Debates & Government Statements - Search Extracts

Gender equality must become a reality. Access to education and health for women and girls has been restricted for decades. They have been victims of poverty more than others. They have also been the targets of systematic violence in armed conflicts. It is high time to make gull use of their potential in mediation and reconstruction in countries affected by conflict. In this context, Switzerland welcomes the creation of “UN Women”, which brings us closer to the fulfillment of this vision. 

Eradicating poverty and hunger, improving the quality of education, adequate employment, improving health care services and housing, improving maternal health, gender equality and environmental sustainability remain among the central concerns of UN programmes, funds and specialized agencies. 

Slovakia welcomes the establishment of UN Women – the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women. We believe that this entity will help curb all forms of violence against women. We also extend our good wishes for a successful mandate to UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on sexual violence in conflict.  

The oppressed people of Palestine have lived under the rule of an occupying regime for 60 years, been deprived of freedom, security and the right to self- determination, while the occupiers are given recognition. On a daily basis, the houses are being destroyed over the heads o f innocent women and children.

 We саn congratulate ourselves for the children who аге receiving а good education and for the parents who see them grow up without fear that they will sink in war. The youngsters, the workers and peasants with opportunities for а worthy life inspire us, as well as the women who enjoy full their exercise of equality, and the professionals, scientists and entrepreneurs who innovate and generate wealth.

Woman is a reflection of God's beauty and is the source o f love and caring. She is the guardian of purity and exquisiteness of the society. The tendency to toughen the souls and behaviors of women deprives them from their very basic right of being a loving mother and a caring wife. It would result in a more violent society with irreversible defects. 

Men and women complements each other and family unit with pure, loving and long-lasting relation of the spouses in its center is the guarantee for the continuity and the bringing up generations, for true pleasures, for spreading love and for reforming of the societies. 

We саn congratulate ourselves for the children who аге receiving а good education and for the parents who see them grow up without fear that they will sink in war. The youngsters, the workers and peasants with opportunities for а worthy life inspire us, as well as the women who enjoy full their exercise of equality, and the professionals, scientists and entrepreneurs who innovate and generate wealth. 

Human rights have never gone unchallenged – not in any of our nations, and not in our world. Tyranny is still with us – whether it manifests itself in the Taliban killing girls who try to go to school, a North Korean regime that enslaves its own people, or armed groups in Congo-Kinshasa that use rape as a weapon of war. 

America is working to shape a world that fosters this openness, for the rot of a closed or corrupt economy must never eclipse the energy and innovation of human beings. All of us want the right to educate our children; to make a decent wage; to care for the sick; and to be carried as far as our dreams and deeds will take us. But that depends upon economies that tap the power of our people, including the potential of women and girls.