“Gender equality is rising extra distant. On the present observe, UN Girls places it 300 years away,” the United Nations secretary-general stated in a Basic Meeting speech forward of Worldwide Girls’s Day on March 8, as he launched two weeks of discussions led by the Fee on the Standing of Girls.

“Girls’s rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the globe,” he added, as he ticked off a litany of crises: maternal mortality, ladies ousted from college, caregivers denied work and kids pressured into early marriage.

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“Progress received over a long time is vanishing earlier than our eyes,” Guterres stated.

He highlighted the notably dire circumstances in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the place “ladies and ladies have been erased from public life.”

He didn’t identify different particular nations, however Guterres burdened that “in lots of locations, ladies’s sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled again (and) in some nations, ladies going to high school danger kidnapping and assault.”

Additionally left unmentioned was Iran, which was expelled late final yr from the Fee on the Standing of Girls because of the nation’s repression of a female-led revolt since final September.

The Islamic Republic was ousted from the fee on December 14 by a US-led vote of the UN Financial and Social Council, or ECOSOC.

“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and dangerous stereotypes have created an enormous gender hole in science and expertise,” Guterres stated, citing for instance how ladies characterize solely three p.c of Nobel prize winners within the sectors.

He known as for “collective motion” worldwide by governments, civil society and the non-public sector to supply gender-responsive schooling, enhance abilities coaching and make investments extra in “bridging the digital gender divide.”

“The patriarchy is combating again. However so are we,” Guterres added.

“The United Nations stands with ladies and ladies in every single place.”