Message from Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Second Summit “Women Network for a Better World”

Madrid, 8 March 2007


Your Majesty,
First-Vice-President Fernández de la Vega,
President Johnson Sirleaf,
Ladies and Gentlemen,


I am indeed honoured to address the Second Summit of Women for a Better World. The diversity of its participants attests both to the success of this event and to the relevance of International Women’s Day to people around the world.

The United Nations has devoted this 8th of March to combating impunity for violence against women. Such violence is a daily occurrence that threatens the lives and welfare of millions in every country.

Discrimination and disempowerment, the breading grounds for violence, have no geographic boundaries, but represent invidious practices that persist in times of war and peace. It is only in their intensity and the ways in which such scourges manifest themselves that differences can be identified.

For each woman there is, however, a common starting point that leads to empowerment: the full and equal enjoyment of all rights, political and civil, as well as economic, social and cultural rights.

Conversely, inequality in the enjoyment of all human rights perpetuates oppression, breads violence, entrenches impunity, and exclusion.

As this Summit demonstrates, women can respond to these enormous challenges by forging bonds across continents and cultures, by making their voices and rights resonate and prevail across artificial divides.

I wish you a very productive exchange and a happy 8th of March.

Thank you.