Sustainable Development Goals 5: Gender Equality

 

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

The COVID-19 pandemic's economic effects have limited progress toward gender equality. Women and girls have been subjected to increased violence; child marriage, which has been on the decline in recent years, is anticipated to rise; and women have borne a disproportionate share of employment losses and increased domestic care responsibilities. The pandemic has brought attention to the urgent need to address chronic worldwide gender inequalities. As frontline health workers, care providers, managers and leaders of recovery efforts, women have played a critical role in the response to COVID-19. Despite this, they are underrepresented in leadership roles, and their rights and concerns are frequently ignored in response and recovery efforts.

The problems that deprive women of their human rights.

According to data collected in 95 countries in four areas of law in 2020, discriminatory laws and legal gaps continue to prevent women from fully exercising their human rights. In terms of broad legal frameworks and public life, more than half of the nations with data lacked women's quotas in national legislatures, and over a fifth had discriminatory nationality rules in place.

In the area of violence against women, 83% of nations contained financial promises to develop legislation to address the problem, while 63% lacked rape laws based on the concept of consent.

In the area of employment and economic benefits, more than 90% of countries enforced non-discrimination on the basis of gender in the workplace, but nearly half of them still prohibited women from working in certain jobs or industries. In the domain of marriage and family, over a quarter of nations failed to offer women similar rights to enter into marriage and start divorce as males, and three-quarters of countries did not set an age for marriage of 18 years for both men and women, with no exceptions.