Second Secretary at the Kazakh Mission to UN Askar Zhumabayev emphasized that Kazakhstan, at the national level, was strongly committed to the further advancement of women and gender equality, particularly through implementing its National Law on State Guarantees of Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities and its Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence.
"Recognizing that the key factor in women's economic empowerment was decent work, the Government had worked to lower the unemployment rate among women to 6.4 per cent," Zhumabayev said at the 9th and 10th meetings of the Third Committee of the 66th General Assembly this week.
"Currently, wages were rising and the State was working to provide allowances for women who lost or gave up their jobs due to pregnancy or childbirth," he said. "In other areas, the role of women in decision-making was steadily increasing and over 58 per cent of the civil service positions were now held by women. Even more women were represented in the business world."
Meanwhile, he said, a multi-pronged strategy had been adopted to educate women about their legal rights and to provide greater access to exercising those rights.
Zhumabayev emphasized the critical role of the United Nations in ensuring that women had access to decision-making, in mainstreaming gender-sensitive approaches in programs and polices, and in protecting women from violence.
Expressing appreciation for the inclusion of gender issues in preparations for high-level intergovernmental processes and meetings, he urged that thematic discussions be held to consider the needs of specific groups of women.
He also called for the active involvement of UN-Women in forthcoming United Nations events, in order to enrich the gender component of their outcomes. He also underlined the need for gender analysis and the provision of gender- and age-aggregated data to be further developed.
