This population group remains unable to organize, believe and speak freely, while at the same time suffering the consequences of social restrictions, recently assured Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on the problem.
“Women and girls continue to be murdered because of their sex and gender and are more vulnerable to femicide when the fact of being women and girls intersects with other reasons or identities,” the expert said this Thursday before the meeting of the Third Commission of the General meeting in New York.
The setbacks coincide with the numerous crises caused by wars, climate change, poverty and the scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the middle of the path outlined for the 2030 Agenda, these factors have a significant impact and have an uneven impact on these population groups.
According to the rapporteur, the fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 is at risk because almost half of married women currently have no decision-making power over their health and sexual and reproductive rights.
While the UN proposes the goal of eliminating harmful practices such as early or forced marriage and female genital mutilation, almost 736 million people are victims of physical or sexual violence by their partner or sexual violence by an unrelated person.
According to the World Health Organization, this figure has remained virtually unchanged over the past decade, contradicting the goal of ending all forms of discrimination and violence against the sector.
Other data confirm that intimate partner violence is the most common form. Around 641 million women are affected worldwide, with younger women particularly at risk.
One in four women between the ages of 15 and 24 will be raped by their partner by the age of twenty. However, the path outlined by the United Nations aims to adapt and strengthen legislation to promote gender equality and women’s autonomy.
“In some countries we have seen worrying regressions in the ability to access education, move freely and access sexual and reproductive health,” Alsalem said, acknowledging that “we are not even close to Goal No 5 for sustainable development are close”.
Gender equality cannot be achieved without ensuring the enjoyment of fundamental human rights and equal and non-discriminatory participation in society, emphasized the rapporteur.
In this sense, he recognized the adverse nature of the context when 50 countries have nationality laws containing discriminatory provisions based on gender.
Meanwhile, in another 24 of these countries, women are denied the right to grant citizenship to their children on an equal basis with men.
Discrimination based on sex and gender in such regimes is a major cause of statelessness, Alsalem claimed.
“Let us not be mistaken; “Statelessness and gender-discriminatory nationality laws constitute violence against women as they constitute serious forms of discrimination within the meaning of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women,” she stressed.
The situation of SDG five brings together calls from the multilateral organization and its experts to defend the spirit and meaning of fundamental human rights obligations and to achieve the goal of equality; today more necessary than ever.
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