Giving Compass' Take:
- The International Rescue Committee released a report highlighting gaps in gender equality for women and girls facing conflict, despite progress for women worldwide.
- How can donors play a role in supporting these women and girls specifically? How does displacement contribute to widening gaps in gender equality?
- Learn more about empowering displaced refugee women and girls.
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Girls and women who are refugees, displaced, or have been impacted by conflict are falling behind despite progress towards achieving gender equality worldwide, according to a new report.
The humanitarian aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) released an analysis on Thursday that outlines how these women have not benefited from global progress towards achieving gender equality since 1995.
That year, thousands of activists convened in Beijing for the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and set the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action to advance women’s rights. Over two decades later, not a single country is on track to reach the goals set to ensure girls and women can be free from violence, can receive an education, participate in decision-making processes, and earn equal pay.
Since the Beijing Platform for Action, the number of people who are displaced has increased by 44%, according to the IRC. As the number of refugees continues to increase, and the COVID-19 pandemic stalls progress on gender equality, many women and girls who are refugees, displaced, or who have been impacted by conflict have experienced declines in quality of life. The IRC’s analysis identified a decline in gender parity across several basic needs, including education, health care, and employment.
“The prevailing narrative is that we have made tremendous strides over a relatively short period of time in accelerating progress for women and girls — which is true in some cases,” Kristin Kim Bart, IRC’s senior director for gender equality, said in a press release issued to Global Citizen.
But Bart pointed out that not all women and girls have benefited from gender equality gains.
“Any time that we talk about or commit to ‘progress for gender equality,’ we need to be explicit about how we are going to include women and girls — in all their diversity — in conflict settings through policy and funding,” she said. “Otherwise, they will continue to be left behind.”
Read the full article about women and girls gender equality by Leah Rodriguez at Global Citizen.