Interview: Progress on global gender equality slow: UN Women's deputy chief

The United Nations aims to achieve gender equality by 2030, but at the current rate of progress, it could take more than 100 years, UN Women's deputy executive director Yannick Glemarec told Xinhua here Tuesday.

"Based on the existing patterns we will certainly have to wait sometimes towards the middle of the 22nd if not the 23rd century before we achieve true gender equality," said Glemarec in an interview on International Women's Day, which is observed annually on March 8.

The United Nations urges member states to make commitments to achieving gender equality by 2030 through a campaign called "Step It Up" which works alongside the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, a blueprint adopted in September 2015 for the global development efforts for the next 15 years.

The campaign was launched at a Global Leaders' Meeting on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment held here in September last year and co-chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Glemarec.

"Step It Up" calls on UN member states to make commitments to gender equality, like increasing the number of women in leadership positions, removing gender discriminatory laws and improving access to sexual, reproductive, maternal and neonatal health services.

It aims to target laws such as those that discriminate against women's access to the labor market which Glemarec said still exist in many countries.

In the area of domestic violence, Glemarec said that laws can help eradicate a problem that effects one in three women in her lifetime.

"The first step is to say no (domestic violence) is not a family affair it is a crime," said Glemarec.

China's new domestic violence law came into effect on March 1. Among other things, the law recognizes that domestic violence includes psychological as well as physical abuse.

Less than two decades ago, physical abuse was not even acceptable as grounds for divorce in China. In 2001, the Marriage Law was amended to explicitly ban domestic violence.

There are 125 countries that have a law against (domestic) violence "but they vary greatly," says Glemarec. "One of the main points is whether or not you are only defining it as physical abuses or whether you define it as psychological abuses or any other kind of other coercion."

Glemarec said that other forms of abuse should also be considered, including cyber bullying which is affecting many teenagers.

He said that it was also important to challenge the taboos which make talking about domestic violence shameful.

"One of the best preventions in terms of (domestic) violence is to speak about it -- to basically to break this taboo of something shameful that you have to deal with in the family circles -- and to have an open discussion on what are the causes and what are the consequences," he said.

However, Glemarec said that it is also important not to just think of women as a vulnerable group or as victims.

"It's also important to take women as agents of change, women as solutions, and when you make the right type of investment there, you definitely discover that with 100 percent of your population basically working together, you can achieve much more than with 50 percent oppressing the other 50 percent," he said.

To this end, Glemarec also highlighted the slow progress being made increasing women's participation in leadership positions.

Only 22 percent of parliamentarians globally are women, he said, as of August 2015. "At this speed, it will take about 50 years before we reach parity for female parliamentarians," said Glemarec.

For female heads of state, progress is even slower, he said, adding that there are currently only 18 female heads of state, which is around 9 percent.

At this speed, the international community is one to two centuries away from full parity, said Glemarec.

In March 2015, Glemarec, a French national, was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as the deputy head of the UN Women, at the assistant secretary-general level.

Before his appointment, he has held responsible positions notably as assistant resident representative for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Country Office in Vietnam and deputy resident representative for UNDP in China and Bangladesh. Enditem