INTERNATIONAL: Ban Calls on Universities to Play Role in Promoting Women's Empowerment

Women remain second-class citizens in too many countries, deprived of basic rights or legitimate opportunities, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling on universities to help in the fight to overcome discrimination and change perceptions about what women can and should do.

Speaking to the Global Colloquium of University Presidents, held at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Mr. Ban said universities can play “a significant role” in promoting gender equality and women's empowerment.

“They can provide the training in critical thinking that a functional democracy needs,” he said. “They provide a foundation for the economic and medical research that is so essential to society's well-being. And they supply graduates to the workforce.

“So it is essential that this issue of women's rights and women's representation is reflected in your curricula, your appointments, your practices and your partnerships.”

Mr. Ban said it was vital to give girls and young women the inspiration and tools so they have the opportunity to achieve, citing as an example the recent introduction of an all-female unit of Indian police officers to the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia (UNMIL).

“There was an immediate practical benefit – women felt safer and they felt more empowered to complain about the abuse they were enduring. But there was another, unanticipated consequence. Liberian women queued up to join their own police service. Because they saw it, they knew they could be it.”

Earlier this year a new UN entity known as UN Women came into being to replace four separate organizations working to advance the rights of women worldwide.

The Secretary-General said recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, where public protests for greater freedoms have led to the downfall of two governments, highlighted the need for such a body.

“In conversation after conversation in Cairo and Tunis, women told me that they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with men – standing up for change, for rights, for opportunity. They expect to take their share in making the revolution succeed, having their fair share of power, making decisions, making policy.

“I told them that women represent half the population, they hold up half the sky, and should have their fair share in making the decisions that affects their lives and their countries.”

Mr. Ban stressed that while the rights of women have come a long way in the past century, women are second-class citizens in too many countries today.

“Too many women, in too many countries, have no other role beyond marrying and producing children at a young age, then taking care of those families.

“Although the gender gap in education is closing, far too many girls are still denied schooling, leave prematurely, or complete school with few skills and fewer opportunities. Two-thirds of illiterate adults are female.

“In the area of decision-making, we see more women, in more countries, taking their rightful seat in parliament. Yet fewer than 10 per cent of countries have female heads of State or government. In just 28 countries are there more than 30 per cent of women in parliament.”

Similarly, UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet made a statement at the 5th Global Colloquium of University Presidents, University of Pennsylvania, 5 April 2011. She stated:

As for violence against women and girls, while we lack comparative data on the incidence of, we know it is widespread and persistent in all countries of the world, costing countries billions of dollars. In the US, for example, conservative estimates put it at US$5.8 billion a year in extra health and mental health care costs and lost productivity; estimated annual costs in Canada total US$1.16 billion.

But more rigorous data is needed. UN Women is working with WHO and other UN partners to develop a standard set of questions that countries can include in household surveys — so that no country can say we didn't know that the problem was so bad because we didn't have the data. We are developing a set of minimum standards and services for countries to adopt in responding to such violence, such as by setting up hotlines and shelters, ensuring police protection for those at risk and access to health care for survivors of such violence.

And finally, what about peace and security? During the first UN General Assembly in 1946, Eleanor Roosevelt insisted that women should have the opportunity to “share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in war and resistance.”

However, UN Women's research found that in 24 peace processes over the past two decades, women formed less than 8 percent of negotiating teams — with the predictable result that women's needs and concerns are almost entirely missing from peace agreements.

A study of 585 peace agreements concluded between 1990 and 2010 found that just 16 percent contained any reference to women at all. Just 3 percent of these peace accords contained a reference to sexual or gender based violence. In just six ceasefire agreements, ever, has sexual violence been identified as a ceasefire violation.

But change is happening. The UN, led by the Security Council has begun to shift from a relief response to a protective response. This means recognizing the need for customized security measures to prevent mass-atrocity crimes against women in conflict.

Progress on this agenda accelerated following the Secretary General's appointment of Margot Wallström as his Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, with whom I work closely. Currently we are working with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to train peacekeepers from major troop-contributing countries on preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence.

To help us advance this research and action agenda we are seeking to link up our research and policy unit with key research faculty in the universities in countries where we work. As dynamic and important leaders in your countries, you are not only important role models; you have the power to open doors, to make change happen for women and girls.

This is why the partnership with academia and universities is so important, and why I included this Colloquium among the priority actions in my Vision and Action Plan.

How can we work together to support women to play an equal role in setting the economic and political agenda, making sure that as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last night, “Change keeps coming from within.”

For, as one of you wrote in response to the background paper, whatever universities and the UN do together cannot be limited to educating individuals, but must consider the roles women play in their social groups and the structures of society which ascribe such roles, and which are reflected in constitutions and laws that legitimate them.

We also have to anticipate the future. We need universities to continue to support the ground-breaking research that UN Women can promote in countries worldwide. For years, for example, academics have pioneered new ways to measure women's unpaid work, including time use surveys, to ensure that women's reproductive labour is taken into account in economic modelling. It is only now that this is starting to be taken up by policymakers and there is much further to go.

I would like to put forward four proposals. Proposal 1 is to explore how interested faculty can collaborate with UN Women's senior policy advisors to contribute to the UN Women research agenda in each of our five thematic priorities. Proposal 2 is to establish a UN Women Fellows Programme, which would create a network of engaged professionals who can forge an ongoing link between the universities and the UN system. Proposal 3 is to establish a UN Women Internship Programme for master's degree students — along the lines of those in other UN agencies. And Proposal 4 is to support the Secretary-General's Global Strategy for Women and Children's Health. Proposals 1 and 4 are offered for consideration by the faculty experts during their parallel session, and proposals 2 and 3 for consideration by the university presidents' session.

Before we break into working groups, I want to say that education has made it possible for me to do what I have thought was important throughout my life. After graduating from high school, I decided I wanted to be able to treat people I saw in communities who were suffering from all sorts of preventable diseases. So I went to medical school, first at the University of Chile and later in East Germany, where I also studied German.

Later on, after practicing medicine in Chile for a number of years I decided to learn about the military — so I went on to study military strategy, both in Chile and in the US, earning a master's degree from the Chilean War Academy.

Then when my party was voted into office in Chile I was appointed first as Minister of Health and later as Minister of Defence. I am sure that both of these appointments helped people understand, when I decided to run for President, that I could also do that job.

No wonder I believe that education — quality education, available to everyone — is the most fundamental basis for advancing gender equality and women's empowerment. Armed with such an education, and the self-confidence that comes with it, there is no limit to what women can do — provided they have equal access to job and career opportunities and the determination to change the world.

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