"Nowhere do women hold half the power; half the influence; half the opportunities" - High Commissioner Bachelet

Annual meeting of the International Gender Champions
Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet

13 November 2018

Ambassador McCarney,
Director-General Møller,
Ms Kraft-Buchman,
Excellencies,
Colleagues, Friends, 

I am honoured to speak to this annual meeting of the International Gender Champions. And I am proud to join this group of remarkable and committed individuals, and continue the strong support of my Office for this initiative.  

Within our various organizations, the Gender Champions have contributed to a considerable shift in mindset. 

In a recent survey by the IGC (International Gender Champions) Annual Report of 2017, 85% of respondents were confident their commitments brought about change, which, in 70% of cases, they felt was transformational. More than 80% of respondents said that since joining this network, senior leaders have become more responsive to gender issues, and 93% felt gender equality had become integral to achieving the strategic objectives and programmatic goals of our organisations. 

This is truly impressive, and I commend all the International Gender Champions for their leadership of efforts to advance the equality of women. 

Because promoting gender equality is a struggle for justice that extends across every field of human endeavour.
Women's equality is not just about achieving more diverse workforces – though it is that. 

It is not only about constructing businesses and institutions that are better run, and societies that are more sustainably developed – although it is about those things too. 

It is certainly true that women's equality is the smarter, more effective way to get things done – women are half the people on earth, and clearly, processes that rest on the full contributions of every member of society make for better solutions.
But gender equality is more than that. It is a human rights struggle as broad and deep as any of the historic challenges humanity has faced. A challenge that faces every country – rich and poor, north and south – and which goes to the heart of cultural and social mindsets. 

In this 70th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the human rights community has been evaluating the remarkable progress that has been made in these seven decades, across the world and across an enormous range of human rights issues. 

On gender equality, there have been advances. 

In every continent, women have been elected to lead Governments. In many professions, once closed to them, women now hold leading positions. These are not small achievements: they are expressions of a sea change in the stereotypes, which have hampered women’s prospects, and provide role models for a whole cascade of social change.  

Similarly, many topics which were once sidelined as so-called “private” or “marginal” issues – such as domestic violence, sexual violence in conflict, sexual harassment in the workplace and even maternity and paternity leave – have seen their public priority rise dramatically.

But nowhere do women hold half the power; half the influence; half the opportunities. 

In many countries, women do not effectively enjoy the same rights as men—the right to education, to work, to marry whom they want, to divorce, to run businesses and open bank accounts, to access institutions of justice. Very frequently, women’s and girls’ interests do not receive the same budgetary resources and policy priorities.

Girls are still held back by harmful social norms that broaden opportunities for boys at exactly the same time they constrict opportunities for girls. Every month, one million girls under the age of 18 become child brides. Every month, more than 1.3 million girls aged between 15 and 19 give birth. And every month, more than 4000 girls – who should be surging into the autonomy of adulthood – die, aged between 15 and 19, from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. 

In this context, initiatives like the International Gender Champions can be vital to advancing positive change. 

We need to be clear about our own internal efforts within our organisations so that we can in turn look outwards, to help our societies transform. 

We need to work together as a flexible -- but unstoppable – force that is stronger than hate, more powerful than any backlash and any form of discrimination. 

We need clarity within, so we can lead by example, and with integrity, in advocating broader improvements across societies and cultures.

My dear fellow participants,

I am deeply committed to achieving gender equality. Whatever my professional context – from medicine to national politics to multilateral institutions – my commitment to equal rights and dignity has always been at the forefront. 

I am proud to be taking the gender parity pledge.

I also pledge implementation of a new program that will strongly reinforce the integration of gender into the substantive work of our OHCHR field presences. Work with people deprived of their liberty needs to explore the issues that are important to women detainees, as well as men. Work on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly needs to consider issues encountered by women protestors – including, if relevant, why women do not feel free to protest. Human rights monitoring in conflict situations needs to grasp the social and economic impact of violations on women, including on their health and welfare. And it is critically important that all human rights responses to humanitarian crises integrate the prevention of maternal mortality. 

I want to be certain that all our 71 field presences are fully integrating women’s perspectives into their human rights monitoring, analysis, cooperation and advocacy.

Excellencies, I am certain that all of us here can act, collectively and individually, as a force for change.

And it is time. Seventy years after a declaration that proclaims, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, it is well past time for us to realise that promise.

Thank you