UN Review of Women’s Status Worldwide Begins Next Week

23.02.2010 New York, Feb. 23 – Diplomats and non-governmental organizations will review recent global advances toward equality between men and women when they gather here next week for a session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The March 1-12 meeting coincides with both International Women’s Day March 8 and a UN General Assembly event March 2 marking the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration of the 1995 Fourth Annual Conference on Women.

At Beijing, governments agreed to address 12 areas of concern for women, including the need for universal girls’ education, an end to violence against women and access to lifesaving reproductive health care. The CSW will review global progress toward those goals and toward the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, established by world leaders in 2000.

It will also hear presentations on 30 years of the Treaty for the Rights of Women, formally known as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); women’s economic empowerment in the context of the world financial crisis; women’s access to full employment; access and participation of women and girls in education, training, science and technology; ending violence against women and girls; and the role of national mechanisms for gender equality.

The Commission on the Status of Women was established by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in June 1946 with the aim of promoting women’s rights in political, civil, economic, social and educational fields. The commission also makes recommendations to ECOSOC on urgent problems regarding women’s rights.

For more information: CSW 54th Session