UN Women's channel

Even though women are half the humanity, women are suffering, are suffering from exclusion, from discrimination and from violence That's why UN Women was developed to trigger progress on gender quality women on Parliament and women's rights. It is one of our priorities, to ensure an environment that will permit women to live free of violence. Haiti is not different from many parts of the world in terms that women are disproportionally affected by political conflict and, of course, a natural disaster like an earthquake Unfortunately war affects disproportionally women One of the problems we see in conflicts like Liberia is that conflict ends, peace is signed, but violence against women doesn't end. But mainly I see women as strong contributors of peace. So we support an iniciative called Peace Huts “we follow the investigations. When they hear the police say there is no evidence of this kind, we'll give them evidence. Come, let's show you the evidence!” Imagine fifty women all walking to one wall and telling the man: you touch her again we'll take you to the police. Then women come out of the wall now taking their own security in their own hands and saying No, we can't allow this more. They have been able to give women much better conditions than in the past. So there is a place, there is a very good model of women's empowerment. If we want a world that is more balanced that can assure peace and security for everyone, we need more women participating in decision making in politics. We have been working in India for some time. As a matter of fact we did work on a project to support women as candidates to their “Punjaba “ Council. One million women were elected. If you look at it, it's probably the biggest absolute number in the world. UN Women in Egypt identified as a problem that a lot of women didn't have IDs, not only they did not permit them to vote but also not to have benefits of normal rights because of the lack of identity cards. We are starting with a pilot project forty thousand women had no identity cards. We got them to fill up applications which have been sent to the Civil Registry We made a partnership with with te Egyptian government and we provided identity cards so they were able to not only vote, but also to be a full citizen in other dimensions. “I can now register my children in school and buy a small part of land” I feel safer and more secure with an ID” “I'm getting married after the I will use my ID for my marriage certificate. Without an ID I have no rights.” All the study shows that when women are economically in power, everybody wins. Working with illiterate grandmothers from very rural villages to build a solar power pannel that will bring light. If you have light in some place you can have a small health care facility, you can have vaccines, children could have more time with light to study and they can also produce pannels and sell them so they can generate an income. Talking to one woman once she said: “You know what? Yes, I want to be seated on the table, but that's not it. I want to discuss the shape of the table, where we are gonna be seated.” On behalf of UN Women it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Rio+20 Women's leader summit In Rio+20 we had a very important meeting with women head of states , head of governments. to commit to a future with sustainable development a future with peace and a future of a world where women can live free of violence. Societies where women are free and equal are more successful and more developed We cannot meet our global challenges without the full participation of half the world's population I can today say that the system where the actual plan has been developed under the auspices of UN Women and with a group of UN institutions represents an enormous step forward I think it has provided all of us with a common agenda and above all with a common framework to which we can work in the years that lie ahead Half of humanity has been discriminated almost in all history and it is about time that we wake up on the need for empowerment of women We need to raise the status of women in the world and in every country we need to see the institutionlized system of women being protected and promoted. By working closely with UN Women we can actually do a lot to bring awareness to crimes against women but also to see how we can address these crimes. In accordance with UN Women, we aim to work together to spread the message that progress for women means progress for every society. UN Women's leadership training helps give women a stronger voice in their homes and communities and through those women, inspiration for the next generations. We like to think that if UN Women succeeds the world would be a better place for everybody because I believe that women should rule the world and should be the ones in charge. There is no place in the world where we have full women's rights, what we've been able to do is to put the women's agenda as a priority.