Women’s freedom from violence, participation in politics and economic empowerment are the Asia-Pacific’s next challenges
- The Asia-Pacific can claim some triumphs in women’s rights, like greater educational parity and lower maternal mortality.
- Still, more needs to be done to empower women, including through a regional scaling up of initiatives in individual countries
Great strides have been taken to empower women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing adopted an ambitious global agenda to achieve gender equality 25 years ago. Gender parity has been achieved in primary education. Maternal mortality has been halved.
Today, the region’s governments are committed to overcoming the persistent challenges of discrimination, gender-based violence and women’s unequal access to resources and decision-making.
The Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference for the Beijing+25 Review is meeting in Bangkok from November 27-29 to explore how more Beijing Declaration commitments can be met to improve the lives of women and girls in the region. Asia-Pacific governments have reviewed their progress and identified three priority areas where action is imperative to accelerate progress in the coming five years.
Countries in the region have adopted laws and policies to prevent and respond to violence against women. We must build on this progress.
