President Erdoğan's attack on academics and freedom of speech calls into question whether Turkey will ever comply with the Copenhagen Criteria which govern EU accession. But does Turkey care?
The most effective international mechanism to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment is not the cumbersome UN CSW, it’s CEDAW, and it’s time to use it to make governments accountable.
The rise of religious fundamentalism and conflict is diminishing widows to the status of a chattel. Their key role as sole supporters of families must be prioritised in negotiations for conflict prevention and resolution.
More than 30 years years after the British Government signed up to the Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination against Women the CEDAW Committee responsible for monitoring its implementation has censured the UK for its poor record, and failure to mitigate the impact of austerity measur
As the CSW enters its final week, the political agendas of different countries are reflected in the deep divisions over how to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls. Furious arguments are going on over the use of language: 'harmful practices' or 'traditional harmful practises', 'g
We are worlds apart. Separated not just by First Avenue, but by a vast gap in beliefs, philosophy, ideas and hopes. Margaret Owen, director of an NGO, reports on the battle over the text of the Agreed Conclusions at the 57th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women
Child widows, some less than ten years old, face bleak futures as they bear the triple disadvantage of gender, marital status, and being underage. Research is now revealing the hidden lives of these children, and it's time to hold governments to account under international law, argues Margaret Owe
"We acted together and we all adhere to the same values: justice, compassion, and unity, and these values are engraved in our souls. It is our unwritten constitution – the ethics inside all of us. Women died with men, and men protected us as women". Nora Rafeh Refa Tahtawy, 23 year old student pro
Margaret Owen, a member of the UK Independent Observer delegation, reports on the KCK trial in Diyarbakir before today's ruling
In an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General, the European Women's Lobby declares that "The 54th Session of the CSW...represents a step backwards by its failure to offer a new vision and mechanisms for implementation"
At this Tuesday morning’s NGO consultation we women from the NGOs, attempting to participate in the 54th CSW, finally collectively erupted, en masse
So yesterday CSW formally opened and we NGOs, thousands of us,queue, crowd, jostle to get a seat either in the gallery of Conference Room A where the delegates are or to watch on the big screen the proceedings from Conference Room B. Although we are there by 9 am nothing gets going until after 10.
