Europa Newswire

Photos by Luiz Rampelotto

United Nations – February 02 2012

The head of the United Nations entity mandated to promote gender equality today said that her priority this year is to enhance the economic empowerment and political participation of women and called for the support of the international community, as well as concerted effort by the entire UN system to ensure success.

Michelle Bachelet, the Executive Director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), told reporters during a news conference in New York to mark the agency’s first anniversary that it has “come a long way in a short period of time.”

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director, UN Women:
“We have come a long way in a short period of time, and I am really proud of what we have accomplished until now. If I want to put it in a context, two major events dominated the global debate in 2011. The first was the democracy movement in the Arab states and also the continued financial and economic crises. Women have been involved in and affected by both, and UN Women rendered important support. ”

Outlining the successes of UN Women over the past year, Bachelet said she was focused on building a strong organization with clear goals and strategies and noted that the agency had so far established a presence in 75 countries.

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director, UN Women:
“Of course we need to continue doing much more in terms of preventing violence against women and rapes, massive rapes. But also one of the ways of preventing is that there’s no impunity. Because the message is clear, because in the past, in many countries, rapes in the middle of a conflict was considered sort of part of the conflict, you know, or as a male issue, a boy’s game or something. So, you know, people that are, even officers, they go to jail because they have done this, you are sending a clear message that it is not acceptable.”

Source: UNifeed