Head of UN Women: No country has reached gender equality
The head of the UN agency promoting equality for women is lamenting that a girl born today will be an 81-year-old grandmother before she has the same chance as a man to be CEO of a company - and she will have to wait until she's 50-years-old to have an equal chance to lead a country.
Twenty years after 189 countries adopted a blueprint to achieve equality for women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said in an interview with The Associated Press that not a single country has reached gender parity and equality.
The executive director of UN Women spoke ahead of International Women's Day on Friday and next week's meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women. The commission will review the 150-page platform for action to achieve equality that was adopted at the groundbreaking UN women's conference in Beijing in 1995. Then-US first lady Hillary Clinton inspired delegates and women worldwide when she declared in a keynote speech: "Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights."
