Stories
- COVID-19 (122)
- Health (45)
- Ending violence against women and girls (31)
- Economic empowerment (30)
- Humanitarian action (22)
- Crisis response and recovery (16)
- Executive Director (14)
- Gender equality and women’s empowerment (12)
- Leadership and political participation (9)
- Rural women (7)
- Employment (7)
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Take five: An intersectional approach to empowering women and girls with disabilities
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
A.H. Monjurul Kabir is the UN Coordination Adviser on Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion. He leads UN Women’s Global Task Team on Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality. In 2019, 55 UN Women offices (in addition to our work through the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women) supported women and girls with disabilities across all areas of work through the provision of normative guidance, integrated policy advice, knowledge management, operational support and capacity development. In this interview, Mr. Kabir talks about the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls with disabilities and the need for an intersectional approach.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Galvanizes partners to fund organizations, respond to survivors’ needs, prevent violence and collect data to build a post-pandemic “new normal” as the 16 days of Activism campaign kicks off
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
The UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE Campaign to End Violence against Women will commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November. The International Day and virtual event will kickstart the global mobilization of the 16 Days of Activism campaign – running from 25 November until 10 December – under the theme: “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!”.
Hand over the mic: Women on the front lines of violence against women during COVID-19
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Along with UN Women, our UN partners are working to end violence against women and girls. Hear from women leaders who are part of UN programmes from Kosovo to Kenya, who highlight what they need to stop the escalating violence, recover and rebuild after COVID-19.
What happened after COVID-19 hit: Lebanon
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Meserat Hailu, was 29 years old when she travelled to Beirut, Lebanon as an Ethiopian migrant domestic worker. For more than eight years, she suffered abuse by her employer until Legal Action Worldwide received word of her situation and took up her case and demanded her release.
What happened after COVID-19: Albania
Monday, November 16, 2020
Jana Kote* and her three children lived with an abusive husband and father for 12 years until they received support from a local organization, Human Rights in Democracy Centre, based in Tirana, the capital of Albania.
Monday, November 16, 2020
In a letter addressed to Member States of the United Nations and the Head of Delegation of the European Union, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka urged Heads of State/Governments worldwide to take tangible actions and express their commitments to end violence against women, on the occasion of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (25 November – 10 December).
Monday, November 9, 2020
Gladys Koech has been working as an occupational therapist for persons with disabilities in Kenya’s coastal region for more than 10 years. Through the Association of the Physically Disabled of Kenya (APDK), she also works with communities to strengthen their understanding of disabilities and combat widespread stigma. UN Women’s partnership with the Council of Governors in Kenya has boosted resources to helplines around the country. As COVID-19 has increased demand for psychosocial services, Koech has witnessed a growing trend of mothers of children with disabilities being abandoned by their partners. Part of UN Women’s COVID-19 response in Kenya is being carried out in conjunction with UNICEF and UNDP as part of the Joint Devolution Programme supported by the Governments of Sweden, Finland, and Italy.
Op-ed: Where is the economic stimulus for women?
Thursday, October 15, 2020
UN Women Deputy Executive Director Anita Bhatia calls for governments and international institutions to take decisive action in favor of women, before progress achieved in the last decades is lost.
Rural women lead solutions and solidarity in the wake of COVID-19
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
This year on International Day of Rural Women (15 October), UN Women is drawing attention to the urgent need to build rural women’s resilience in the wake of COVID-19 by strengthening their livelihoods and wellbeing. Take a look at just five ways that rural women are feeling the impacts of COVID-19 and leading the response in their communities.
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
As COVID-19 confinement measures started in Colombia, the country saw a rise in cases of violence against women, including those reported through hotline numbers. There was a 107 per cent increase in calls for help this year, between 25 March and 30 July, in comparison to the same period in 2019. Eighty-nine per cent of those calls were rerouted to hotlines dedicated to serve victims and survivors of violence against women.
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
On the International Day of Rural Women, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka calls for building rural women’s resilience in the wake of COVID-19.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
In her remarks at the “Gender-Based Violence in a COVID-19 context – activating collective responses, innovative partnerships and proven policies” event, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said: "The pandemic has forced us all to think differently and re-build better and that is now what we need to spell out in much more detail. What does it mean to build back better in the context of violence against women, for instance?"
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
There is a need to mobilise all actors to address gender-based violence in the context of COVID-19, and to FUND women’s organisations and services, RESPOND by strengthening services to survivors, PREVENT by addressing harmful social norms that normalise violence against women and COLLECT data to inform policies and programmes.
Monday, September 28, 2020
UN Women and UNDP’s newly launched COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker shows the social protection and jobs response to the pandemic has largely overlooked women’s needs.
COVID-19 and its economic toll on women: The story behind the numbers
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
While everyone is facing unprecedented challenges, women are bearing the brunt of the economic and social fallout of COVID-19. Here’s how COVID-19 is rolling back on women’s economic gains of past decades, unless we act now, and act deliberately.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
UN Women and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have announced a new collaboration that would aim to protect women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region from the COVID-19 pandemic’s multiple negative consequences on jobs, livelihoods and well-being.
In Palestine one couple shows the benefit of sharing the care at home
Thursday, September 3, 2020
Ilham Edaes, a 28-year-old health worker in the West Bank, Palestine has been back to work, every day, since May, serving the hardest-to-reach communities through a mobile clinic that offers breast cancer screening. Edaes has a five-year-old son, Majd, who is growing up watching his parents share childcare and domestic chores – an unusual occurrence in the region, where domestic and unpaid care work is largely seen as women’s work.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
The pandemic will push 47 million more women and girls below the poverty line, reversing decades of progress to eradicate extreme poverty.
Expert’s take: Four lessons from COVID-19 that should shape policy decisions everywhere
Friday, August 28, 2020
Laura Turquet is a Policy Advisor at UN Women, where she leads the organisation’s flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women. For the past decade, she has worked at UN Women leading major research and data initiatives that inform the organization’s advocacy objectives and empower civil society and governments to seek and implement change. She is also a co-founder of the UN Feminist Network.