Égalité des sexes

Celebrating the rights of women and girls around the world

© UNICEF/HQ03-0371/Vitale

At the Women's Education Centre in Gaya, India, the audience laughs during a show about promoting women's and girls' rights.

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NEW YORK, 28 February – 11 March 2005 - This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, originally held in Beijing in 1995. At its inception, 189 countries pledged to make improvements for women's equality. Ten years later, world leaders are gathering again, this time in New York, to review the progress which has been made.

Nearly fifty years ago the United Nations created the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to monitor the status of women’s rights and gender equality worldwide. The Beijing +10 Conference now under way marks  the forty-ninth session of the CSW.

UNICEF is taking this opportunity to steer the world’s attention towards systematic rape and sexual violence against women and girls during armed conflict. UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah addressed the conference, and called upon the world to do more to protect the rights and equality of women and girls.

On 8 March, International Women’s Day will be celebrated by the delegates who are attending the conference. In the decade since Beijing, the signs of progress are many, but there is still much work to be done to ensure that women’s human rights are recognized and protected.