Namirembe: We Hope New U.N. Body For Women Focuses on Great Lakes Region
Before yesterday, the U.N. suffered from some serious duplication problems as four separate agencies and offices tried to tackle international gender issues. But on Friday, the General Assembly voted to create a single U.N. body that would focus solely on women’s empowerment and gender equality. The new office will merge agencies/offices like the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues.
Although dubbed U.N. Women for short, it’s full name is onerous: the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. As the New York Times noted, its unfortunate acroynm will be UNEGEEW. Really, folks? Well, U.N. Women is not too bad, though it does sound slightly more like a networking lunch group than a serious organization.
According to the U.N. News Center, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro says the new body “will give women and girls the strong, unified voice they deserve on the world stage.”
U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon said in a statement that the new body formed because “equality for women and girls is not only a basic human right, it is a social and economic imperative. Where women are educated and empowered, economies are more productive and strong.” Moon says gender equality is one of his top priorities, and that he has shown this in his efforts to reduce maternal mortality rates and appoint more women to senior positions.
Portrait of a woman in Bukavu.
The new agency will have its work cut out for it. We hope it will focus its efforts on Africa’s Great Lakes region, particularly countries like the DR Congo. The UN’s special representative Margot Wallstrom has called the Congo the “rape capital of the world,” according to reporting by the AFP.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has historically described the massive amount of rape and sexual violence against Congolese women from actors that range from Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army to the FDLR and other armed combatant groups as “the war within the war.”
And in northern Uganda, despite the region’s efforts to rebuild after decades of civil war between the LRA and the Ugandan government, sexual violence is still commonplace, putting many women’s lives and communities in danger.
Namirembe: Eyes on Women in Great Lakes Region is a featured blogger of AfricaConnections. Check out the blog here to keep reading!
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