UN Women National Committee (NC) Australia is hosting one of the largest event series around the country to celebrate International Women’s Day this week.
The events held in six capital cities around Australia across the next four days will bring together more than 8000 people to celebrate the achievements of women and reflect on the progress we have made as well as highlight the work that still needs to be done. “Still today, more than half a billion women across the world live in unacceptable conditions of poverty. One in three women experience violence in their lifetime and it is estimated that the number of child brides is now around 650 million. These statistics are unacceptable, but they are not inevitable. We can change these numbers but in order to do so we must all work together, we must all play our part, regardless of our gender, age, race, ethnicity, faith or political affiliation. It’s time to join forces to ensure equal opportunities for everyone,” says Janelle Weissman, Executive Director of UN Women National Committee (NC) Australia.
The International Women’s Day events for 2019 with the theme ‘More Powerful Together’, will kick off in Melbourne Tuesday 5 March and will open a conversation about the important role we all play to shift the dial for a gender equal world. It will take all of us, working in collaboration and across that which sometimes divides us, to create a world where women and girls everywhere have equal rights and opportunities.
“Women’s full and equal representation marks one of the world’s largest untapped resources. Countless studies show that companies, communities and societies not only benefit but prosper, from gender equality. And what we also see consistently in this data is that we’re more powerful when we work together.” said Ms Weissman.
Achieving gender equality requires all of our participation. The promise of the global Sustainable Development Goals, agreed by all UN member states in 2015, hinges on Goal 5 – to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Funds raised at the events will support UN Women programs in over 100 countries. UN Women works to ensure women are protected from violence and survivors can access support and justice, have the opportunity to access safe and fair work, are not left behind when crisis and disaster occur and are given the tools to help lift themselves out of poverty.
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