worse and we’re really at an all-time low,” she said. “In 2006, this is just unacceptable in an institution that’s committed to gender equality and women’s participation in decision-making.”

Last Friday, Mr Annan’s chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown was appointed to replace Louise Frechette as deputy secretary-general when she steps down on March 31.

Pawadee Tonguthai, head of Asia Pacific Women’s Watch, who spoke on behalf of women in the region, said they protest against ”the fact that the UN hasn’t been acting as a role model for governments in terms of putting more women in decision-making roles or taking care of this equal participation by women.

“If you don’t have the UN as a role model, the government itself will also go backward.”