NEW YORK, MARCH 13 – With the war in Ukraine and other global and regional crises that make life even more difficult for women and girls worldwide on the background, the 66th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) kicks off tomorrow at UN headquarters, the largest mobilization of the United Nation system since the General Assembly in September. This year’s meetings, scheduled until 25 March, will address the efforts to be made to “achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes”. The Italian delegation, which also includes Parliament members and representatives of civil society, will be led by the Minister for Equal Opportunities and Family, Elena Bonetti.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will open the plenary session, while Bonetti will address policies related to the central theme of the meeting in an address scheduled on opening day. The national speech is set for Wednesday 16. Among the side events organized or attended by the Italian delegation, one will focus on the transformative role of STEM disciplines in policies against climate change, another one the efforts to fight violence against women, another still the empowerment of women through cooperatives. Because of the Covid pandemic all side events will be in virtual form. Italy has also organized a photo exhibition of Mohamed Keita – who fled at the age of 14 without his parents from Ivory Coast at war – on women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa.
Women are increasingly being recognized as more vulnerable to climate change impacts than men, as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent on the natural resources, which climate change threatens the most. However, despite increasing evidence, there is still hesitancy in making the vital connections between gender, social equity and climate change.
Climate change also drives increased vulnerability to gender-based violence. Across the world, women bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water and fuel, tasks that climate change makes more time-consuming and difficult. Scarcity of resources and the necessity of traveling further to obtain them may open women up to more violence including increased risk factors linked to human trafficking, child marriage or access to resources to protect them from gender-based violence. (@OnuItalia)
