On International Women’s Day, UNA-UK’s Executive Director, Natalie Samarasinghe, discussed the challenges facing women in today’s world and provided tips to help women thrive in international public life.
The High Commission of Canada brought together leading women from different sectors for this event, including Joanna Roper, UK Special Envoy for Gender; Lyse Doucet, Chief International Correspondent, BBC; and Raquel Vazquez Lorente, Senior Legal Advisor, eyeWitness to Atrocities. UNA-UK is delighted that the High Commission of Canada will be its Embassy partners this year.
In her speech, Ms Samarasinghe highlighted the issue of gender inequality in the work place and called for women to challenge the structures and cultures that reinforce gender imbalance. View the full speech here.
This week the sixty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) takes place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The Commission sets out to promote women’s rights, document the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shape global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women. This year’s session will address the challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.
For more on UNA-UK's work on gender, take a look our latest magazine which promotes a feminist foreign policy, and examines opportunities for the UN and the UK in particular.
