High Level Leaders’ Roundtable 7: Women and Girls - Catalysing Action to Achieve Gender Equality
Istanbul Congress Centre, Turkey, 24th May 2016
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Gender equality is fundamental for every aspect of sustainable development, it gives us our best prospects for eliminating global hunger, reducing and recovering from conflict, and must be central to all humanitarian action. The opportunity of the World Humanitarian Summit must be seized upon to galvanise action and achieve the transformative change.
That will not evolve as we are. It requires conscious agitation and politically won change. We must unequivocally recognise that gender equality is a right and not a gift. We must place the dignity and participation of women and girls as rights, values in consciousness and at the heart of all of our actions globally. We can ensure this by delivering these principles into policy by ensuring that the commitments made here today constitute much more than compassionate words on a page.
Gender inequality is not a new challenge. Despite some progress since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, it remains the most persistent and prevalent form of human rights violation in today’s world.
Last September, global leaders decisively re-affirmed their commitment to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, by enshrining gender equality into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Indeed it simply should not be necessary to state at the World Humanitarian Summit to make statements that we need renewed global agreement; that the human rights of women and girls must be a central goal of our humanitarian efforts, and must inform every stage in our planning and action in development, conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction. Yet the inadequate allocation of a derisory level of funding for its achievement makes it necessary.
A healthy society is, by definition, unachievable if it is based on the marginalisation of women and girls. We cannot achieve the
Secretary General’s ambitious Agenda for Humanity, if we are not successful in addressing and eliminating, disempowerment, inequality, and gender based violence.
We must start our discussions by recognising that we are not doing enough. That we cannot achieve our aims from continuing as we are. Matters in their worst aspect are in fact worsening. At this moment, rape continues to be persistently used and has increased as a weapon of war; shameful rates of maternal and infant malnutrition persist in many countries; in others, women have no rights or means to control their own fertility. The position of women in transit and their acute vulnerability to exploitation and violence, as well as the vulnerability of their children to denial of basic rights to health and education – in Europe and elsewhere – is a cause for the greatest concern.
We must recognise, too, the deep, structural problems that underpin gender inequality. We must address the assumptions that have left women insecure and powerless on issues of land ownership and control, access to credit, and access to safe water and fuel, which are associated with women’s vulnerability to violence in so many countries. We must recognise that distorted versions of culture are still used to justify the most egregious violations of women’s rights in many regions.
It is in this context of acute and profound need that we have to face the uncomfortable fact that last year just 0.5 of one per cent of humanitarian funding was spent on addressing gender-based violence.
Just 1 per cent of all funding to fragile states in 2015 went to women’s groups or government ministries of women.
Only 43 per cent of women in emergencies have access to reproductive health services, despite the fact that 60 per cent of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth are found in crisis zones. This is simply not good enough. We all, governments, their peoples, and representative institutions, must do so much more.
In Ireland’s term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, from 2013, Ireland has tried to highlight the right of all girls to quality education, emphasised the central priority of promoting women’s participation in decision-making at all levels, and stressed the importance of eradicating harmful practices, especially female genital mutilation.
We all have much to do. Every nation has steps to take in achieving gender equality. It is in this spirit that Ireland fully endorses all five proposed core commitments for this roundtable. In addition, Ireland specifically commits to promote the empowered participation of women, in particular in situations of fragility and protracted crises.
We will ensure that the promotion of universal access to reproductive healthcare is included in our humanitarian action. Ireland will foster systematic learning and capacity through continued active engagement in the Irish Consortium on Gender Based Violence and the Call to Action on Gender Based Violence.
In all aspects of our aid programme, we will apply internationally recognised standards, so that gender equality, women’s empowerment, and sexual and gender based violence are fully addressed. We will fully implement our National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security.
I was honoured, last year, as President of Ireland, to accept the invitation to be a champion of UN Women’s He-for-She campaign.
In that context I wish to convey a simple but essential message: men must demonstrate leadership to achieve universal gender equality.
In the Irish language, we say, ‘ní neart go cur le chéile’ – our strength lies in unity, our social solidarity. If we cannot address exclusion or disadvantage together, men and women in partnership, we will perpetuate social weakness rather than achieve social cohesion.
I urge the leaders around this table, to champion the ambition of equality to benefit all of society. We must strengthen the momentum for change in our diplomatic practice and in our action. We have been offered a vision of how we can achieve equality, in policy, in relation to funding, and in our practice. If we do not seize this opportunity to realise that vision, our commitments here will amount to empty rhetoric, and, dare I say it, an exercise in bad faith.
Thank you.
