UN Women: It Took 236 Years to Achieve Gender Equality

ANTARA

The United Nations agency for the empowerment of women, UN Women, says it took 236 years or more to achieve gender equality.

“So, we have a very difficult task. We have to accelerate progress,” UN Women Indonesia Country Representative and ASEAN Liaison, Jamshed Kazi, said in a special interview with ANTARA on Thursday to mark International Women’s Day.

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Kazi said that in an effort to achieve gender equality, a number of strategies have been implemented, but not enough to achieve progress. Therefore, future efforts should not be done mediocre.

In Indonesia, UN Women’s efforts to realize gender equality are carried out in several ways, including by working with the government.

The next step focuses on efforts to end violence against women and children. Meanwhile, the third step is on efforts to empower women’s economy.

“And in these three steps, of course we need strong partnerships with the government, with the private sector and with civil society, media and academia,” Kazi said.

In an effort to economically empower women, UN Women, Kazi said, works with many private companies that want to hire more women. UN Women also reviews the business operations of these companies to make them more responsive to gender issues.

“So, we want to make sure and encourage them to address issues related to work safety, so that (women) workers feel safer. So that they don’t feel that there are safety issues at work,” she said.

“And in Indonesia, I’m very happy that we have more than 180 companies signed the UN Women Women Empowerment Principles. That means we have invited them to commit to ensuring they accept more women workers,” she further said.

Meanwhile, UN Women is also working with the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection (PPPA) in addressing issues of peace and security for women.

In that regard, UN Women encourages women’s leadership at the national level and also encourages efforts to combat violence against women.

“We know that this is an issue that happens in Indonesia and many countries in Asia. So, how can we make women better or we can make sure women become leaders in their local communities to fight violence against women,” Kazi said.

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