“We are 300 years away from gender equality”

Global progress on women’s rights is “disappearing before our eyes”, warned the UN secretary-general. Antonio Guterres. As he pointed out the goal of achieving gender equality is getting further and further away, and it will take three more centuries to achieve it.

“Gender equality is getting further and further away. With the current situation, UN Women estimates that it is 300 years away,” said the UN secretary-general, ahead of the International Women’s Daywhich is celebrated on March 8.

“Women’s rights are violated, threatened and violated all over the world”he added citing a series of crises: maternal mortality, girls kicked out of school, women caring for other members who were prevented from working and children forced into early marriage.

“The progress we’ve made over decades is disappearing before our eyes”, Guterres said, highlighting the particularly harsh conditions in Afghanistan, where the Taliban rule. There “women and girls have been erased from public life.”

However, it did not mention other specific countries. He only pointed out that “in many places, women’s sexual and reproductive rights are being abolished [και] in some countries school-going girls are at risk of abduction and assault.”

“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology”Guterres also said, citing as an example that women represent only 3% of Nobel Prize winners in these fields.

She called for “collective action” globally by governments, civil society and the private sector to deliver gender-responsive education, improve skills training and invest more in “bridging the digital gender divide”. “The patriarchy is fighting back. But so do we,” Guterres continued. “The United Nations stands with women and girls everywhere.”