UN experts warn of regressive signs for gender equality

A United Nations experts group on discrimination against women Friday warned that progress and achievements made over the last hundred years in the fight for women's equality are under constant threat.

"We are seeing regressive signs, often in the name of culture, religion, and traditions," the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice said in a statement issued here on Friday.

"We have seen attempts to restrict women's place in the domestic sphere," the statement said, "attention and focus on family value and on protection of the family is important, but it is neither an equivalent nor a replacement of women's equal rights and autonomy."

According to the experts, protection of family must include protecting the human rights of individual members of the family, especially the right to equality between women and men as well as between girls and boys.

The experts noted in the statement that "discrimination against women persists in both public and private spheres, in times of conflict as in times of peace, and in all regions of the world."

According to the statement, today only 20 percent of parliamentarians and 17 percent of heads of States or Governments are women, and women continue to be paid less for work of equal value and are severely underrepresented in top leadership in decision-making bodies in business, finance and trade, including in international institutions as well as in cooperatives and trade unions.

"We continue to witness appalling forms of violence, in the name of perceived honor, beauty, purity, religion and tradition," it said. Endit