HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

ROME/GENEVA, Mar. 8 2017 (IPS)  “The women’s movement has brought about tremendous change but we must also recognise that progress has been slow and extremely uneven and that it also brought its own challenges,” warned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.

Women and girls in the garment industry are often subject to forced overtime and low wages, and on domestic workers because of the unprotected nature of their work. Photo: ILO/A. Khemka

Marking the International Women’s Day on March 8, Zeid said that in too many countries, we are now seeing a backlash against women’s rights, a backlash that hurts us all. “We need to be alert – the advances of the last few decades are fragile and should nowhere be taken for granted.“

Human Wrongs Watch

ROME, Mar 7 2017 (IPS) – Basic rights always need champions, and that’s truer today than it ought to be as around the world we see an unwelcome pattern of reaction to modern complexities ranging from globalization and automation to austerity and dwindling wages.

Farhana Haque Rahman

One alarming example is how the agenda of promoting women’s rights, so far from completion, is being pushed back rather than forward.

IPS has long strived for gender equality and reported from every corner of the world on women’s conditions and their desire for equality on multiple fronts.

Expected progress risks reversal, at times due to implicit bias in access to emerging technologies and at times due to outright political reaction.