To the chagrin of many, the UN’s next leader will be not a woman. However, he—Antonio Guterres, former Portuguese prime minister and head of the UN refugee committee—did campaign on a promise of gender parity.
Politics
Cultural Heritage and Women’s Rights
Karima Bennoune explains why cultural rights are women’s rights. Bennoune has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize (2014) for her recent book, “Your Fatwa …
In Search of More Gender Equality at the UN
Numerous profiles of outstanding women have been compiled on the Woman Secretary General website. Yet, it is a man, António Guterres, who was elected by acclamation to be the new Secretary General.
Young Afghan Activist Refuses to Give Up on Her Country
Activist Noorjahan Akbar’s stubborn optimism about the future of her native Afghanistan offers a compelling counternarrative to the bleak picture painted by Western media.
#WorldRefugeeDay at the UN: The Faces of “Refugees”
On June 20, people around the world took note of #WorldRefugeeDay. But for the 60 million people who became refugees this past year, many whom are now languishing in camps in Greece, Turkey, and elsewhere, a day and a hashtag are just points in a line without end.
Rejected by the World: A Refugee’s Journey
The war that has so far claimed over a quarter million Syrian lives, including those of 30,000 children, has also displaced Thair and his entire family, disrupted his studies, and left the recent university graduate feeling squeezed out of the successful future he had long imagined and worked hard to achieve.
Performance Art Project #OrangeVest Sends SOS for Refugees
For a moment last summer the photograph of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the shores of Izmir, roused near-universal empathy for people seeking refuge in Europe from violent conflict at home. Of the more than 1 million refugees, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan, who arrived in Europe since the beginning of 2015, over 85 percent entered Europe through Greece.
Sustainable Buzz: The U.N.’s #GlobalGoals
Maybe if the U.N. blueprint for peace and prosperity by 2030 were sexier, people around the world would take notice and support it. So goes the thinking behind #GlobalGoals, an infotainment campaign…
Spoils of War: The International Response to ISIS’ Sexual Violence
The increased vulnerability of women and children to rape is a horrific consequence of war that dates back to antiquity, when women were considered property and therefore spoils of war. Despite the…
The Politics of Compromise
UN Security Council resolution 1325 recognizes that women are vital contributors to conflict resolution and prevention and urges their greater participation “in all United Nations peace and security efforts.” Since it passed in 2000, women’s presence on the Security Council has increased markedly. Yet the body tasked with maintaining international peace and security remains overwhelmingly male-dominated.