Women's rights advocates warn UN to confront backlash against progress

"International Women's Day is a powerful moment, and this year, more than ever, the call of gender equality has never been more urgent, nor the obstacles in our way more apparent, but our determination has never been more unshakable," said Sima Bahous, executive director of U.N. Women.

Bahous called on women everywhere to confront the backlash, emphasizing that their movement is powerful and growing.

"Equality is not to be feared, but instead to be embraced," she said. "Because an equal world is a better world."

Women in all parts of the world are facing challenges to their reproductive rights, personal safety, education, equal pay and political participation.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of a women's conference in Beijing that recognized women's rights as human rights, producing an action platform that has helped drive policy and progress.

The United Nations says more girls are in school and more women hold positions of power today than before, but they still face violence, discrimination and financial inequality.

"We cannot stand by as progress is reversed," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the gathering. "We must fight back."

At the current pace, he said, eradicating extreme poverty for women and girls will take 130 years.

"The fight for gender equality is not just about fairness," Guterres emphasized. "It is about power — who gets a seat at the table and who is locked out."

U.N. goodwill ambassador for Africa Jaha Dukureh endured female genital mutilation (FGM) as an infant. At age 15, she was forced into marriage with a much older man in her homeland, Gambia. Her organization, Safe Hands for Girls, works to end the practice of FGM and address the physical and psychological toll on its victims.

Dukureh told the gathering that governments have a duty to invest in social protection and education for women and girls.

"For all women and girls, economic independence is the foundation of freedom," she said. "A woman who can provide for herself can make choices. A girl who has an education can build her own future."

Commission on the Status of Women

On Monday, hundreds of women's advocates and activists will descend upon U.N. headquarters to hold their annual meeting known as the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The 10-day gathering is dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the rights and empowerment of women.

Sarah Hendriks, director of policy for U.N. Women, told reporters on Thursday that anti-women's rights actors are increasingly well-funded and coordinated.

"Where they cannot roll back legal or policy gains altogether, they seek to either block or slow down their implementation," she said.

Thirty years after Beijing, Hendriks said, progress is still too slow, too fragile, too uneven and not guaranteed. She said U.N. Women is proposing an action agenda to accelerate progress on the sustainable development goals, of which goal number five focuses on achieving gender equality.

"It is our ambition that 2025 will be remembered as a pivotal year," she said. "That it will be remembered as a year that history looks back and says, 'This was the year that we refused to back down, that we held ground, that we refused to step back, that we indeed actually stood our ground.'"

CSW is expected to approve a political declaration by consensus on the first day.

Negotiations on the document have been going on for about two weeks. But how strong it will be and what will be missing from it — for instance, reproductive rights — remains to be seen.