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Gender Equality Still ‘300 Years Away,’ UN Chief Warns

Published

3 years ago

March 7, 2023

Global progress on women’s rights is “vanishing before our eyes,” UN boss Antonio Guterres warned Monday, saying the increasingly distant goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve.

“Gender equality is growing more distant. On the current track, UN Women puts it 300 years away,” the United Nations secretary-general said in a General Assembly speech ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, as he launched two weeks of discussions led by the Commission on the Status of Women.

“Women’s rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the world,” he added, as he ticked off a litany of crises: maternal mortality, girls ousted from school, caregivers denied work and children forced into early marriage.

“Progress won over decades is vanishing before our eyes,” Guterres said.

He highlighted the particularly dire conditions in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where “women and girls have been erased from public life.”

He did not name other specific countries, but Guterres stressed that “in many places, women’s sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled back (and) in some countries, girls going to school risk kidnapping and assault.”

Also left unmentioned was Iran, which was expelled late last year from the Commission on the Status of Women due to the country’s repression of a female-led revolt since last September.

The Islamic Republic was ousted from the commission on December 14 by a US-led vote of the UN Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC.

“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology,” Guterres said, citing as an example how women represent only three percent of Nobel prize winners in the sectors.

He called for “collective action” worldwide by governments, civil society and the private sector to provide gender-responsive education, improve skills training and invest more in “bridging the digital gender divide.”

“The patriarchy is fighting back. But so are we,” Guterres added.

“The United Nations stands with women and girls everywhere.”

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Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Published

1 day ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Israel said that the last 20 living hostages released by Hamas on Monday had arrived in the country.

“Welcome home,” the foreign ministry wrote in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kuperstein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or and Matan Zangauker.

AFP

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20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Published

1 day ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Twenty members of a gang designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States have escaped from detention in Guatemala, a prison chief said Sunday.

The members of the Barrio 18 gang “evaded security controls” at the Fraijanes II facility, prison director Ludin Godinez said at a news conference.

He received “an intelligence report” on Friday warning about the “possible escape” from the prison, which is southeast of the capital, Guatemala City.

Godinez said they were investigating possible acts of corruption.

Washington last month blacklisted Barrio 18, an El Salvador-based gang which has a reputation for violence and extortion, as part of its crackdown on drug trafficking.

The US embassy in Guatemala condemned the prison escape as “utterly unacceptable.”

“The United States designated members of this heinous group as the terrorists they are and will hold accountable anyone who has provided, provides, or decides to provide material support to these fugitives or other gang members,” the embassy said on X.

It called on the Guatemalan government to “act immediately and vigorously to recapture these terrorists.”

According to Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, there are about 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, while another 3,000 are in prison.

The country’s homicide rate has increased from 16.1 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024 to 17.65 this year, more than double the world average, according to the Centre for National Economic Research.

According to the Salvadoran government, the gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, are responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 people over three decades.

The two gangs once controlled an estimated 80 percent of El Salvador, which had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

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South Africa Bus Crash Kills 40 Including Malawi, Zimbabwe Nationals

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1 day ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

At least 40 people, including nationals of Malawi and Zimbabwe, were killed when a passenger bus rolled down an embankment in South Africa, a provincial transport minister said Monday.

The bus travelling to Zimbabwe crashed around 90 kilometres (55 miles) from the border on Sunday after the driver apparently lost control, Limpopo province transport minister Violet Mathye said.

“They are still working on the scene, but 40 bodies have already been confirmed to date,” Mathye told the Newzroom Afrika channel. The dead included a 10-month-old girl, she said.

Thirty-eight people were in hospital and rescuers were searching for other victims, she told eNCA media.

The bus was travelling from the southern city of Gqeberha, around 1,500 kilometres away, and its passengers included Malawians and Zimbabweans who were working in South Africa. The crash may have been caused by driver fatigue or a mechanical fault, the minister said.

South Africa has a sophisticated and busy road network with a high rate of road deaths, blamed mostly on speeding, reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles.

AFP